Models guiding climate policy are 'dangerously optimistic'

[Forkboy]

Integrated assessment models (IAMs) used by researchers today – where climate change data is integrated with economic data – are dangerously flawed because they are based on naïve assumptions, according to Kevin Anderson from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change at the University of Manchester, UK.

Anderson told environmentalresearchweb: "The vast majority of IAMs assume low emission growth rates; early emission peaks; annual reduction rates limited to between 2 and 4%; untested geoengineering; and a high penetration of nuclear power alongside untested 'carbon capture and storage' technologies. Because IAMs typically use similar and inappropriate sets of assumptions, they repeatedly come up with the same narrow and fundamentally flawed answers."

Anderson argues that actual emissions growth rates are much higher than those used by most IAMs, and that even ambitious emission peaks are much nearer 2020–2030 than the naïve estimates of 2010–2016 used by most models. His calculations have shown that, if we want to aim for a high chance of not exceeding a 2°C increase in global temperature by the end of the century, our energy emissions need to be cut by nearer 10% annually rather than the 2–4% that economists say is possible with a growing economy.

"The output from today's models is politically palatable," said Anderson. "The reality is far more depressing, but many scientists are too afraid to stand up and speak out for fear of being ridiculed. Our job is not to be liked but to give a raw and dispassionate assessment of the scale of the challenge faced by the global community." In a recent paper in Philosophical Transactions, Anderson and his colleague Alice Bows of the Sustainable Consumption Institute at the University of Manchester warn that "there is now little to no chance of maintaining the rise in global mean surface temperature at below 2°C, despite repeated high-level statements to the contrary".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/24/models-climate-policy-optimistic

[AdHocSolver]

1. Models guiding climate policy are delusional.

Unregulated capitalism will destroy modern civilization within the next fifty years, if not sooner.

Capitalism will continue to destroy life on planet Earth for fun and profit.

A species doesn't continuously foul its nest with impunity. We are living in our own "excrement" and will pay for it.

[Forkboy]

2. Yep, pretty much.

[Kurovski]

3. K&R

It was maybe six years ago that I had the terrible feeling it was too late even then.

People really jump your ass when you doom and gloom it. Too fucking bad, because already the air is for shit and for a decade it quickly had felt to me like the sun is burning like a way strong mother fucker. In the midwest, that is.

[Forkboy]

4. I admit to being a cynical pessimist, so doom and gloom is nothing new to me.

But I do think we've already passed the point of no return. If we haven't yet we certainly will soon. It's an issue we can't take baby steps on, but that's all politicians know. I don't see a way out, and I'm not the type to believe in miracles, either the religious or scientific kind. I think it's the largest issue facing us humans, and I when I see the indifference of so many it's hard to feel optimistic.

Some more doom and gloom...

A climate-change activist prepares for the worst
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/25/AR2011022503176.html