In this part TWO of his talk Thierry presents a long list of actions that can be taken to keep the planet livable. He focuses on the so-called carbon budget. Since there is a clear understanding that rise in temperature and in emissions are directly related we can now define how much CO2 we may emit before we hit the danger point. If we do not stop fossil fuel burning we will warm the planet to up to 7 1/2 degrees by 2100 – which will be the end of life.
According to the brutal logic of climate change humans on this planet may only extract, process and use a small amount of the remaining coal oil and gas deposits in order to keep warming under 2 degrees. As societies we need to carefully evaluate what exactly should be built with the remaining carbon budget as the rest of coal, oil and gas must be left underground.
Are we going to use that precious carbon budget for more pipelines, airports, high rises, roads and factories that make useless stuff – or do we build the windmills, solar arrays and the new renewable infrastructure.
Dr. Aaron Thierry received his PhD in Ecology from the University of Sheffield and researched the impacts of global warming on the carbon cycle in Arctic ecosystems. He now spends much of his time lobbying for political action to reduce carbon emissions.
Thanks to CNU, that’s Carbon Neutral University, at Sheffield for organizing and recording this talk. The date was March 26, 2017. You can see all the slides and charts on YouTube
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