
We Have Four Years to Save Ourselves from Climate Change, Harvard Scientist Says - jefflombardjr
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2018/01/15/carbon-pollution-has-shoved-the-climate-backward-at-least-12-million-years-harvard-scientist-says/
======
mcv
The title is very misleading. There is no hard deadline to save ourselves from
climate change, or if there is, we already passed it. We're currently at the
point were every year we continue doing nothing, means it takes multiple years
(decades? centuries?) to recover from the accumulated effects.

Permanent ice is already melting, climate is already changing. Even if we
completely stop emitting CO2 right now (which we can't), there would still be
too much CO2 in the atmosphere for some time, leading to further heating and
longer melting. Even if we were to remove all excess CO2 from the atmosphere
right now (which we obviously can't), Earth would still be too warm and
icecaps would continue to melt while global temperatures would slowly revert
to normal.

We're doing none of those things; we're still arguing over whether we should
do anything at all. Our inaction over the past couple of decades on this issue
is going to have repercussions for the next centuries.

The issue right now is: how bad do we want things to get? We can't stop it
anymore, but we may be able to mitigate it. I really really hope we can
prevent the Eastern Antarctic icecap from melting, because that would truly be
a disaster. When that melts, most major population centers will have to be
evacuated.

~~~
challenger22
>Even if we completely stop emitting CO2 right now (which we can't), there
would still be too much CO2 in the atmosphere for some time, leading to
further heating and longer melting

Do you have any data on this? If you look at how quickly things cool off at
night, Earth's biosphere reaches steady-state thermal equilibrium over the
course of a few days. Your claim is essentially that we've already set off an
albedo forcing function that we can't stop, and which is also stronger than
existing negative feedback loops. Seems unlikely to me.

~~~
dagss
So warming is _global_ and when there is night at one place, then that is
because there is daytime somewhere else.

Yes, if you can just shut off the sun for some time, we can definitely easily
overcome global warming... ...

~~~
challenger22
You didn't make an effort to charitably interpret my question. My question is
essentially about whether transient response to changes in albedo occur
primarily over the course of days or primarily over the course of years.

Albedo is important, being snide is not.

~~~
mcv
The impact of albedo on this process can go either way. On the one hand,
melting ice caps and higher temperatures can mean less ground covered in ice
and snow, therefore lower albedo and temperature will rise even faster.

But warmer seas can also mean more evaporation, more precipitation and
therefore more snow, higher albedo and a brake on rising temperatures,
possibly even a new ice age. (It gets mentioned sometimes; an ice age is
ironically a potential result of global warming.)

But it seems to me that effect will mostly be limited to higher latitudes.
There's not a lot of snow around the equator, which receives the most
sunlight.

But if we could somehow increase the Earth's albedo on a large scale, then
that would absolutely have an impact.

------
makerofspoons
The loss of sea ice is stoking US heat waves:
[https://phys.org/news/2019-06-loss-arctic-sea-ice-
stokes.htm...](https://phys.org/news/2019-06-loss-arctic-sea-ice-stokes.html)

Intense heat is also predicted for Europe this summer:
[https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-
news/accuweather-2019...](https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-
news/accuweather-2019-europe-summer-forecast/70008315)

James Anderson, the scientist from the article, also has linked ozone
depletion with climate change: [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-
nature/the-ozone-prob...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-
ozone-problem-is-back-and-worse-than-ever-136717745/)

~~~
snarf21
I think his four years is too fast but I also don't think we can totally
destroy the planet (aside from nuclear destruction). We know too much and have
too much technology. Some (small?) fragment of civilization will survive while
the earth recovers. For example, methane has a half life of seven years so it
will take some time.

The more immediate threat seems to be around food and water. The Ogallala
Aquifer is drying up quickly and we will have a new Dust
Bowl.[[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/08/vanishin...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/08/vanishing-
midwest-ogallala-aquifer-drought/)] Considering how much food for the US and
the world comes from here there is going to be massive starvation. It just
seems like this planet can only infinitely support around 4B people. We have
too many now but population is slowly starting to tilt back.

We also need to understand that constant growth is toxic. Both for our planet
in population and as a driver for business and profits. I think this planet
will be quite different as automation continues to accelerate and as we start
using _all_ of our resources in a sustainable and non-destructive way. I am
very curious to see how this plays out over my lifetime.

