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drowning at 2.4º

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

My mum sent this tool, which shows how different cities will look once flooded by the expected rise in sea level over the coming decades. For instance, half of Tokyo and Saitama is gone in this view of Tokyo.

After COP26, the consensus seems to be that we’ve set our hearts on a minimum of 2.4ºC of average global warming, and it’ll be here in the current decade. We've also committed to actively increasing the temperature for the rest of this century, and will likely not stop seeing the effects of the already-dialed-in impacts for close to a thousand years. It really is all going to fall apart as we pointlessly drive around changing the planet's thin atmosphere.

Curiously, models for all this were developed long ago. And by "all of this", I include the collapse of our society due to the collapse of the growth-based economy. Here's a model made in 1972 that shows that system not surviving past about 2040. It means we’re already in the apocalypse by the time I’m my mum's age.