Abstract
Earth’s climate future is in the hands of humanity. If emissions of greenhouse gases remain unabated, Earth’s climate will return to the climate of the Late Eocene, 35 million years ago, when sea level was 73 meters (240 feet) higher than today. Should that occur, many coastal cities around the world would be inundated. Moreover the Global Warming of this unabated Reference case will be comparable to the Global Warming from the Last Glacial Maximum 21,000 years ago to the beginning of the Holocene interglacial climate 11,000 years ago. However, this human-caused Global Warming would occur 50 times faster than that caused by nature. Alternatively, humanity can mitigate greenhouse-gas emissions to keep Global Warming below the 2°C maximum adopted by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change “to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. This mitigation can either be done rapidly, as in the “80/50” Plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions 80% by 2050, or much more slowly, from 2020 to 2100, as in the Fair Plan to Safeguard Earth’s Climate. The Fair Plan is a compromise between doing nothing, as in the Reference case, and rapidly reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, as in the 80/50 Plan. Regardless of the Plan chosen to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to keep Global Warming below the UNFCCC limit of 2°C (3.6°F), it should not be tantamount to our saying to one of our planetary spacecraft, Bon Voyage, call us when you get to your planetary destination. Rather, as with our spacecraft, the chosen climate-change policy should be monitored throughout the 21st century and Midcourse Corrections made thereto as needed to keep our “Climate Spacecraft” on track to achieve its “Climate Target”.
Highlights
To paraphrase Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland:“If you don’t know where you are going, no road will take you there.”Humanity is grappling with the question: “To Act or Not on Climate Change?” There are “Naysayers”—generally conservatives, and “Aye-sayers”—generally liberals
A Fair Plan to Safeguard Earth’s Climate has been crafted that reduces the emissions of greenhouse gases much more slowly than the 80/50 Plan and keeps Global Warming below the 2 ̊C (3.6 ̊F) maximum Global Warming chosen by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) “to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”
Regardless of which Plan is chosen such that Global Warming does not exceed the 2 ̊C (3.6 ̊F) maximum Global Warming chosen by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) “to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”, Midcourse Corrections should be made as needed to achieve the climate target
Summary
To paraphrase Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland:. Humanity is grappling with the question: “To Act or Not on Climate Change?” There are “Naysayers”—generally conservatives, and “Aye-sayers”—generally liberals. The Great Climate Chasm is certainly not the first time that scientists and non-scientists have disagreed on a matter important to both The archetype for this disagreement is the early 17th century contretemps between the Copernican conclusion that Earth is not the center of the Cosmos, but rather the Sun is [1]—the reinvention of the theory by Aristarchus of Samos (310-230 BC) The Inquisition trial of Galileo by the Church and his subsequent incarceration under house arrest in Arcetri (near Florence) for the final decade of his life, following the burning of Giordano Bruno at the stake in 1600 in Rome for his acceptance of the Copernicus-Aristarchus hypothesis of the Sun-centered cosmos, fostered the movement of science from Catholic (southern European) countries to Protestant (northern European) countries. We conclude with a discussion of the need to make Midcourse Corrections to any chosen emission-reduction plan to keep it “on target”
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