This Generation's Problem

We could see Climate Chaos in the next twenty years

From James Hansen’s latest version of his latest paper, “Global Warming in the Pipeline,” we find this (emphasis mine):

Consistent analysis of temperature over the full Cenozoic era … implies that CO2 was 300–350 ppm in the Pliocene and about 450 ppm at transition to a nearly ice-free planet, exposing unrealistic lethargy of ice sheet models.

Keep that number — “450 ppm at transition to a nearly ice-free planet” — in mind as you read the following.

CO2 growth is accelerating

First, the latest CO2 data from NOAA monthly averages:

and a close look at recent data:

Note the peak at 424 ppm, and consider again: “Consistent analysis of temperature over the full Cenozoic era [implies] about 450 ppm at transition to a nearly ice-free planet.”

Like global warming itself, the rate of CO2 growth is accelerating. Annual growth is now 2.4 ppm per year on a decadal basis, up from 2 ppm per year in the previous decade.

CO2 levels through 2060

So let’s do the math. Assuming acceleration of annual growth — meaning, the world’s governments never reject fossil fuels — the decade of the 2020s could see CO2 growth of nearly 30 ppm; the 2030s, growth above 35 ppm; the 2040s, growth near 45 ppm; and so on.

That yields CO2 numbers like these:

    2030 — 438 ppm (no accel.)
    2040 — 463 ppm (no accel.)
    2050 — 487 ppm (no accel.)

    2030 — 444 ppm (with accel.)
    2040 — 479 ppm (with accel.)
    2050 — 522 ppm (with accel.)

Need we go on?

A ‘Chinese Century’?

That makes even predictions like these optimistic. In a dire thread that starts here, Ian Welsh writes this at the end:

By the 2080s? I think the nation-splitting chaos will start a lot sooner.

The above took hundreds of years. We’ll see the same, globally, in less than ten once the real crisis takes hold: the scramble for food, for high ground, against disease, and all the regional disasters that threaten integrated global life, like shipping of goods.

Part of the India-Bangladesh border (Getty Images)

Will this generation dodge the bill for its own climate failure? Or pay for its sins itself?

We’re going to need better leaders

I really do wish people would take this stuff seriously. By “people” I mean people with power.

Barring that, I wish people like us would remove those people-with-power, and pretty darn soon. We’re gonna need better leaders, and pretty darn soon.

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Update: Corrected an error in units of measure.