Unless global heating is reduced to 1.2C ‘as fast as possible’, warm water coral reefs will not remain ‘at any meaningful scale’, a report by 160 scientists from 23 countries warns

Unless global heating is reduced to 1.2C ‘as fast as possible’, warm water coral reefs will not remain ‘at any meaningful scale’, a report by 160 scientists from 23 countries warns

  • Rhaedas@fedia.io
    75·
    2 days ago

    Unless global heating is reduced to 1.2C

    If we plateaued right now and did everything possible to draw CO2 out of the atmosphere and oceans, it would probably take a few thousand years to get back down. The reasoning - we weren’t the main CO2 contributor, we just were the extra catalyst to throw things off to begin the acceleration up. So now that things are off balance and feedbacks are kicking in, how can we reverse what we put into the environment AND counter the extra feedback outputs? It’s like trying to stop the boulder that was easy to push onto the hill slope.

    • Zedstrian@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      11·
      2 days ago

      Humanity absolutely was and continues to be the main ‘CO2 contributor’; coal, oil, and natural gas didn’t just dig themselves out of the ground and spew themselves into the atmosphere. The immediate halting of worldwide pollution is necessary, but unfortunately unlikely to occur in a manner keeping to the Paris Agreement’s goals, particularly while Big Oil has such a strong influence over American politics and countries worldwide continue to rely on and expand fossil fuel production.

      • Rhaedas@fedia.io
        11·
        1 day ago

        My phrasing may have sounded like the “humans aren’t the problem” climate deniers, but my point was that our amounts are only a percentage of the natural ebb and flow of CO2. The problem is that our addition was enough to tip the scales and cause an initial slow climb that has gotten faster and faster, and our percentage (which has itself magnified in the past few decades) is still a part of an increase from other natural sources that would have stayed dormant had we not started the process. Human activity was the catalyst of the reaction, and usually a catalyst amount required isn’t large.