Essay by Eric Worrall
Our monkey ancestors thrived and spread across the planet during the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum. But these scientists think a few degrees warming could make us extinct.
Climate change: More studies needed on possibility of human extinction
Catastrophic climate change outcomes, including human extinction, are not being taken seriously enough by scientists, a new study says.
The authors say that the consequences of more extreme warming – still on the cards if no action is taken – are “dangerously underexplored”.
They argue that the world needs to start preparing for the possibility of what they term the “climate endgame”.
They want UN scientists to investigate the risk of catastrophic change.
According to this new analysis, the closest attempts to directly understand or address how climate change could lead to global catastrophe have come from popular science books such as The Uninhabitable Earth and not from mainstream science research.
…
“I think it’s sane risk management to think about the plausible worst-case scenarios and we do it when it comes to every other situation, we should definitely do when it comes to the fate of the planet and species,” said lead author Dr Luke Kemp from the University of Cambridge.
The researchers found that estimates of the impacts of a temperature rise of 3C are under-represented compared to their likelihood.
Using climate models, the report shows that in this type of scenario, by 2070 around 2 billion people living in some of the most politically fragile areas of the world would be enduring annual average temperatures of 29C.
“Average annual temperatures of 29C currently affect around 30 million people in the Sahara and Gulf Coast,” said co-author Chi Xu of Nanjing University.
“By 2070, these temperatures and the social and political consequences will directly affect two nuclear powers, and seven maximum containment laboratories housing the most dangerous pathogens. There is serious potential for disastrous knock-on effects,” he said.
…
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62378157
The abstract of the study;
Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios
Luke Kemp, Chi Xu, Joanna Depledge, Kristie L. Ebi, Goodwin Gibbins, Timothy A. Kohler, Johan Rockström, Marten Scheffer, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Will Steffen, and Timothy M. Lenton
Edited by Kerry Emanuel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA; received May 20, 2021; accepted March 25, 2022
August 1, 2022
Abstract
Prudent risk management requires consideration of bad-to-worst-case scenarios. Yet, for climate change, such potential futures are poorly understood. Could anthropogenic climate change result in worldwide societal collapse or even eventual human extinction? At present, this is a dangerously underexplored topic. Yet there are ample reasons to suspect that climate change could result in a global catastrophe. Analyzing the mechanisms for these extreme consequences could help galvanize action, improve resilience, and inform policy, including emergency responses. We outline current knowledge about the likelihood of extreme climate change, discuss why understanding bad-to-worst cases is vital, articulate reasons for concern about catastrophic outcomes, define key terms, and put forward a research agenda. The proposed agenda covers four main questions: 1) What is the potential for climate change to drive mass extinction events? 2) What are the mechanisms that could result in human mass mortality and morbidity? 3) What are human societies’ vulnerabilities to climate-triggered risk cascades, such as from conflict, political instability, and systemic financial risk? 4) How can these multiple strands of evidence—together with other global dangers—be usefully synthesized into an “integrated catastrophe assessment”? It is time for the scientific community to grapple with the challenge of better understanding catastrophic climate change.
Read more: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2108146119
There are plenty of events which could kill us off, most of them are thankfully very unlikely. One thing which doesn’t threaten our existence is global warming.
Our monkey ancestors spread from the tropics to the high arctic during the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, all the way up to Greenland, because 6-8C of global warming turned most of the Earth into a paradise for our warmth loving primate ancestors.
If a bunch of monkey ancestors with walnut size brains could figure out how to cope with global warming, I’m confident we could figure it out.
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ROFL human extinction due to climate change … I worry more about alien abduction 🙂
You won’t be abducted unless you can prove you’ve been boosted. You must wear a mask, wash hands every few minutes and stand behind whatever markings are considered mandatory. And, the term alien is non inclusive so they must be referred to as either ‘non-earth bound beings with cervixes’ or ‘non-earth bound beings with penises’. Then, and only then will the aliens try to get to the bottom of things.
Has anyone studied OCD folks to see if they faired better in the pandemic?
You must wear a mask, wash hands every few minutes and stand behind whatever markings are considered mandatory.
They probably will suffer from stress caused by being subject to non-OCD people demanding OCD behaviour. Only a few years ago all this would have seemed insane. It is as if someone wants to sabotage civil society. Surely not?
You should fear an alien abduction.
They are far more likely to ask probing questions than the BBC!
More people have been abducted by aliens, than have been hurt by climate change.
Beware the probe.
I worry more about my government killing me in one way or another
The real danger of Human Extinction is that it will become a self-fulfilling prophesy.
