Climate Change: Choosing to Fail, with Climate Scientist Kevin Anderson 

We're not only choosing to fail, we're hastening the failure through our warfare

Some of us came to this point of view decades ago. We have lowered our energy consumption, moved into lightweight housing, bought land, planted trees because they do a million things and we love them, set out the land to harvest water, and chosen to live a resilient and prepared lifestyle that will allow us to get through whatever hellscape the climat (or more probably humans) will throw at us. We call it permaculture. Everything we do works in the short term and gets stronger in the long term. Multitudes of low tech solutions integrated into a web of resilience. It may be extreme but it works. In some places in the world permaculture has reversed desertification. We actually know how to put fertility and water back into the land, so we aren't waiting for carbon capture or for AI or for the eco dicatorship that will inevitably end up in power. We are already living a low carbon lifestyle (only 7000miles a year) and we are healthy and useful. You should give it a look.

I'm 57 and never had a driver's license. Where I live that's no problem. Walking, cycling and public transport.

Without question, the best I’ve ever heard Prof Anderson expound his viewpoints.

Kevin convinced me to take the no-fly pledge and I don't burn anything, fossil or bio-fuels and haven't for 7 years. But, I also listen to Tony Seba and RethinkX. I'm alarmed and have been since 2004. But, I'm focused on the solutions to the extent that I can be at my advanced age. I want to die with some hope for my children and grandchildren. James and Kevin among others changed my views on climate. Tony and Elon gave me focus on fighting for an end to emissions. I live like a church mouse because I've put my retirement savings into energy efficient houses and working to get solar on the grid, reforming the utility system.We're building houses that come equipped with solar and car chargers and storage and heat pumps and no gas. I lobby and put up with the "Oh no, Bob is going off on climate and EVs and heat pumps and getting rid of NG." The EVs aren't going fast enough, but all we can do is try. Also, you can't get rid of GHGs by replacing fossil fuel emissions with bio-fuels emissions and forest fires.

@16:00 Best trees that are planted... No. But there are best trees that are never cut down. Just stop all clear cutting in the world. Lets start with that. Trees acts as weather regulators. In summer they cool down local areas, but in winter/spring they warm the area. Trees has dark albedo, so they gather loads of energy from sunlight. Trees allows loads of flowing water to their roots in the spring. They are melting the area nearby themself at fast rate. Often the area melted is also permafrost that is below them. Many forest area is currently drying up and that leads to many problems. Trees are dying for drought, they burn more easily, they are more vulnerable for diseses and pests, the forests itself has become a carbon source, ...

Kevin is on fire 😍James Hansen, Jason Box etc are all great, but Kevin has been my favourite earth systems scientist since I first came across him. Both because of his clarity, vast knowledge and honesty about his background in the oil industry, and because he is, mostly, the only one who really talks about things like how much of an immediate difference it would make to basically ban billionaires. Or even just some of the most ridiculous excesses of their life styles. Such low-hanging fruit, and zero political will anywhere to ban luxury yachts, private jets and such. Unsurprisingly, of course, but just how few people talk about this in public is very much a missed opportunity to push for real change. Plus, I so relate to the cycling comment. I've taken to "studying" this sport from a kinda sociological perspective cos it's undergoing fascinating changes from a super macho individual sport, with teams made up of literal (in terminology and tasks) masters and servants, to a much more team oriented one with an emphasis on togetherness in team networks of many different, equally necessary roles even if these networks are built around the best riders as winning and point scoring remain individualised for the most part. But top cycling teams are also built around money. Teams that were second-tier less than a decade ago are now among the best with names like UAE, Bahrain Victorious, Astana... you get the picture. Talking about even the direct impacts of climate change on races is still mostly taboo. So yeah, that requires quite some deliberate cognitive dissonance to follow, but that change from super macho hierarchies to teams focused on everyone's strengths and how to create results much larger than the sum of those is a micro version of the kind of change needed on a global scale to prevent the worst. Even how women's cycling is far behind in terms of resources and hence levels beyond the very top reflects this.

