With the IPCC report out now, let's
talk about what has happened and
what is likely to happen.
And how things just might get worse
if they don't immediately get
better.
So humans have already heated
the planet by roughly 1.1 degrees
Celsius or 2 degrees Fahrenheit
since the 19th century.
And even if nations started sharply
cutting emissions today,
total global warming is likely to
rise around 1.5 degrees Celsius
within the next two decades.
A hotter future that is now
essentially locked in.
So, like all the stuff that we've
done that's really bad,
we're going to have more than that
much more no matter
what we apparently do.
So what will that look like?
Well, at 1.5 degrees of warming,
scientists have found the dangers
grow considerably.
Nearly 1 billion of
people worldwide could swelter
in more frequent life
threatening heat waves.
Hundreds of millions more would
struggle for
water because of severe droughts.
Some animal and plant
species alive today will be gone.
Coral reefs,
which sustain fisheries for
large swaths of the globe, will
suffer more frequent mass die-offs.
So at two degrees Celsius above
pre-industrial, levels,
this is where it's getting fun,
air can hold significantly more
moisture than it does now.
Making droughts more likely and
extreme rainfall worse.
I don't think that
gets talked well enough.
But it literally will hold more
moisture in the air.
That's a thing that happens.
And that will be everywhere.
At four degrees Celsius,
intense heat waves that used to
occur about once every 50 years
will become annual events.
And what do you mean will become?
That's happening right now.
>> Yeah.
>> Look at Palm Springs every year.
Look at I [CROSSTALK] in California
but, [CROSSTALK] it's getting bad.
>> Palm Springs is an abomination
and should have never been built in
the first place.
Number one, it's
the middle of a desert.
But,- >> Yes.
>> Anyhow look at Greece.
Look at towns in Germany being
swept away.
Yeah, this is not every year.
This is every couple of months.
>> Yeah.
>> There is an unprecedented
weather event that is destroying
a community somewhere around
the world.
>> Yeah, yeah, and so look.
Here, I'm trying to focus on, so
right now we have so many people in
power, who either don't accept that
this is happening or pretend that
it's not happening as they starve
their pockets with cash.
If we could get them to accept it,
what they might think is, okay, so
it's getting a little bit worse.
But that's not really how
it's working.
I mean, that's why we mentioned
the thing about the air sucking up
the moisture causing droughts, and
causing problems with farming and
things like that.
But that's not the only
example of it.
And we return to this every
once in a while
because not a lot of shows do.
But I want to focus on it
a little bit more.
So, warming beyond two degrees
Celsius, which is going to happen.
Also carries increased risk of
setting off feedback processes that
cause climate change to accelerate.
Higher temperatures will
thaw Arctic permafrost, potentially
unleashing carbon that has been
locked in a deep freeze for
thousands of years.
Methane trapped in the deep sea
could make its
way into the atmosphere.
Wildfires could turn millions more
acres of carbon rich forests into
a source of additional
greenhouse gases.
I often mentioned that,
there is a limit to how much heat
the ocean can absorb and
that will tear off over time.
That is one thing that has
been sort of masking how hot
the world has been getting.
Some of it is going into the ocean,
which we don't feel as directly,
but that is not going to
last forever.
These sinks for carbon, the ocean,
the Arctic, the Amazon,
all of that,
they're all being destroyed.
And that means that we will not
just have a worsening of
our situation,
we will have an accelerating
worsening of our situation.
And it leaves us in a place where
to throw out some numbers that will
mean little to me or you probably.
Humans can unleash
less than 500 additional gigatons
of carbon dioxide.
The equivalent of about ten years
of current global emissions to have
an even chance of limiting warming
to 1.5 degrees Celsius
above preindustrial levels.
And so we will get in a moment into
what the US and
other countries are trying to do,
but Francesca, what do you think?
[CROSSTALK] >> Okay, 500 gigatons
divided by 8 billion people.
How many are we?
>> It's something like that.
It's getting close, yeah.
>> Okay, sure, how many gigaton,
how many 0.0 of a gigaton do I get?
Let's parse it out, people.
How much more can you spend?
And what can you not afford to do?
And I mean, this is real, right?
Okay, so,
the thing about the IPCC is that it
is effectively toothless, right?
There is no enforcement agency.
It is part of the United Nations,
already doesn't have
an enforcement body.
There are not monetary consequences
on countries that do not comply
with any of these recommendations.
They are in fact recommendations.
And we need to change that, right?
We all need to become angry Swedish
pre-teens and
demand that our governments to
actually act on this.
It's because it is terrifying.
And we know that it is not on each
individual person to individually
stop doing one individual thing.
Yes, it helps.
I'm not saying it doesn't help,
it definitely fights the sadness.
I know my compost in my front yard,
helps me feel a little bit less
terrible, just a little bit.
But on a macro scale,
it is at the level, and all climate
writers and journalists have said
this including Naomi Klein, right?
That it is too big.
There is too much money that needs
to be invested to
switch course on this.
It as good as you might feel about
getting a paper straw which, look,
I don't even dunk on that,
I think that's fine.
But we need broad action.
We need governmental and corporate.
I mean, we need governmental action
to clamp down on
the corporate action.
>> Yeah. >> because these
corporations will make money off of
the lifeboats we're using to escape
the fire.
They will be selling you their
merge on that boat.
And be like, well, if you pay for
a subscription, you'll get a daily
droplet of water, or
whatever the hell it is.
A little fresh water from Amazon.
And literally, you go, I'm sorry,
this is just a wreck.
Anna and I did a story recently
about the fires in the Amazon,
the actual Amazon.
And I Googled,
because this is how I do research.
[LAUGH] No big deal.
I Googled, Amazon Fire.
What is the first thing you get
when you Google Amazon Fire?
The- >> The tablet? >> Little
stick, exactly, the tablet.
Jeff Bezos decided to name his
effing product after not just
a rain forests that the world
relies on that he is
effectively helping to destroy.
Because the massive amounts of
carbon it takes to send all that BS
all over the world.
But then the fire state- >> It is
weird >> That is like
where we suck.
Humanity sucks.
Capitalism sucks.
>> Yeah be like a new a new spin
off of my product, coral.
You've liked the original coral and
now we have coral bleach.
[LAUGH] >> That seems weird,
don't do that.
Yes, and as you're pointing
out there,
they're making money off this.
And there is sort of a fundamental
disconnect where the entities,
corporations, politicians,
were most directly responsible for
all of this.
Are making all of the money
doing it.
They're not just doing it because
their kink is destroying
the environment.
They're making money off of it.
We're suffering and
not making any money.
So you have the two
different sides.
And the one side that's suffering
is saying, hey, would you
guys willingly, voluntarily
stop making all the ungodly amounts
of money that you're getting at
no personal cost to you?
And expecting, hey,
maybe it'll work this time,
except it's not going to.
So we need to replace all
the politicians.
We need to make doing what they're
doing either literally illegal, or
more costly than the solution.
And instead we're wasting time
arguing about whether the only
politicians actually pushing for
a solution here are secretly
the worst.
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