I think it’s sane risk management to think about the plausible worst-case scenarios and we do it when it comes to every other situation
By all means. Let’s begin with the worst-case scenarios of banning fossil fuels. Lets first understand the impacts of the proposed cure and then compare them to the supposed disease.
I don’t think the researchers know what “plausible” means.
Your suggestion is excellent.
PETM – erosion breaching an oil reservoir, subsequent smoothing disrupting the thunderstorm thermostat?
When all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
JF
Schellnhuber and Steffen? Oh dear.
And models. :0
And Kerry Emmanuel – the usual suspects.
Not forgetting Tim Lenton from Exeter – a guy so relentlessly cheerful in his ignorance, so completely brainwashed and so revelling in his Junk Science that there aren’t the words.
Like a pet hamster in its exercise wheel, you’d feel awful to put the brakes on and burst its bubble.
I ‘met’ Lenton on Futurelearn – until Dorkin University, Aus. banned me for suggesting that ‘Alcohol was not a Health Drink‘
Yet suddenly after 3 years of silence, I’m getting 2 emails per day asking me to come back and join their courses.
there’s completely nothing of value in this world any more – it’s all junk.
FYI, the biggest killer in the UK is stress related, anything that reduces that stress must be a good thing, in moderation!!! People who do not drink alcohol are more likely to get ill & die than those who do imbibe!!! Everything in moderation!!!
Especially moderation!
Not stress in general. Stress caused by things you have no control over. eg. Climate Change.
The problem is that many people have lost their innate ability to distinguish things which they have no control over.
The consequences are frightening, but maybe that’s what THEY want.
‘If a bunch of monkey ancestors could figure out how to cope with global warming, I’m confident we could figure it out.’
Easy peasy! Behave like our monkey ancestors. Give up agriculture, technology, cities, civilisation. Go back to small family bands wandering through the forests picking fruit and nuts. Be flexible to move in these small groups as the forest vegetation changes and moves due to climate warming/change. If we wipe out enough modern monkey species, those niches will be available to us. Of course, we may have to cut our numbers to survive that way, there’s no monkey habitat in open grasslands and deserts.
I do not think that mankind is doomed by global warming. But our population numbers, energy and food demands do mean that it will have an impact. Look at the knock-on effect of a geographically small war, Russia’s attack on Ukraine, on global energy and food supply. It doesn’t take much to tip the balance. Humans will be to survive global warming, but our way of life will change.
Isn’t it unwise globalisation which has amplified the damage caused by Putin’s belligerence?
The only reason the Ukraine war has had an impact is the West chose dependency on low cost energy suppliers over developing domestic low cost energy.
As for global warming, farm yields in the tropics, places like Indonesia, are spectacular. If the tropical zone expands the entire world will be a tropical garden, and the population capacity of the planet will soar.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Indonesia
Bevölkerungswachstum ist verboten
Sure 🤓. Tiny Ukraine causes world wide inflation…got it.
Er… tiny Ukraine?
Ukraine is the second-largest European country, after Russia.
clearly you have never bothered to go there.
I drove from Belgorod to Simferopol via Kharkiv.
Just go try the “TINY” v fertile, warm and flat country some day!
Idiot!
Increased agricultural productivity is going to change our way of life?
Really?
And when your wandering small family group mets another small family group, try to kill the men and capture the women for breeding?
Didn’t the Minoans and Romans and several other civilisations work out how to survive during their warm(er?) periods?
There’s no proof of monkey ancestors, so the article fails on an equally unscientific hypothesis.
Why?
Total absence of the zillions of necessary, non existent and vital link fossils.
As far as I can tell, our ancestors weren’t monkeys, but some sort of pre-ape primate.
Technically true. But poetically not.
I think our ancestors were baboons.
They are far more intelligent and vicious.
From what I recall, our ancestors were most closely related to Bonobos and Chimpanzees.
Wow, you have such a good memory going so far back. 😉
I’m close to my roots.🙈🙉🙊
From the linked paper:
Not so, ice core reconstructions, even with time resolution in the hundreds of years, show previous interglacials higher than 2C above the 20th century GAT
If high resolutions were possible even greater temperature variations would be apparent.
The next glaciation will be a far greater challenge for human survival and far more likely.
Luckily we appear to have dodged a bullet with only a minor Milankovitch wobble presently.
C’mon Chris you stave off the next glaciation by throwing CO2 on it 😉
We could only hope! I would not bet on that. Mirrors in space increasing the length of day possible.
“Temperatures of more than 2 °C above preindustrial values have not been sustained on Earth’s surface since before the Pleistocene Epoch (or more than 2.6 million years ago)”-
Is a blatant lie.