It has been a lot of fun my friends, and I salute you as we crew this sinking ship together.

I vote on climate. But my vote makes very little difference, considering I only have two choices in any given vote and neither of them think beyond the time frame of their next term.

Most honest and down to earth i've heard in a long time. Kevin Anderson is not a man who follow the other scientists like a cat around a hot green money porridge! Thanks/Sweden!!

We're on worse case worst case scenario.

love that Kevin Anderson. he has said that 1/3 of emissions are luxury, superfluous, unneccessary emissions that we could, in theory, decide to stop tomorrow without any hardship whatsoever, and with great rejoicing for many. We should do this first. It's the biggest piece, has the least resistance (in population terms) and would do a lot to undermine the populist backlash that we see/feel around the world.

19:10 interesting that Kevin calls out Myles Allen as being at the optimistic end. He did a talk for Gresham College recently about tipping points, which IMHO was edging towards being misleading. He skipped the fact that we already entered the zone for 4 tipping points, ended a key graph before 2020, and soft peddled on other issues. He didn't say anything incorrect AFAIK but the overall picture he painted was inadequate.

I spent 2 1/2 years in Canada's Arctic, where the nearest tourist destination was actually the north pole. Just 1.5 hours away by twin otter. By the 1990's less then 20 years after I left northern Baffin Island was seeing mud, for the first time. Most of this attributed to mines opening up in Arctic Bay and Pond Inlet. Today it is even worse. Not just in Canada's north but across the straits in Greenland.

Although I don't share Kevin's optimism (anthropocentrism) about what humans should do about IRREVERSIBLE AGW, he still continues to express very interesting threads of thought. He's ONE of the honest interlocutors on the subject. GOOD INTERVIEW. But I still think that everyone is missing the point that human extinction is now inevitable; humans are NOT EXEMPT from the Trophic order, we are dependant upon it and intrinsically part of it - and there IS a mass extinction event unfolding.

Thankfully denial of the climate emergency is very faint now, but KA is correct that relatively speaking we are doing effectively nothing to reduce emissions. My own view is that our political leaders will move away soon from the discussion on emissions reduction and switch to discussing DAC, & SRM and also adaptation as the focus of how we are to deal with the climate crisis. By the time it is obvious that those means are either ineffective or out of our grasp we will be dealing with the massive changes that KA described. The breakdown of international order will follow and border protection will occupy the minds of what political and military forces remain. I really don’t think it’s that far off. Certainly by 2040 the World will be very different to what it is in 2024.

I very much respect Professor Anderson. His voice has been loud and consistent. I wish more scientists shared his fervor. I can't help but feel that 'change' coming from below will be a little late to the party. But yes, it is also in my nature to try.

I've been living my life like a person dying of a terminal disease. I have no confidence in greedy humans, and greed is at the heart of this problem.

Economics Prof. Steve Keen decided about 1.5 years ago and I decided about 7 mon. ago that the only hope now of avoiding the collapse of civilization is to start a drastic rationing program like the ones in the UK and US in WWII. The goal is to reduce the GDP by *at least* 50%. This is for *all* developed nations. The nations will have to take advantage of the insights that follow from Modern Monetary Theory MMT to enable the govs. to provide income to those who lost their jobs as was done during Covid. Frankly we need to use less energy. Prof. Steve Keen has used data to scientifically show that in developed nations, energy use and GDP have a 1 to 1 ratio. So, using less energy means less GDP, and less GDP means less energy will be used. So, a 50% GDP cut creates a 50% energy cut. Just like the US in WWII we need to convert most industry from civilian production to producing stuff that we need for the Green New Deal. Also, start making the civilian stuff such that it can be repaired and is meant to last for 20 plus years not 3 years. The 50% reduction in energy use is not enough. However, the energy cut must be 100% from fossil fuels, so the percentage from other sources will go up a lot. Then we move on to replace every single use of carbon fuel that can be cut and replace it with energy from other sources. Alo, we need to use so-called geoengineering. I do NOT care if some regions will be devastated by this. If we let temps reach +3 deg. C then all humans will be devastated. I have no idea what regions would be devastated if some are. As long as I don't know who will suffer, I am just as likely to suffer as anyone else. So, IMHO we must try to cool the earth to buy time for rationing to being CO2 emissions down. Make no mistake we would be just buying time. Will we do this? Is there any political will to do this? HELL NO!

