According to the few posts on the topic, not everyone here agree about the extent and implications of climate change, but, since LW is full of people more knowledgeable than me on most topics, including this one, I want to ask a question about climate change anyway:
Whatever are the implications of this change, we’re releasing a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere, and it can be expected to increase global temperatures. Now, what do we do? I mean, my question is, there are a lot of politicians and activists suggesting a lot of solutions, and I can’t make sense of which ones are are actually the most supported by the literature, or make more sense. And I have the same problem about the issues and drawbacks that are never mentioned but that would arise were we to implement those solutions.
So, my main contribution to LW seems to be asking other people to explain stuff to me (I hope you don’t mind :) ), but do you people have any ideas on the question?
Happily, the world’s experts regularly compile consensus reports for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the Sixth Assessment Report is currently being finalized. While the full report is many thousands of pages, the “summary for policymakers” is an easy—sometimes boring—read at tens of pages.
I think you’re asking about wg2 and wg3, in which case reading the SPM might be useful—there’s about 60 pages of them once you skip the frontmatter etc. Most shorter answers are going to be at best true but kinda useless “reduce emissions in the most cost-effective politically-feasible way, and take appropriate local action to adapt to changing conditions” would be my one-sentence attempt.
I actually recently had an opportunity to skim through the Working Group 2’s full report, so I know there is some stuff there. I hadn’t thought of looking at the WG3’s, for some reason, even though it’s probably more useful for my question, so thanks for suggesting it.
According to the few posts on the topic, not everyone here agree about the extent and implications of climate change, but, since LW is full of people more knowledgeable than me on most topics, including this one, I want to ask a question about climate change anyway:
Whatever are the implications of this change, we’re releasing a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere, and it can be expected to increase global temperatures. Now, what do we do? I mean, my question is, there are a lot of politicians and activists suggesting a lot of solutions, and I can’t make sense of which ones are are actually the most supported by the literature, or make more sense. And I have the same problem about the issues and drawbacks that are never mentioned but that would arise were we to implement those solutions.
So, my main contribution to LW seems to be asking other people to explain stuff to me (I hope you don’t mind :) ), but do you people have any ideas on the question?
Happily, the world’s experts regularly compile consensus reports for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the Sixth Assessment Report is currently being finalized. While the full report is many thousands of pages, the “summary for policymakers” is an easy—sometimes boring—read at tens of pages.
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/ - The Physical Science Basis
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/ - Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/ - Mitigation of Climate Change
I think you’re asking about wg2 and wg3, in which case reading the SPM might be useful—there’s about 60 pages of them once you skip the frontmatter etc. Most shorter answers are going to be at best true but kinda useless “reduce emissions in the most cost-effective politically-feasible way, and take appropriate local action to adapt to changing conditions” would be my one-sentence attempt.
Thanks for your answer.
I actually recently had an opportunity to skim through the Working Group 2’s full report, so I know there is some stuff there. I hadn’t thought of looking at the WG3’s, for some reason, even though it’s probably more useful for my question, so thanks for suggesting it.