I think these researchers would do more good if they went to Africa and dug latrines in villages that have no plumbing.
Send them out to feed polar bears, carrying a side of beef, each.
Better still, strap a side of beef to each of them so they will learn to keep fit by running away from hungry bears!!!
Turnabout is fair play! They can take all the UN’s IPCC grifters with them!
https://www.climatedepot.com/2022/07/06/un-journal-article-explains-the-benefits-of-world-hunger-ending-hunger-globally-would-be-a-disaster-who-would-clean-our-toilets/
https://fee.org/articles/un-deletes-article-titled-the-benefits-of-world-hunger-was-it-real-or-satire/
Wells for water are far more important.
The long drop is easier for them to dig themselves.
https://cathybuckle.co.zw/jewels-in-the-dust/
In the same way I don’t worry about Martian invasion. Or BBC liés.
It seems that global warming is not just a religion but a cult.
Exactly.
The First Church of the Boiling Globe… headed by archbishop algore
Mental illness is what they are promoting..
“Catastrophic climate change outcomes, including human extinction, are not being taken seriously enough by scientists”, a new study says.
That’s because we already fixed the problem, do keep up.
I wonder how much is enough.
The UK’s climate is still what it was, variable and affected by 5 different types of air mass. In fact the Arctic is still a polar climate, the Sahara is still an Arid climate, the Med is still a Med climate, and the 17 odd climates within Russia are all still there, etc. etc. The boundaries between all may have shifted, but who says that nothing must change? A child?
Do they say what’s to be done about it? If it’s reducing atmospheric CO2 then forget it. It’s not going to happen unless the globe starts cooling. Which it may
The >3°C warming over the past 18k yrs worked wonders for the Earth!
About half of all humans live in the tropics. With global warming, well over half of all of Earth’s land area will never become as warm as the tropics, and the predictions are that the Tropics won’t warm, only the other areas. This study is pure BBC (B Bull Cr*p).
“If a bunch of monkey ancestors with walnut size brains could figure out how to cope with global warming, I’m confident we could figure it out.”
Maybe an exclusive class for those from the BBC?
Modelled rubbish
Someone needs to sue the BBC for this hysterical, alarmist nonsense. It damages public confidence in everything.
Eric, you have to remember our ancestors with walnut sized brains did not have pathogen labs and nuclear weapons to distract them.
Our monkey brained current leaders may have bigger brains, but they are filled with a debilitating substance called ‘woke’. They also have a shrivelled logic thinking section about the size of a peanut. Why does Biden come to mind?
Perhaps our current leaders are not as capable as our past leaders were,…?.
BBC: Scientists are Not Taking Climate Driven Human Extinction Seriously
That’s ok! I’m not taking “climate scientists” or the BBC seriously either.
I trust that everyone reading this story realises what a glorious exposition it is on how:
‘Deserts Are Cold Places’
Especially how Cause and Effect are yet again, totally utterly completely (horrible for us if it continues) muddled and confused.
The Answer is not ‘blowing in the wind’ – The Answer is under our feet
Correction:
BBC: Scientists are Not Taking
Climate Driven HumanUnicorn Extinction SeriouslyEven more shrill outpourings from the Bandar-log who seem to be getting ever more desperate that not so many people are listening to them now.
Do they foresee a funding crisis ?
We can hope.
They are such mentally subnormal cretins it is unbelievable. A few degrees change? What’s the current difference between living in the Sahara and living in Lapland? 15C? 20C? The human species is already adapted to withstand temperatures of -50C and +50C – that’s documented modern day fact, forget history.
What may happen is a loss of biodiversity at the very extremes – either at the hottest temperatures or the lowest. But quite frankly, there are lifeforms already adapted to +95C, found in thermal vents beneath the ocean, so life on earth is even more adaptable than humans.
Let’s say you increase temperatures by 5C: Scotland will become like northern France. Are the northern French unable to grow food? NO. So Scotland will still be able to feed itself, as long as it adapts with climate.
But if the Greenland Ice Sheet melts? OK, the UK may get covered in water. But there will still be vast tracts of land not covered in water the world over, so a migration will occur.
Let’s say it gets 5C cooler – so above 55N growing crops becomes impossible.
Well, that will make it 5C cooler over the northern Sahara with the likely outcome being that growing more crops there will become feasible, so a migration from the poles toward the equator is the sane way to go.
Migration means putting one foot in front of the other.
Apparently that takes too much effort to even consider.
The ancestors were smart enough to know what they could control and what they couldn’t. The descendents are too smart and think they can control everything.
They don’t want to control everything, they are smart enough to know they can’t. They just want to convince enough people that they can so they can control every aspect of human freedoms.