~~~
jrochkind1
Oh, we can't destroy the _planet_ , but we can make life for _humans_ much
more painful and/or impossible. (Along with lots of other species, but humans
are the ones I care about most).

~~~
bryanlarsen
Humans could be fine. We've got the capability to turn energy into food in a
purely artificial environment. (Google vertical farming). The price of food
would go up significantly and society never does well when that happens, but
our economy is big enough to feed 7-10 billion people that way if it actually
had the will to do so.

Rats will probably also do well; they're pretty urban adapted.

Any other species? Questionable.

~~~
jrochkind1
I wouldn't place bets on how "big" our "economy" is going to be once the
serious destabilization starts happening. Sadly, at the moment humans are
showing themselves more interested in viciously attacking each other to
protect "what's theirs", rather than banding together to save us all. The
standards being set by our current US government for how to help people in
trouble globally are... terrifying. I'm not optimistic about what it's going
to look like when the shit hits the fan. But yeah, that means our task now has
to be trying to build cooperative and egalitarian power and attitude, it'll be
too late when shit starts really turning upside down.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Agreed. There were lots of caveats in my statement. It seems that lots of
people would rather have widespread food riots than pay 10 cents more for a
gallon of gas.

------
norswap
Does "no more permanent ice" means there is a period of the year where there
is no ice at all at the poles? That seems hardly believable.

I was also under the impression that melting ice would push the level of the
oceans by multiple meters. If 75-80% of ice has already melted, wouldn't we
have seen significant elevation already?

Just some facts that I found surprising, coming from someone who doesn't know
much on the topic. I'm well on board with global warming, but the facts
presented here don't mesh with what I understood about it.

~~~
assblaster
The problem with predictions like this is that this prediction will look silly
in 4 years when the Earth has not ended, similar to how wild predictions in
the past have not borne fruit.

I understand their desire to sensationalize, but people like AOC make the same
predictions, and she is not seen as smart by a large portion of the public.

I think if we just stick with the experimental science research, the general
public will find more confidence in the sciences.

~~~
dagss
Citations on wild predictions in past not being correct?

~~~
goatlover
The Population Bomb by Paul Elrich back in 1968 predicted worldwide famine in
the 70s and 80s because of overpopulation. There's been quite a few over the
last few decades relating to overpopulation, environmental destruction and
running out of vital resources to keep civilization going. So far, these dire
predictions have not come true. Which doesn't men they can't, but they should
give us some pause about predicting the collapse of civilization or the
environment, particularly in the short run.

~~~
Frondo
There has always been a market for mass-market doomsday prediction material;
whether religious or secular.

A population bomb leading to famine has never been the result of prolonged
scientific discussion, just one guy's theories (published in book form, which
is subject to editorial review but not peer review), and saying "this is a
prediction that someone made that was false" is true but unhelpful. Anyone can
make a prediction, and a lot of dumb stuff gets published. Never made it
meaningful or true.

My father, before he succumbed to dementia, had this belief that if it's been
published, it must be true. He'd read the weirdest stuff and ultimately
decided that nothing is true; when really, it's because he was overly
credulous at first, and in rejecting truth as a concept, he went too far the
other way.

I feel like that's a lot more common than we realize; the error is not in
believing in a consensus reality, it's in believing in something that wasn't
very good to begin with (a book about worldwide famine, the handful of "global
cooling" articles in the 70s -- not even a book! just a handful of magazine
articles!! why would ANYONE put stock in that??), and deciding that, because
that was wrong, nothing is knowable.

~~~
goatlover
It's not that nothing is knowable, it's that predicting the future is hard and
easy to get wrong, particularly with something as complex as civilization,
since humans adapt and civilization changes. The same applies to the biosphere
as well. Saying for example that polar bears will go extinct or coral will all
die off is ignoring the possibility that some bears and coral will adapt to
the warmer world. We can't be sure about such predictions. We need to see how
life and civilization responds.

