Veille 2.1

A crucial system of ocean currents may already be on course to collapse, according to a new report, with alarming implications for sea level rise and global weather — leading temperatures to plunge dramatically in some regions and rise in others. Using exceptionally complex and expensive computing systems, scientists found a new way to detect an early warning signal for the collapse of these currents, according to the study published Friday in the journal Science Advances. And as the planet warms, there are already indications it is heading in this direction.

Humanity faces ‘devastating domino effects’ including mass displacement and financial ruin as planet warms

Catastrophic climate change and the collapse of human societies By Josep Peñuelas, Sandra Nogué National Science Review, Volume 10, Issue 6, June 2023 The scientific community has focused the agend…

The scientific community has focused the agenda of studies of climate change on lower-end warming and simple risk analyses, because more realistic complex asses

Prior research has posed a paradox of sorts: if the risk to humanity from natural hazards is so large, then why do we exist? The human species has existed for about 200,000 years, and our ancestors for even longer. Natural hazards have existed throughout this time. If they posed a significant risk, then humanity probably would have been wiped out a long time ago—yet here we are. Prior research has taken this observation about deep human history to imply a low ongoing global catastrophic risk from natural hazards, especially in comparison to anthropogenic hazards.

Prudent risk management requires consideration of bad-to-worst-case scenarios. Yet, for climate change, such potential futures are poorly understood. Could anthropogenic climate change result in worldwide societal collapse or even eventual human extinction? At present, this is a dangerously underexplored topic. Yet there are ample reasons to suspect that climate change could result in a global catastrophe...

Prudent risk management requires consideration of bad-to-worst-case scenarios. Yet, for climate change, such potential futures are poorly understood. Could anthropogenic climate change result in worldwide societal collapse or even eventual human extinction? At present, this is a dangerously underexplored topic. Yet there are ample reasons to suspect that climate change could result in a global catastrophe. Analyzing the mechanisms for these extreme consequences could help galvanize action, improve resilience, and inform policy, including emergency responses. We outline current knowledge about the likelihood of extreme climate change, discuss why understanding bad-to-worst cases is vital, articulate reasons for concern about catastrophic outcomes, define key terms, and put forward a research agenda. The proposed agenda covers four main questions: 1) What is the potential for climate change to drive mass extinction events? 2) What are the mechanisms that could result in human mass mortality and morbidity? 3) Wh

Global heating could become "catastrophic" for humanity if temperature rises are worse than many predict or cause cascades of events we have yet to consider, or indeed both. The world needs to start preparing for the possibility of a "climate endgame."

Increasing risks posed by climate change are causing rare extreme events that can kill more than 10 million people or lead to damages of $10 trillion-plus, posing threats of total societal collapse, a UN report finds.

Three former UN climate heads say gap between government promises and actions will change environment irreversibly

Oil and gas majors are planning scores of vast projects that threaten to shatter the 1.5C climate goal. If governments do not act, these firms will continue to cash in as the world burns

As the world battles historic droughts, landscape-altering wildfires and deadly floods, a landmark report from global scientists says the window is rapidly closing to cut our reliance on fossil fuels and avoid catastrophic changes that would transform life as we know it. The state-of-the-science report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the world has rapidly warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels, and is now careening toward 1.5 degrees — a critical threshold that world leaders agreed warming should remain below to avoid worsening impacts.