World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns

[panzerfaust]

Source: Guardian (UK)

The world is likely to build so many fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be "lost for ever", according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/09/fossil-fuel-infrastructure-climate-change

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Whether it is 5 months, 5 years, or 5 decades: At some point it will be too late.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iovMGXiNw4M/TJaFhlzmvZI/AAAAAAAABic/KGIgqiWfMvc/s320/Oh+crap+was+that+today+dinosaurark.jpg

[GliderGuider]

1. If it's going to be too late in 5 years, it's already too late today.

Nothing much is likely to change in the trajectory of our globalized industrial civilization over the next 5 years.

Estamos tan jodidos!

[bananas]

3. Buy idyllic tropical beach property in Siberia. nt

[GliderGuider]

5. Nah - too much methane for my taste:

I hate it when the spring breeze catches fire over my front lawn.

[SpiralHawk]

2. "Now how can we Profit even more from this?" - RepubliCorp, Inc. (R - 1%)

"We will just keep on lying about it, meanwhile massively funding corporate media blowdry Truth Wankery. That way, we can under the cloak of our Foxy lies, keep on pumping out the scuzz and raking in beaucoup cashmoneybucks. Smirk. Sneer."

- RepubliCorp, Inc. (R - 1%)

[tclambert]

4. Are they sure the deadline wasn't five years AGO?

More like 20 years ago. Climate scientists have been playing catch-up with the data since the 1980s. They didn't have a consensus that global warming was likely until the data showed it was already happening. And then they still assumed it would take thousands of years to make any significant difference until the data showed it happening far faster than expected. Then they rechecked data on ancient times and found climate can change in decades instead of centuries. We have probably already passed certain "tipping points" where natural feedback loops (like permafrost melt releasing methane or reduced snow and ice cover increasing solar absorption) will make warming continue no matter what we do.

[panzerfaust]

9. Sigh: When just for the once, I am Trying to be an optomist

However, you may be right.

[raouldukelives]

6. Just keep investing in Wall St

Show them the desire to profit outweighs any threat to the environment. They appreciate your support.

[reggie the dog]

7. we are fucked

i have a 3 year old kid that i love dearly but i often wonder why i made her, where is she going to live? hell i dont care i have seen plenty in my 32 years, plenty fall and break already, my family used to be middle class, i and my brother failed that one according to most people in the usa, though we say we were fucked out of it, my brother works harder than our father did and have much less to show for it i gave up and work as little as possible and have next to nothing to show for it, just like my hard working brother....the difference is that i am a teacher and he is a mechanic, like dad.....


the economy is fucked, the planet is fucked and humanity is run by a bunch of assholes who have ruined the economy and the planet....


and i am a criminal because i smoke weed to help forget this long enough to enjoy a bike ride or a film or coloring with my kid.....


off to bike ride 2 towns over, i cant wait until my kid is old enough to ride bikes with me, the car will be used a lot less then.

even i, who "does his part" for the environment, i live in a tiny one bedroom place so little heating costs, no ac so no cooling (i live on the french riviera so it gets hot but i like it hot), get 60 mpg in my car, often bike to do errands and visit friends,

yet i have a car, and a plane ride to the usa in the summer

if everyone had that the planet would be too polluted so who am i to rant

[Plantaganet]

8. We got five years...

...stuck on my eyes
Five years
What a surprise
Five years
My brain hurts a lot
Five years
That's all we've got

[Javaman]

10. it was too late 30 years ago when reagen rolled by epa regs. nt