The Climate series: a reference post.
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Sorry, did I just say "climate change"? I ought to say Climate Catastrophe. So should you.
This will be the first of many posts on climate catastrophe. In my opinion (but not only mine), we're passed the tipping point. And following Dornbusch's Law, having arrived, it's coming on faster than anyone expected.
Krugman, with the first bit (my paragraphing):
The Burning LandHe won't be alone saying this on these pages. I have a raft of pieces tabbed up and waiting to be posted.
I’ve been searching for something useful to say about the epic heat wave and drought afflicting U.S. agriculture, other than that this is the shape of things to come.
Of course it’s about climate change: a rising number of temperature records is exactly what you’d expect given an underlying upward trend in global temperatures.
Just for good measure, this via Michael J. Roberts, whom Krugman links to in a different post (my emphasis):
The weather fluctuates and heat waves happen. But the data show that the relative frequency of extreme events like this has increased tremendously. Just look a few posts back or read Jim Hansen's Climate Dice paper (PDF). Statistically speaking, this is almost surely climate change.Hansen is one of the big guns in the field. I'll have more on Hansen's new paper later.
After a brief consideration of the (considerable) consequences, The Professor looks at the prospect for change in policy:
there is no prospect whatsoever of getting action.So there.
The outcome isn't good. It's still not too late to at least mitigate the catastrophe (yes, the c-word again; get used to it).
But that would take a dictatorship which transfers massive wealth from the Koch Bros and their Ilk to alternative energy ... now.
You could do that via a huge tax. But as I said, a (friendly) dictatorship would be needed, because the political system is locked up, both parties are compromised and complicit, and the media, which should be messaging on behalf of the solution ... is messaging on behalf of the problem.
Screwed, to use a carpentry term.
We'll have more on climate catastrophe very soon — there are now lots of voices with lots of data.
Stay tuned. If nothing else, the Blame Game should be hours of entertainment all by itself. (I'm serious; I can't wait until the complicit start dancing and pointing — and asking for Federal money.)
GP
To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
