https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/489488/climate-change-scenario-rcp-8-5-warming-emissions
by Bryan Walsh
You’ve probably never heard of the term “RCP 8.5” — the highest-emission scenario used by climate scientists to project the planet’s future. But if you’ve read about climate change, you’ve seen the numbers and nightmarish outcomes it produced: 4°C of warming by 2100, sometimes 5°C, sea level rising multiple feet, parts of the planet too hot for humans.
Those numbers shaped a decade and a half of climate journalism, including a lot of my own when I covered climate change at Time magazine. I didn’t always know — and didn’t always communicate — that the scenario behind the most apocalyptic, attention-getting findings was largely an attempt to imagine how bad things could get, not a true forecast. But I wasn’t alone. RCP 8.5 was a frequent background presence in climate journalism.
Last month, though, the scientists who built that scenario formally retired it. In a paper published in Geoscientific Model Development, Detlef van Vuuren and more than 40 co-authors eliminated RCP 8.5 from the scenarios that will feed into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Seventh Assessment Report, which is due in 2029. Based on falling clean-energy costs, climate policy, and recent emissions trends, the highest-emissions pathway had become, in their words, “implausible.”
“Based on falling clean-energy costs, climate policy, and recent emissions trends, the highest-emissions pathway had become, in their words, “implausible.””
It should be no surprise that even while writing such an article, this jackass still gets every factual detail wrong.
And not just slightly wrong.
As always, every word is the opposite of what is true.
-Clean energy costs are soaring, and the more wind and solar a location has, the more the power costs there.
-So called “climate policy” is code for spending money on politically apportioned grift.
Nothing that politicians could ever do regarding tax and spend policies could ever change a single drop of rain, or alter the temperature anywhere by any amount, ever.
The idea itself is ludicrous.
-Recent emissions trends are up, ever more steeply.
If it was a stock chart, it appears to be what is called parabolic.
This scenario was never realistic, it was outlandish and impossible.
-The scenario did not just become implausible.
He wrote it as if it is a development, not an admission that what was published previously was a pile of steaming crap.
“tax and spend” -> “borrow and spend“
‘spend’ should be ‘waste’
falling clean-energy costs
They have only doubled instead of tripling. If that’s not falling costs, what is? 🙂
Mr. M: Good post, I’m surprised house trolls haven’t jumped in yet with links supporting the false notion that wind/solar costs dropped. Any “drop” is a result of past upward-spikes and the usual CliSci cherry picking. I’m not surprised to see CliSci mandarins claim credit for this great reversal in Earth’s future. Next they’ll demand a victory parade and, if necessary, stage a parade. Mr. Walsh is perilously close to admitting it was false all along, he may not get invited to join the “celebration”.
Hey Brian, you don’t just get away from years of misleading rubbish by saying “I didn’t know.” I knew when it was published that it was unrealistic because the IPCC said it was. You and your cohorts in the press did the same thing with the residential graves story from 5 years ago (no bodies ever found). Yellow journalism through and through. Zero integrity. You and your crowd should show some remorse and quit.
‘Yellow journalism through and through. Zero integrity. You and your crowd should show some remorse and quit.’
Should, but won’t. Somebody please let me know when any of the current reporters at ‘Time Mag’, The Economist or any other of our so-called ‘mainstream’ journals stop being transparently biased shills for the Left.
The reasons for the ‘death’ of RCP8.5 cited by Brian Walsh are all false. He remains a very poor journalist—grossly negligent in the “knew or should have known” sense. He said (quoting others) that 8.5 had now become implausible because:
RCP8.5 was NEVER remotely plausible. Pretending it ever was is disingenuous.
It had coal use up 5-7 times from ‘now’ by 2100. By 2100, remaining proven and probable known coal reserves could not supply that demand.
It had 2100 population at 11-12 billion, when UN projections for years have been that population will peak about 9.4 billion by about 2080.
“It had coal use up 5-7 times from ‘now’”
IF CCC is dumped and coal is rebuilt – maybe?
The reasons given for the ‘death’ of RCP8.5, as cited by Walsh, are disingenuous.
His 10 years of knowingly pushing the false narrative of RCP8.5 were outright lies.
