Mash on the Monet, and the appropriate framing of climate tipping points.
Yesterday I was discussing with some smart friends, who take climate change very seriously but are sceptical of the bigger more alarmist claims. They thought that the messaging from climate activists who have been throwing stuff on paintings was good, as they are framing the issue as minor damage to painting frames vs "not being able to feed our children by 2050". Having just read Factfulness by Hans Rosling, I was sceptical that we would be in a worse position on world hunger by 2050. Low and behold, https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00322-9, it looks like under all SSPs, undernourishment is projected to fall by 2050. Score one for me.
However, the immediate response to this (after accepting that I'd made a strong point) was that this doesn't seem to take great consideration of the risk of tipping points. Once you take the extreme risk of those into account, the possibility of massive increases in global hunger is right back on the table. So the question for me is twofold:
How seriously should we take the risk of tipping points? What's the best resource for mapping their probability and impact?
Why doesn't the serious climate debate talk about these as much? It seems like all predictions in the IPCC effectively remove tipping points from the equation and consider a relatively smooth increase in temperatures, and a smooth-ish impact on social relations vis a vis the SPSS.
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Mash on the Monet, and the appropriate framing of climate tipping points.
Yesterday I was discussing with some smart friends, who take climate change very seriously but are sceptical of the bigger more alarmist claims. They thought that the messaging from climate activists who have been throwing stuff on paintings was good, as they are framing the issue as minor damage to painting frames vs "not being able to feed our children by 2050". Having just read Factfulness by Hans Rosling, I was sceptical that we would be in a worse position on world hunger by 2050. Low and behold, https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00322-9, it looks like under all SSPs, undernourishment is projected to fall by 2050. Score one for me.
However, the immediate response to this (after accepting that I'd made a strong point) was that this doesn't seem to take great consideration of the risk of tipping points. Once you take the extreme risk of those into account, the possibility of massive increases in global hunger is right back on the table. So the question for me is twofold:
How seriously should we take the risk of tipping points? What's the best resource for mapping their probability and impact?
Why doesn't the serious climate debate talk about these as much? It seems like all predictions in the IPCC effectively remove tipping points from the equation and consider a relatively smooth increase in temperatures, and a smooth-ish impact on social relations vis a vis the SPSS.
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