You can check the ppm of atmospheric CO2 for when you were born here (a measure of climate change).
Sidebar for the current political news,
321 ppm
350ppm is a ballpark of safety.
The beauty of this chart is that it cuts through the equivocating that the mainstream is doing at the governmental level. The IPCC and governments around the world (including New Zealand) are working towards holding the planet at 1.5C rise above pre-industrial levels. Our targets give us a % change of that (50%?), which means there’s a fair chance we will continue on to 2C. That’s catastrophic for nature and humans. Even 1.5C is risky, full of uncertainties and our inability to predict tipping points and things running away on us.
The article the chart is from (2017),
Let me now turn to the safe concentration pathway. This embraces the original UNFCCC objective by lowering the CO2 concentration so as to minimize its harmful impacts on Earth systems. On the optimistic assumption that 350 ppm is safe, the curve declines from 410 ppm to 350 ppm by 2050. The resulting environmental damage, represented by area 1, is extensive and may still trigger tipping points and points of no return, but it provides our species with at least a chance for survival.
The green pathway is the powerdown. This is us learning to live within our limits and fast. Not overnight, but it’s a shift away from green BAU that sees everyone with an EV and instead gives everyone enough food and a decent standard of living. It’s the option we don’t yet know is on the table, and it’s the one that has hope and possibility, honour and redemption.
We can blame the Royals for where we are, nice easy targets, and miss the point of the meme. We can blame the elite, but short of a strategy to get them to change, that leaves us powerless. We can blame Labour or the Greens, but here’s the rub: political parties are beholden to voters,
I don’t see it as selfishness so much as people not seeing a way out. Yet. The degree to which we can both imagine a future of living within our limits and how to get there, is the degree to which we will act. But no-one is coming to save us, the politicians will follow the voters, and the voters are all of us. This doesn’t mean we are to blame, it means we hold the power to effect change, by voting, and by creating the pathways so that everyone else can see how to change too.
The ppm royal meme is a chef’s kiss of a tweet, potent and multi-layered. One of the most important aspects is this: by the time Prince Louis is old enough to vote, it will be too late. We have the chance to save everything, in our hands, right now. What will we do with that?
If you’re aware of how bad things are and want to experience pathways through, try Rob Hopkins‘ work (books and podcast) on what the path to a good future looks like.
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