The headline was, “‘Climate change’s worst-case scenario is officially canceled'”
Didn’t James Hansen also have a “worst case scenario” back in the late ’80’s when he testified before the Senate?
I don’t think his was ever “officially canceled” but, well, they followed in his footsteps/trendlines. Whatelse did they expect?
IN addition to all the right-on comments below (above), the guy is a condescending ass.
“Based on FALLING clean energy costs”?
WUWT?
Let me fix that headline
Former Time Mag climate reporter Brian Walsh now admits: ‘The scenario behind the most apocalyptic, attention-getting findings was largely an attempt to
imagine how bad things could getscare the general public into detrimental climate action, not a true forecastI just finished examining quite a few marine ecology papers, mostly on seagrasses, from Denmark through North America to New Zealand. Even where they had some real changes, important points, scholarly appearance, there seemed to be widespread, nuances some, negativity. When will the Journal of Fairy Tales publish a paper on The Modern Sky is Falling?
Since there is more CO2 in air there has there an increase seagrass growth?
More CO2 in the sea too. Greening. Makes sense.
“Implausible!” That word keeps coming around on “repeat” about the retirement of the RCP 8.5 emissions scenario and its close relatives.
The claimed “forcing” for that scenario is a fraction of the thickness of the index mark at zero on this plot of the ERA5 hourly “vertical integral of energy conversion” values at 45N for all of 2022. What is truly implausible physically is the claim that ANY of the reported “warming” or ANY trend of climate variables should be attributed to incremental CO2.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1knv0YdUyIgyR9Mwk3jGJwccIGHv38J33/view?usp=drive_link
Even skeptics of climate alarm could do better, in my view. Let’s not give unearned credibility to ANY more moderate modeled scenario in which the minor improvement in IR absorbing power from rising CO2 is assumed at the outset to operate as a climate “forcing” so as to drive a perceptible trend. No one knows that to be a valid assumption, in the proper context of dynamic energy conversion within the general circulation.
Thank you for your patience as my point here is also on “repeat.”
Right with you David..
Given that there is zero measured evidence that enhanced atmospheric CO2 causes warming…
ANY fairy-tale scenario based on the level of atmospheric CO2, doesn’t even reach the level of JUNK SCIENCE.
EITHER there was a potential catastrophe OR funding was stretched way past reasonable bounds.
Just to add to all the well said remarks here, the notion that RCP 8.5 was something that “could” happen is absolute nonsense.
Nowhere has an ACTUAL, as opposed to hypothetical, “effect” of atmospheric CO2 on the Earth’s temperature been demonstrated by empirical observations of REALITY. So even if we ignore the fact that tha amount of CO2 in that “scenario” was implausible, the “imagined” EFFECT applied in the GIGO “models” is EVERY BIT AS implausible.
If 4,000 ppm couldn’t prevent GLACIATION, 400 ppm or 800 ppm will never cause their wet dream catastrophe fantasies of “runaway warming.”
“So even if we ignore the fact that the amount of CO2 in that “scenario” was implausible, the “imagined” EFFECT applied in the GIGO “models” is EVERY BIT AS implausible.”
What he said! ^^^
ditto !!
I do know that I want reparations payments from reporters, nonprofits, and governments now.
Reparations from a government running on borrowed revenue?
Yes, a lot of things run off borrowed revenue like massive medicaid fraud, food stamps for illegals, housing subsidies for illegals, Green New Deal spending, unneeded extra Biden stimulus for blue bailout states spending and all the new normal of trillion dollar extra spending based on declared election mandates entering the Dem WH.
Here, here, ResourceGuy!
But rather than dinging governments (except the most obviously corrupt and profligate,) we should be going after those who PROFITED from their preaching of the Climate Hoax religion!
Al Gore, Tom Steyer, and the developers of those bird-slaughtering wind farms around the world! Mickey Mann and other “scientists” who made comfortable salaries while panicking generations of school and college kids! There is a long list of those who made bank while pushing costs up for the public!
I think a 110% personal wealth tax on the profiteers is reasonable; at least until the trillions wasted on bogus Nut Zero and Climapocalypse scams are repaid. Call it The Stupid Tax; quite apropos! Alarmist posters could be held to account, too! Right, MeLoserNamedRetarded!?
But they meant well. Their hearts were in the right place.