Kevin Anderson didn't get to answer whether he supports the use of nuclear energy, but here's what he said in a November 2021 interview with Amy Goodman: ====== AMY GOODMAN: We just have 10 seconds, but I want to get Kevin Anderson’s response. Are you pro-nuclear, even if it’s what he calls, George calls, “fourth-generation”? KEVIN ANDERSON: Yeah, I’m agnostic about nuclear power. My preference would always be conservation first, then energy efficiency, and then the renewables - basically, solar and wind, tidal, or whatever they may be. But then, if we cannot meet the energy demand, I would prefer nuclear to carbon capture and storage, which I think is a real problem. And so I prefer nuclear to that, yeah.

I watched most of this live!

Thank you Kevin. Your comments are right on. As you have always held.

The host seems to know more about the significant impacts of aerosol masking (and the removal thereof) than the guest. Also, does Kevin Anderson really think it's possible to maintain industrial activity (like steel or concrete production, trucking, or shipping) using renewable energy sources? Electricity only accounts for 20% of global energy use, and switching even that to renewable sources is unsustainable, since we'd need to mine more metals than exist in the world, and solar panels and wind turbine blades only last for a few decades before they need to be thrown away, and new ones made (with materials that don't exist, and powered by fossil fuels). There are also 8 billion of us.

Starting an agroforestry farm this year. Yet despite US claims to make agriculture changes for climate change, I won't qualify for CRP, CPP. US still gives subsidies for monoculture crops and dairy, etc. I was trying to find carbon credits to help as well. Models can only accommodate monoculture crops. Also most forest crops like chestnuts, sugar maples, etc are grown on small acres under 30 acres. Carbon credits usually have min acres. The smallest I found was 40. But between the 2 limiting factors on Carbon credits I will earn none. Keep in mind, with my crops it will take 3-4 years to earn my first income. And about 1 million in investment on only 48 acres. I'm doing it for climate change. I'm doing it because I love it. I'm doing it to share knowledge. And I'm doing to earn income long term.

🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:00 *🎵 Introduction and Background* - Dan Miller introduces the episode with climate scientist Kevin Anderson, highlighting the anticipation for an insightful discussion. - Kevin Anderson provides a brief background on his journey from engineering to climate science, emphasizing his longstanding interest in environmental issues. 03:10 *🔥 Carbon Budgets and Temperature Trends* - Discussion on carbon budgets and temperature trends, with a focus on the potential crossing of the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold. - Highlighting the significance of continuous emissions and the need to cease emissions to mitigate temperature rise effectively. 06:34 *💼 Climate Change Challenges and Impacts* - Addressing the challenges posed by ongoing emissions and the inevitability of surpassing the 2-degree Celsius mark. - Emphasizing the persisting impacts of climate change even if emissions were to cease immediately due to existing feedback loops and ecological challenges. 09:57 *📉 Lack of Progress and Continued Failure* - Critiquing the notion of progress in climate change mitigation efforts, highlighting the perpetual increase in emissions despite initiatives like the Paris Agreement. - Stressing the importance of acknowledging the failure to adequately address climate change and the urgency to take meaningful action. 10:27 *❌ Critique of Net Zero Targets* - Criticism of Net Zero targets, labeling them as deceptive accounting practices rather than genuine efforts to reduce emissions. - Highlighting the flaws in relying on Net Zero strategies, including the manipulation of emission figures and the reliance on speculative negative emission technologies. 15:02 *🌳 Tree Planting for Biodiversity, Not Just Carbon* - Advocating for tree planting for reasons beyond carbon sequestration, emphasizing biodiversity conservation as a primary motivation. - Cautioning against reducing forests solely to carbon storage units, neglecting their multifaceted ecological benefits. 16:52 *🌍 Impact of Latest Science on Carbon Budgets* - Discussion on recent scientific findings challenging conventional climate sensitivity estimates and aerosol cooling effects, potentially altering carbon budget calculations. - Acknowledging the complexity of climate science and the possibility of differing interpretations among researchers. 18:32 *🔍 Assessing Climate Change Projections* - Climate change projections vary in optimism, with some suggesting smaller emission reduction budgets and others more optimistic assessments. - Policy decisions should prioritize precautionary measures, considering the potentially severe consequences outlined by pessimistic assessments. - Regardless of optimism or pessimism, urgent and comprehensive action to mitigate emissions remains imperative. 21:59 *🌍 The Urgency of Emissions Reduction* - Current focus on emissions reduction is insufficient, with little progress made in mitigating emissions. - Addressing emissions reduction requires a paradigm shift, going beyond conventional strategies and considering wider ecological and social implications. - Equity and fairness considerations must be central to climate action discussions to ensure effective mitigation efforts. 26:06 *🔥 Impacts of two degrees Celsius of warming* - Increasing recognition of severe impacts at lower temperature thresholds. - Disparity in experiencing climate impacts between wealthy and marginalized communities. 26:21 *🔥 Impacts of Two Degrees of Warming* - Two degrees of warming is increasingly recognized as catastrophic, with significant impacts already observed even at lower temperature increases. - The rapid pace of temperature rise poses unprecedented risks to ecosystems and human societies, pushing towards uncharted territory. - Urgent action is needed to address climate change before irreversible damage occurs. 29:04 *💡 Assessing Climate Action Efforts* - Current climate action efforts are inadequate and lack seriousness, failing to address the urgency of the situation. - Relying solely on emissions reduction without considering a broader range of mitigation strategies is insufficient. - There is little evidence to suggest that sufficient action will be taken to combat climate change in the foreseeable future. 29:42 *💡 Exploring future climate action and technological solutions* - Doubt cast on the likelihood of serious climate action based on current trends. - Recognition of the potential role of technological solutions like carbon dioxide removal but with cautious optimism. 34:57 *⚠ Critique of Climate Models and IPCC* - Misuse of climate models and reliance on unrealistic assumptions, particularly regarding negative emissions technologies, undermines the effectiveness of climate action. - The IPCC, influenced by vested interests, may not serve as an effective body for addressing climate change due to its consensus-based structure. - Greater accountability and transparency are needed in climate research and policymaking to ensure accurate representation of climate risks and solutions.- 35:23 *🚫 Questioning the efficacy and integrity of climate governance institutions* - Concerns raised about the influence of fossil fuel executives in climate conference leadership positions. - Criticism of the IPCC's consensus-based approach and its susceptibility to influence from fossil fuel-producing nations. 36:43 *🌐 Working Groups in IPCC* - Working Group 1 focuses on science, while Group 2 addresses adaptation and impacts effectively. - Working Group 3, however, is criticized for being politically biased and influenced by subjective boundaries set to avoid controversy. 39:16 *📉 IPCC's Influence on Climate Policy* - IPCC's Working Group 3 primarily presents policy options that favor delaying action on climate change. - The reliance on integrated assessment models has contributed to the delay in implementing effective climate policies. 43:12 *🌍 Equity and Climate Change Action* - Acknowledging the issue of equity is crucial for effective climate action, as not everyone shares the same responsibility for emissions or impacts. - Climate change responses should prioritize fairness and address systemic inequalities to ensure meaningful progress. 54:07 *🌍 Climate policy and cultural attitudes towards consumption* - Climate policies in the UK, EU, and US still approve new fossil fuel infrastructure projects despite climate commitments. - The celebration of excess consumption, such as large houses and SUVs, reflects societal values and norms. 57:08 *🌐 Considerations of tipping points and geoengineering* - Climate scientists acknowledge the possibility of tipping points, such as the collapse of the AMOC, requiring urgent action. - Discussions about geoengineering highlight societal priorities and the focus on technological solutions over systemic change. 01:04:39 *🌱 Individual and collective actions for systemic change* - Individuals and civil society play crucial roles in driving systemic change towards climate action. - Leadership in addressing climate change comes from various levels of society, not just traditional political leaders. 01:12:18 *🌍 Climate change urgency and prevention* - Urgency of addressing climate change. - Importance of preventive measures, akin to responding to COVID-19 vaccinations. 01:14:18 *🔊 Addressing power dynamics in climate negotiations* - Different cultural approaches needed for each country. - Critique of the influence of wealthy nations and fossil fuel lobbyists in international negotiations. 01:19:25 *💡 Critique of IPCC carbon budgets and Net Zero concept* - Critique of the IPCC's approach to carbon budgeting. - Advocacy for earlier emissions reduction targets. 01:22:41 *🌐 Democratic institutions and climate change* - Examination of the capability of democratic institutions to address climate change. - Speculation on the potential failure of democracies to manage the impacts of climate change. 01:28:27 *🔄 Terminology for climate action* - Advocacy for clear differentiation and addressing of various emission sources. 01:30:03 *🌍 Energy consumption and equity* - Discussion on the disproportionate energy consumption between different demographics. - Emphasis on the need for a significant drop in personal energy use to compensate for industrial energy and material consumption. 01:33:19 *🔄 Future scenarios and societal change* - Reflection on the inevitability of radical change in the face of climate change. - Assertion that there are no non-radical futures, with the future being either radically different due to rapid emissions reduction or due to the impacts of climate change. Made with HARPA AI

