Maybe we can bandaid or mitigate the worst effects for some people. Probably richer people. But just see Harvey and wildfires and droughts for strong evidence that we will not do anything whatsoever even when cities are being destroyed by inaction.
Did anyone ever admit their predictions about increased hurricanes during those 12 years were wrong? I never saw it. You just remember the images, not the 12 years of no images.
And I remember wildfires in California when I was a kid, too. Except now probably about 10 million people live closer to them and like to build houses in the way of them. (Oh, and let's not forget how many of those fires turn out to be less about "global warming" and more about arson. After a certain point, dry is just dry.)
This is part of why I really can't get myself too worked up over Certain Environmental Doom... it's always people sharing emotionally vivid anecdotes instead of data. When I look at the statistical data, it isn't much to get worked up over. The IPCC warming estimates have already been revised down to the point that it's hardly worth worrying about; it's not as if "zero degrees of change in a century" was ever on the table.
It's the emotionally charged anecdotes that get you worked up and feeling doomed and hopeless. Again, who benefits? Sure isn't you.
I'm personally more interested in the ocean plastic problem than global warming at the moment. Global warming has really failed to pan out as a threat, in my opinion.
But then, bear in mind once again I'm brushing 40. If you're twenty-something and inclined to pull your hair out over what I'm saying here, think about where you would be with another 15 years of your current level of concern, but if you looked outside on the same world you do now. I see anecdotes and anecdotes and anecdotes about how horrible climate change is, but the data isn't anywhere near as scary as the news stories being written... in fact I see the news stories getting scarier even as the data gets less scary to me. In fact it's downright bizzare to compare the predictions made now nearly twenty years ago to what actually happened, and to read all these stories that are written as if the predictions made twenty years ago actually happened, or perhaps even happened worse than predicted, instead of being rather a ways off the mark.
Personally, I'd probably actually be more concerned if I read a story that basically said "Here's the predictions made 20 years ago. Here's why they didn't pan out. Here's the models that we made 10 years ago that fixed the problem and evidence that they've done a great job predicting the last ten. Here's why those models are showing problems 20 years down the road and why this time we actually know what we are talking about." But that's not what I read. What I see is just screeching panic, and most damningly, denial that any error was ever made when it is plainly obvious that errors were made, and that IPCC report estimates have in fact been trending down and not up. When no error can ever be admitted, it's clearly a political process, not a scientific one, because it's in politics you can't ever admit you were wrong, not even a little, with the only error you're allowed to admit to is that you didn't realize how right you were at the time. I don't recommend driving yourself into anxiety and insanity for a process so obviously filled with politics.
heres the list of hurricanes that have made landfall: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E23.html
here's a list of atlantic hurricanes: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E11.html
axios made this nice chart showing intensity by year: https://www.axios.com/thirty-years-of-atlantic-hurricanes-15...
here's the noaa page about global warming and hurricanes: https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/
The problem isn't what sets the fire. It's that the heat dries out the forests, making any fires larger and more devastating. For example: you can light a fire pretty much anywhere in an Eastern forest, because they're sufficiently wet that a fire won't grow very large. You could even do that a few decades ago in the West. But try that now in California, you and could start a thousands-acre conflagration so hot it kills the soil and doesn't burn out until literally all available fuel has been used up.
Did anyone ever admit their predictions about increased hurricanes during those 12 years were wrong? I never saw it. You just remember the images, not the 12 years of no images.
There have been way more hurricanes. Luckily for us, the oceans are very large, and most of those hurricanes did not make landfall.
https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/
And no, I'm the same age as you. I do not remember nearly as many devastating hurricanes in the first 20 years of my life, whereas in the second half I've seen Katrina, Harvey, Maria, Sandy, saw California in drought for what, a decade? I have personally seen the glaciers in New Zealand that have receded by miles and miles. And the temperature record is undeniable. And the ocean temperature measurements. And the ocean acidification measurements. And the ice cap melt measurements.
The linked report, by the way, suggests that while the current trends are in line with increases that actual statistically significant diversions from usual won't be detectable until the possible to see until the end of the century (for Hurricanes). Of course by then the temperature will be 3C or so hotter, and lots of other things will be impacted more directly sooner like crop yields, fish populations, and other things.
The problem with this thinking is that, as I said, the timescale that responses show up is on par with the human life span. This is a huge problem for a species with massive future-discounting built into our DNA. No, we don't see these things (strongly) yet. That's not the point, the point is that the impact on our lives to change this is shockingly small compared to the enormous and extremely likely risks of doing nothing. The timescale might be wrong, that wouldn't be surprising. But given a choice between "do something that might not be needed" and "do nothing until it's too late even if it is needed" shouldn't be hard.
Current technology can remove CO2 from the atmosphere for $90-230 per ton. That's with current technology to capture it from literally the air.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611369/maybe-we-can-affor...
A gallon of gas emits 8.9kg of CO2. So capturing that emission with current technology costs $2.25 per gallon. If that sounds expensive, compare that to the further collapse of fish stocks, massive water and food insecurity globally forcing mass migrations, and entire cities being flooded. Suddenly that sounds a lot more reasonable.
Anyway. I don't think your attitude is a good one. Switching to a carbon neutral economy is just frankly not nearly as costly as people seem to think, and the risks of not doing it are way too big to ignore. Of course, people with this attitude that we shouldn't act until proof of specific harm that impacts them specifically is available... not going to lie, I think that's a huge moral failing.