~~~
AstralStorm
Usually the life responds by getting extinct, as seen in so many species
lately. What makes you think humans are special? Do you expect speciation for
a change that will take less than 100 years? Technological evolution on an
unprecedented scale?

Because this is what it is going to take. Not even going underground en masse
will work and that is essentially the most extreme social change I can see.
(Even more extreme than space travel, cars, internet.)

~~~
goatlover
> Usually the life responds by getting extinct, as seen in so many species
> lately.

Do you have a count of how many have gone extinct in the past decade?

> What makes you think humans are special?

Our brains. And yes, technology and science. Humans are extremely adaptable.
Our ancestors survived an ice age with stone aged tech and spread around the
world to live in all sorts of environments.

> Not even going underground en masse will work

LOL, what? Who is saying that the Earth will become so hot that we won't be
able to survive on the surface? You think 3-4°C is going to have that effect?

------
olivermarks
Anderson, the "Godfather of climate change science' advocates aerosol geo
engineering experimentation
[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pgaq57/harvard-calls-
for-...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pgaq57/harvard-calls-for-
geoengineering-experiments)

~~~
weberc2
Related:
[https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/9805/would-...](https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/9805/would-
adding-sulfur-dioxide-to-the-atmosphere-have-a-global-cooling-effect/9809)

------
Dumblydorr
There's little chance of transitioning our energy system in time, so let's
start considering how to cool our planet. Can we block or reflect sunlight?
That seems the brightest future, cooling the planet artificially while
decarbonizing and capturing the carbon already released.

~~~
rawrmaan
I don't know if anyone is researching this, but couldn't we manufacture
stupidly large floating reflective tarps and start deploying them anywhere sea
ice is melting? Seems like this would be a high benefit for relatively low
cost.

~~~
rb808
I'd think they'd work better at the equator to reflect the most heat.

~~~
fouc
Tropical countries would love to reduce the heat, it would massively help
their economies.

------
gdubs
The “we’ve been hearing scare stories for decades” argument is akin to “I’ve
been driving drunk without my seatbelt for a decade and people keep saying
I’ll die, but I haven’t yet.”

For many, many people, the dire warnings have come true. Entire towns were
_erased_ by fire in Northern California last year. Severe storms are racking
up billions and billions of dollars in damage every year — and entire islands
have been decimated. The amount of corn planted in the Midwest for the time of
year is off the charts, due to freakish weather.

The world is a _big_ place. We can’t wait until everyone all at once is
feeling the types of disasters that make you sit up and take notice. But these
events are happening _constantly_ , all around the world.

Yea, it doesn’t look like “The Day After Tomorrow”, but what kind of yardstick
is that, anyway?

We need to strike a balance between a healthy dose of fear, optimism for the
sake of our children, and resolve.

~~~
Izkata
> The amount of corn planted in the Midwest for the time of year is off the
> charts, due to freakish weather.

Either you found different reports than me, or you're using "off the charts"
wrong. It means "too high/too much to measure"; the crop situation is actually
_lower_ than normal due to flooding.

~~~
gdubs
Clunky phrasing — I meant off the normal curve. In this case, obviously
meaning much lower than what’s typical for this time of year.

------
stackola
I remember Al Gore saying we got 10 years in 2006.

In fact this type of rhetoric has been going on for centuries. [1]

[1] [https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/10/08/the-ever-receding-
cli...](https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/10/08/the-ever-receding-climate-
goalpost-ipcc-and-al-gore-12-years-to-save-the-planet-again/)

~~~
jefflombardjr
1\. Al Gore didn't say this, James Anderson did. James Anderson is a "Harvard
University professor of atmospheric chemistry best known for establishing that
chlorofluorocarbons were damaging the Ozone Layer."