Once again, Professor Anderson hits the nail on the head. Saying it like it is. THANK YOU KEVIN - from the Green Gathering composter!!

Persistent westerly winds have also dragged the current in one direction for over 20 years, increasing the speed and size of the clockwise current and preventing the fresh water from leaving the Arctic Ocean. This decades-long western wind is unusual for the region, where previously, the winds changed direction every five to seven year. Scientists have been keeping an eye on the Beaufort Gyre in case the wind changes direction again. If the direction were to change, the wind would reverse the current, pulling it counterclockwise and releasing the water it has accumulated all at once. "If the Beaufort Gyre were to release the excess fresh water into the Atlantic Ocean, it could potentially slow down its circulation. And that would have hemisphere-wide implications for the climate, especially in Western Europe," said Tom Armitage, lead author of the study and polar scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Fresh water released from the Arctic Ocean to the North Atlantic can change the density of surface waters. Normally, water from the Arctic loses heat and moisture to the atmosphere and sinks to the bottom of the ocean, where it drives water from the north Atlantic Ocean down to the tropics like a conveyor belt. This important current is called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and helps regulate the planet's climate by carrying heat from the tropically-warmed water to northern latitudes like Europe and North America. If slowed enough, it could negatively impact marine life and the communities that depend on it. "We don't expect a shutting down of the Gulf Stream, but we do expect impacts. That's why we're monitoring the Beaufort Gyre so closely," said Alek Petty, a co-author on the paper and polar scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The study also found that, although the Beaufort Gyre is out of balance because of the added energy from the wind, the current expels that excess energy by forming small, circular eddies of water. While the increased turbulence has helped keep the system balanced, it has the potential to lead to further ice melt because it mixes layers of cold, fresh water with relatively warm, salt water below. The melting ice could, in turn, lead to changes in how nutrients and organic material in the ocean are mixed, significantly affecting the food chain and wildlife in the Arctic. The results reveal a delicate balance between wind and ocean as the sea ice pack recedes under climate change. "What this study is showing is that the loss of sea ice has really important impacts on our climate system that we're only just discovering," said Petty News Media Contacts Rexana Vizza / Matthew Segal Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena Calif 818-393-1931 / 818-354-8307

'If' we cease all emissions, after about 5 days the temperature will increase at least another 1-2° C in a very short period of time, due to aerosol masking. The pollution in the atmosphere now is masking part of the sunlight currently that comes to Earth, actually acting as a cooling effect. Also there's a good chance in the next 5 years we could have an ice free arctic, which will be catastrophic. We're also awaiting a 50 Gigaton methane pulse from the Siberian permafrost, that is melting faster then ever. Sounds to me like the game is and has been over.

