Climate Change

[Michael Scally MD]

Willner SN, Levermann A, Zhao F, Frieler K. Adaptation required to preserve future high-end river flood risk at present levels. Science Advances 2018;4. http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/1/eaao1914.abstract

Earth’s surface temperature will continue to rise for another 20 to 30 years even with the strongest carbon emission reduction currently considered. The associated changes in rainfall patterns can result in an increased flood risk worldwide. We compute the required increase in flood protection to keep high-end fluvial flood risk at present levels. The analysis is carried out worldwide for subnational administrative units. Most of the United States, Central Europe, and Northeast and West Africa, as well as large parts of India and Indonesia, require the strongest adaptation effort. More than half of the United States needs to at least double their protection within the next two decades. Thus, the need for adaptation to increased river flood is a global problem affecting industrialized regions as much as developing countries.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Breitburg D, Levin LA, Oschlies A, et al. Declining oxygen in the global ocean and coastal waters. Science 2018;359. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6371/eaam7240.abstract


A Foreboding Similarity in Today’s Oceans and a 94-Million-Year-Old Catastrophe
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/01/suffocating-oceans/550415/

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Weather-induced conflicts in developing countries spill over to developed countries through asylum applications. One approach to estimating the future impacts of climate change is to look at the effects of weather fluctuations. These transient shocks can be interpreted analytically as randomly distributed treatments applied to countries around the world.

Missirian and Schlenker analyzed the relation between these localized shocks to agriculture and applications by that country's migrants for asylum in the European Union. When temperatures in the source country deviated from a moderate optimum around 20°C that is best for agriculture, asylum applications increased. Thus, the net forecast is for asylum applications to increase as global temperatures rise.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

O’Neill DW, Fanning AL, Lamb WF, Steinberger JK. A good life for all within planetary boundaries. Nature Sustainability 2018. A good life for all within planetary boundaries

Humanity faces the challenge of how to achieve a high quality of life for over 7 billion people without destabilizing critical planetary processes. Using indicators designed to measure a ‘safe and just’ development space, we quantify the resource use associated with meeting basic human needs, and compare this to downscaled planetary boundaries for over 150 nations. We find that no country meets basic needs for its citizens at a globally sustainable level of resource use. Physical needs such as nutrition, sanitation, access to electricity and the elimination of extreme poverty could likely be met for all people without transgressing planetary boundaries. However, the universal achievement of more qualitative goals (for example, high life satisfaction) would require a level of resource use that is 2–6 times the sustainable level, based on current relationships. Strategies to improve physical and social provisioning systems, with a focus on sufficiency and equity, have the potential to move nations towards sustainability, but the challenge remains substantial.


A Good Life For All Within Planetary Boundaries
The Challenge - A Good Life For All Within Planetary Boundaries

No country in the world currently meets the basic needs of its citizens at a globally sustainable level of resource use. Our research, recently published in Nature Sustainability, is the first to quantify the national resource use associated with achieving a good life for over 150 countries. It shows that meeting the basic needs of all people on the planet would result in humanity transgressing multiple environmental limits, based on current relationships between resource use and human well-being.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

John C, Peter E, David K. Deconstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors. Environmental Research Letters 2018;13:024018. Deconstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors - IOPscience

Misinformation can have significant societal consequences. For example, misinformation about climate change has confused the public and stalled support for mitigation policies. When people lack the expertise and skill to evaluate the science behind a claim, they typically rely on heuristics such as substituting judgment about something complex (i.e. climate science) with judgment about something simple (i.e. the character of people who speak about climate science) and are therefore vulnerable to misleading information.

Inoculation theory offers one approach to effectively neutralize the influence of misinformation. Typically, inoculations convey resistance by providing people with information that counters misinformation. In contrast, we propose inoculating against misinformation by explaining the fallacious reasoning within misleading denialist claims.

We offer a strategy based on critical thinking methods to analyse and detect poor reasoning within denialist claims. This strategy includes detailing argument structure, determining the truth of the premises, and checking for validity, hidden premises, or ambiguous language. Focusing on argument structure also facilitates the identification of reasoning fallacies by locating them in the reasoning process. Because this reason-based form of inoculation is based on general critical thinking methods, it offers the distinct advantage of being accessible to those who lack expertise in climate science.

We applied this approach to 42 common denialist claims and find that they all demonstrate fallacious reasoning and fail to refute the scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic global warming. This comprehensive deconstruction and refutation of the most common denialist claims about climate change is designed to act as a resource for communicators and educators who teach climate science and/or critical thinking.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The much-heralded demise of the coal industry may be overstated, a new scientific analysis asserts — finding that if all planned plants were constructed, the world would have little chance of meeting its climate change goals.

The new study, by Ottmar Edenhofer of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change in Berlin, and three colleagues, finds that nations including Turkey, Vietnam and Indonesia could increase their emissions from coal dramatically between now and 2030, based on current plans.

In combination with already existing infrastructure, these planned or in-construction plants, if run for a standard plant lifetime, could burn up much of the remaining carbon budget for holding the Earth’s temperature increase below two degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the research concludes.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The much-heralded demise of the coal industry may be overstated, a new scientific analysis asserts — finding that if all planned plants were constructed, the world would have little chance of meeting its climate change goals.

The new study, by Ottmar Edenhofer of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change in Berlin, and three colleagues, finds that nations including Turkey, Vietnam and Indonesia could increase their emissions from coal dramatically between now and 2030, based on current plans.

In combination with already existing infrastructure, these planned or in-construction plants, if run for a standard plant lifetime, could burn up much of the remaining carbon budget for holding the Earth’s temperature increase below two degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the research concludes.

Ottmar E, Jan Christoph S, Michael J, Christoph B. Reports of coal’s terminal decline may be exaggerated. Environmental Research Letters 2018;13:024019. Reports of coal's terminal decline may be exaggerated - IOPscience

We estimate the cumulative future emissions expected to be released by coal power plants that are currently under construction, announced, or planned. Even though coal consumption has recently declined and plans to build new coal-fired capacities have been shelved, constructing all these planned coal-fired power plants would endanger national and international climate targets. Plans to build new coal-fired power capacity would likely undermine the credibility of some countries’ (Intended) Nationally Determined Contributions submitted to the UNFCCC. If all the coal-fired power plants that are currently planned were built, the carbon budget for reaching the 2 °C temperature target would nearly be depleted. Propositions about ‘coal’s terminal decline’ may thereby be premature. The phase-out of coal requires dedicated and well-designed policies. We discuss the political economy of policy options that could avoid a continued build-up of coal-fired power plants.