2\. You're right about the rhetoric - it has been around for centuries _but so
have major ecological disasters_. The Dust Bowl alone forced tens of thousands
of poverty-stricken families to abandon their farms, unable to pay mortgages
or grow crops, and losses reached $25 million per day by 1936 (equivalent to
$450,000,000 in 2018).[0] I can hardly fathom the true cost of something that
impacts the entire planet.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl)

~~~
WillPostForFood
Al Gore has made the claim multiple times:

[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ice-caps-melt-
gore-2014/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ice-caps-melt-gore-2014/)

e.g. in 2007:

 _Their latest modelling studies indicate northern polar waters could be ice-
free in summers within just 5-6 years. Professor Wieslaw Maslowski told an
American Geophysical Union meeting that previous projections had
underestimated the processes now driving ice loss._

~~~
stubish
Could, not would. Like smoking can kill you, not smoking will kill you. It is
a common and fundamental English language pattern, clearly indicating doubt
and should never be misinterpreted as certainty.

~~~
WillPostForFood
Fair enough, but could is enough to play on people's fears. Immigrant X could
be a terrorist. Food additive Y could cause cancer. You can't then claim you
didn't say "would".

Note that things like tobacco cancer warnings use use can/could not
will/would, and the intent of the message is still clear.

"SURGEON GENERAL WARNING: Cigar Smoking Can Cause Lung Cancer And Heart
Disease."

"WARNING: This product can cause mouth cancer."

------
agentultra

        "I don't understand how these people sit down to dinner with their kids," Anderson said, "because they're not stupid people."
    

I have a hard enough time teaching my kids about the seasons and polar bears
when many of these things won't exist by the time they're teenagers.

------
viach
Interesting, is it possible to use hight levels of carbon dioxide detected
during exoplanets spectroscopy in order to decide where to point big radio
telescopes, so that there could be radio signals of intelligent life from
other dying worlds?

------
timw4mail
...the Maldives are under water, and half of Florida doesn't exist any more.
Oh, wait, that's not the case.

Assuming that assertion is true, though, 4 or 5 years is not enough time for
anything to realistically be done.

I assert that in 20 years we'll still not see the supposed effects though.

~~~
mcv
There's a massive difference between time to act, and time until we see the
effects. By the time we do see the effects of global worming, it will be far
too late to do anything about it.

(And we're already seeing some effects.)

------
umadon
No amount of individual behavioral changes are going to cut it. The entire
economy needs to be transformed. Does anyone seriously believe the people who
control the economy will just let this happen?

------
sasasassy
Another wild prediction. This person's wild claim is that if go on with the
current path the ocean's will rise 7 meters and there will be worse storms.
You can visit [http://www.floodmap.net/](http://www.floodmap.net/) and see how
7 meters is nothing, even discounting that we can adapt and protect against
flooding. Worse storms are bad, but if the alternative is "World War II-style
transformation of industry", what alternative is that? How can the world say
to 5 billion people "sorry, you have to stop your industrialisation now, there
may be storms in the US".

~~~
jeanperrot
At 7 meters, much of Florida is gone.

Regardless, global warming will impact poorer (and tropical) countries
disproportionately. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and I know it is a pretty
good place to be as it warms up. Bangladesh, less so.

You can't expect Bangladesh to lead the decarbonation of industrial production
- but the US can, and there are good arguments that it will yield an increase
in wealth and standards of living.

~~~
jrochkind1
This is a crucial point. The huge changes to the ecology will make some places
difficult to inhabit and destabilize food production, which will destabilize
economies, which will lead to large social disruption and conflict.

It is the poor who will be _least_ able to protect themselves from this
destabilization. Not just because poorer/tropical countries will be
disproportionately effected, but it's because it's the rich (globally or
locally) who have the resources to protect themselves. With technology, with
mobility, with "security".