Watching again March 13,...HILARIOUS !!!

Very honest talk. Thank you. It should have millions of views.

But Kevin you missed out by far the most important action on your list of actions individuals should take - HAVE LESS KIDS.

So what do we do now?

Brilliant conversation!

This is a damn good interview.

Very interesting interview, it gave me a lot to think about and things that I need to reset in my own mind. Thank you Climate Chat team and Kevin Anderson. I subscribed and I will share this interview with everyone.

Great discussion, but a blind spot with Kevin Anderson, which he always exhibits even though he’s about as good as they get, is the environmental impact and fossil fuel use baked into building billions of solar panels and windmills. I’d love to hear his take on it, hopefully it’s not as blithe as Mkibben.

The questions seem to be saying how can we remain smug and work out how to raise awareness and get other people to change without having to change themselves. They seem to not to have been humbled by the fantastic presentation by Kevin Anderson at all.

There is no game-theoretic way to curb fossil fuel use.

I was always "shut down" during discussions of Climate Change, because I could offer the solution. There is no solution, so it "can't" even be discussed. No solution that solves still driving private cars and SUVs

Really interesting stuff from Kevin, especially the stuff about highly polluting people (can we afford the rich?) framing the debate (Noam chomsky talks about that too) to the public. Paul Beckwith would be a great guest on this channel. Nice video, thanks

Thank you for this conversation - packed with information. Always worth listening to people with a proper risk management approach.

I became aware of and a believer in climate change back in the 1980's. Prior to that I was convinced that the population explosion was going to kill us off; climate change could be linked with population. Anyway I didn't have any children because of that knowledge and am so glad that I don't. Our goose is cooked. Anyone alive that is forced to live through the ramifications is going to live through very interesting, and probably very difficult, times.

Fascinating! Anderson does a fantastic job of exposing the dysfunctionality of the IPCC, Jim Skea's propensity for wishful thinking and the unrealistic modelling of the (somewhat shady) working group 3. An interesting, if somewhat depressing insider view of the hapless IPCC machine.

I live in the mountains of the Western United States. My home insurance costs have increased by eight times in the last few years and electricity has doubled. Ours is a working class town, so these price rises, along with the frequent and damaging fires that caused these fires, are hurting regular people. Climate change is costing us us thousands of dollars a year right now.

It would be nice if the interviewer learned how to ask a question.

It seems to me we will have to do geo-engineering, on purpose from now on. We live in an Animal Farm (hattip to Orwell). Even if you chase the rich away, new masters will emerge.

I just paused at the "can that keep us under 2 degrees C" question and that framing of the question as an example of a metric for choosing to fail. That number is an economic thing adopted by the G7 in 2006. At the time the scientific number was 1 degree C. Nordhause gave the 'justification' for that doubling of an imagined non-existent headroom for significant policy and action, and eventually got Paul Weitzman's Nobel. In my knowledge of all things climate, this was the first BIG LIE that got talked 'till it walked.

Just keep planting seeds while we still have water. Anyone can. Once you can grow a plant, you can ask it for answers. I've netting some planter to offset the solar storms and will definitely save seed from this year if I can. The impact of solar maximums is pushing our degradation. The survival of plants is urgent. I grow plants for seed because I want the plant to adapt to the change.🎄🎃

Put this message out to everyone who will listen, contact forward thinking radio stations, if you love your family get this message out to anyone who will listen 👋🏻

There are no futures without revolutionary actions.

Save Our Planet Now!