/sarc
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” — Upton Sinclair
It was not about hearts and all about paychecks.
> I didn’t always know…
Yet, this never stopped you from “reporting” on climate scenarios.
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. “ – Mark Twain.
_________________________________________________________________
Uh Huh If he were a current Time Mag reporter,
Time would make sure he’s a former reporter.
I didn’t always know
Nobody told me
copyright K Starmer
This is partly the Stephen Schneider legacy of his BS “double ethical bind”. To paraphrase, that was the ethical choice between “Fame, money, power” and “Being honest”.
Climate “science” went whole-hog for Door Number One
People (especially those on government payroll) really should go to prison for this level of fraud and deception
Prison for them will be “they spent it – it’s gone.”.
Bryan wrote: “when I covered climate change at Time magazine”
“covered” is the important word here. It does not include “investigate”, nor understand, nor being skeptical. He is still covering. Bless his little heart.
Yes. He never engaged in journalism, only propaganda.
And so the mea culpa from the “journalists” (sic) start as they try to recover their integrity, if they ever had it. It’s no secret the MSM morphed into a propaganda arm of the Liberals and there needs to be a reckoning with the people but don’t hold your breath.
It is happening for the Covid clowns working for Fauci
As I’ve said before, I don’t think that any majority of the global general public fell for the worst-case scenarios advanced by the climate alarmists in the first place. There may have been some initial concern, especially when much of the mainstream media got on the bandwagon. Except after awhile consumers began to notice several suspicious occurrences. The first was that there was nothing in the weather that indicated any marked departure from the usual fluctuations and certainly nothing that couldn’t be handled by taking the usual precautions. Secondly, they noticed that the climate scare was being used too often by all levels of government and a multitude of manufacturers and retailers to push higher taxes onto the public while increasing the mandates and prices for supposedly environmentally-friendly products no more efficient than their predecessors. So it’s time to lay the doomsday scenarios to rest because (a) they don’t exist and (b) no one intends to waste money and energy on a bogus crisis.
The framers of the US Constitution could not have known they were giving a license to the press the defraud on a global scale at trillions of dollars of weal
The next Assessment Report, written by politicians for politicians, will be ‘more of the same’.
I agree. RCP8.5 will be missing, but nothing will change.
When I pointed out to a left-leaning friend that some of the numbers in a particularly extreme study were fabricated, his reply was, “It’s OK to lie about the data if your purpose is to save the planet”. I think a lot of liberals work along that assumption.
Lying for the greater good has always been central to Socialist praxis.
I don’t blame the media anymore.
I blame the public.
By now, everyone knows they’ve been lied to and many don’t seem to care – no matter how much it costs them – or ironically, as far as ‘renewable’ energy is concerned, what damage it does to the environment.
Tired of winning yet?
On the odd chance that the author actually reads the comments here..
RCP is CMIP5 terminology.
As it turns out in CMIP6 models comparable to RCP8.5 produce unrealistic results.
I know of three facts partly responsible:
– the higher resolution and
– better physics
in the newer models as well as
– a programming error
( https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2025MS004967 )
At least the first two of those apply to all older models, which means old results cannot be used as published back then without an update – at least if you want to pretend to behave scientifically.
This is all well known for years and goes well beyond those unrealistic high-co2 sensitive scenarios.
It is actually well demonstrated without any room for doubt that we know the output of all older models were lacking.
What is needed is an update or retraction of all those older works.
=> Too often we can see results for example from Hansen from more than 20 years ago without the necessary update of the confidence in those results from now known model and technical errors
(An analogy might be to use conclusions from a flat earth model.. we now know better and these conclusions must be updated by current knowledge)
You are left with we now know for sure that for most of the time statements extracted from global climate models were not presented correctly.
For the most recent results we are not sure yet, but we know that for example the representation of solids in the atmosphere (like falling ice and dust) in CMIP6 (as well as in all older and likely also CMIP7) is lacking and the results are again presented with significantly wrong confidence intervals.
The lack of self-awareness is palpable with these people. Let the lying continue hence then, climate and energy liars.
This is like the game called ‘Jenga”, where you slowly pull out various supporting sticks from s pile. At some point the wole pile collapses.
I think we have some way to go yet…
I can proudly say that my four year grandson plays that game with astonishing subtlety.