Some who are now rich (globally or locally) will also find themselves less so.

When I see the standard the U.S. is setting for how refugees are treated, I'm
terrified, even on just a self-interested level. Many more of us will be
refugees in the future.

------
billpg
So we can relax for three years before we have to do anything?

~~~
aaomidi
Ten years*

We don't do shit until it's already fucked millions of people.

~~~
toyg
Well, if you assume the Earth is unsustainably overpopulated already, surely
that should be a fundamentally inevitable development anyway...?

~~~
aaomidi
I don't assume this. I think the west would have to give up some stuff they
see as a "need" currently and we can sustain this population.

------
bleh123
It's amazing to me how most of these predictions refrain from calling out the
single largest polluters in the world, China, from changing their behavior or
doing anything substantial. In particular, this paragraph at the end:

> In Chicago Thursday, he prosecuted a moral argument that implicates
> university administrators who refuse to divest from fossil fuels,
> journalists who fail to fact-check false statements made by political
> candidates, and executives of fossil fuel companies who continue to pursue
> activities that are exacerbating climate change—especially those who mislead
> the public about those effects.

Really? Can you, as a man of science stand behind such vitriol as an outburst
for what is arguably at best a theory with a lot of room for error?
Specifically:

> "The chance that there will be any permanent ice left in the Arctic after
> 2022 is essentially zero," Anderson said

Based on WHAT? This man is making a claim for the complete wipe out of roughly
seven million cubic miles of ice in the next three years? Even if one were to
be charitable and entertain a massive error margin on this claim, based on
data about the polar cycles it seems extremely unlikely. This is nothing but
an attempt to use "Science" to create panic.

I strongly agree that we need to do more on the environment, but there's got
to be a better answer than killing off a major chunk of the commercial markets
and industry that have contributed to the single most prosperous period in
human history. Can scientists please not make recommendations on policy? I'd
love to hear scientific solutions . . just the other day, there was a
discussion here on HN about using energy from a nuclear reactor to recycle
atmospheric carbons. Practical or not, i'd love to see us innovate our way out
of this hole while continuing to be reasonably responsible with our
environmental decisions.

~~~
gdubs
The US has _double_ the emissions _per capita_ as China. [1]

China is also steadily moving towards one of the most ambitious carbon tax /
cap and trade systems in the world. [2] Don’t have the exact source in front
of me but I read in a paper recently that China’s new carbon market will cover
a significant percentage of global carbon emissions when it’s in full swing.

1:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita)

2: [https://www.icf.com/blog/policy-and-regulation/china-
carbon-...](https://www.icf.com/blog/policy-and-regulation/china-carbon-price)

------
loblollyboy
He'll prob be promoted for his hype game

------
assblaster
The key part from the article:

"The level of carbon now in the atmosphere hasn’t been seen in 12 million
years".

What was the Earth like 13 million years ago? Or 130 million years? A snapshot
in time does little to provide actual context.

~~~
Fellshard
I have little trust in forensically invented snapshots over concrete
measurements, as well.

------
aldoushuxley001
No we don't. Hyperbole around climate change just makes people more likely to
disregard the actual dangers.

~~~
dragonwriter
It's not clear to me if you've forgotten to provide evidence for the “No, we
don’t”, or if you are making the argument that the assertion that the
characterization of the danger as so imminent makes people less likely to
believe and therefore the characterization is false.

~~~
imtringued
See you in 2023.

------
Fjolsvith
> "People at this point haven't come to grips with the irreversibility of this
> sea-level rise problem," Anderson said, displaying a map that shows the site
> of Harvard's new $10 billion Allston campus inundated after 3 meters of sea-
> level rise.

The Harvard scientist wants to save his new research center from climate
change.

Also, submission should say "Five", instead of "Four".

~~~
makerofspoons
The article is from January 2018, so if Dr. Anderson is correct we now have
four years.

~~~
thecolorblue
The title should have indicated the article was from 2018 and properly quoted
the articles title.