1:27:00 there are many ways to grow food, more successfully in fact, without any co2 releasing fertilisers or pesticides. - Firstly, green manures are one of the most effective methods as they build up biological processes deeper in the soil, maintaining stable soil structure and greatly improving plants abilities to capture nutrition - Secondly, pesticides just aren't needed... blanket mulching, polycultures, sacrificial crops, etc... can greatly control pests and the "one straw revolution" author has demonstrated the importance of keeping some pests around and having partially damaged crops - Integrating food with the people who eat it IS A MUST, we've moved food production into large fields and the hands of a few - this is just selfish and harmful. Food production needs to be almost everyones responsibility, at least partially... this would create abundance quite easily as production levels are much higher when managed on smaller scales. The main issue with fossil fuels is plastics, they are only 1 grade of fossil fuels so then you're using only part of the fossil fuel that's being pumped out and that's very wasteful. Plastics are so essential to modern life, just look at the medical industry alone, nevermind almost every other sector

Why can't we get climate catastrophe scientists and non-climate catastrophist scientists together on a podcast? Whether for or against, nobody ever gets challenged on their facts, their reasoning, or their conclusions.

Carbon capture would not only be extremely expensive, pointless, but very dangerous to anyone nearby, if all this storage is suddenly released.

Over 70% of geologic time, the Planet is Hothouse Earth. We're headed back, to remain there for millions of years. We need to adapt for the few that survive, to keep Humanity going. Even massive Olivine mining, crushing, and distribution, won't help, at this point. Head for the southern hemisphere, ready to move further south, as needed. I am, by sailboat. Trying to preserve some music. But, everyone thinks I'm crazy. They thought I was, decades ago, but not so much, anymore

Considering that all the evidence points to us not eliminating fossil fuel combustion, we should all try to get better at survival, mutual aid, civil disobedience and anti-fascism. So Anarchism.

Finally, by 2030 the big car companies will be bankrupted and we'll be driving mainly EVs. My life has been organized around fighting climate change since 2007, first cleaning up my own use with solar panels and super energy-efficient homes and transport. My utility, I served on the board until my wife died, is 100% solar in daylight hours and sells solar to neighboring utilities. My group sponsors an annual EV fair and we're going to have a clean energy home tour. We lobby for Tesla and charging infrastructure. Local Governments should be focused on solar wind and batteries because we have tons of both and it's our economic future.

Damn this title inspires me to say that is exactly what i did since i am 12 y/o and i still do choose to fail and will keep doing so until humanity stops failure

RU-vid suggested a video of a carbon capture person at first...

19:40 a good engineer will design around worste case. Choose Delft not Detroit.

Can you guys talk about the ongoing transition to solar, wind and batteries on the grid anf the transition to EVs. It seems there are two intersecting trends, one that can lead to an end to fossil fuel emissions. Tesla will deliver over 2 million EVs this year and the Chinese are deeply committed to transition on the grid and highways. Both those transition have to be supercharged which is what you are saying. From a science point of view we need to look at both the climate and the disrupting technologies.

IPCC working group1, 2007 assessment: 'we should recognize that we are dealing with a; coupled, nonlinear, chaotic system, and therefore that long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.".

Im confidant that real policy discussions wont even start within public view until the industrial scale human starvation / die offs start (agriculture failure.) If this is set as a known variable, the unknown could be: how many make it through the tightening bottle neck? Extraordinarily complex and impossible equation to solve, but I think the first part is a known.

I'm from Melbourne Australia and I've worked out bush in transmission lines all over the country and I've experienced air of every type , the sweetest air is were lots of insects are amongst the trees, the worst air happens when petrol fumes kill all the insects and saturate the trees and waters , we are becoming algea slime oxygen dependant beings , the air hardly lifts our spirits up ,we are ignoring how insects strengthen us via their breathing to the trees . They are dying off from petrol fumes ahead of us .

Have you guys considered the dramatic decline of oil reserves at scale in the next 10 years? How about the minerals constraints needed for transitioning away from fossil energy?, which wont ever happen at scale. The population will have to decrease. I have nothing to add beyond that.

2023 Canadian wildfire, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Beginning in March 2023, and with increased intensity starting in June, Canada was affected by a record-setting series of wildfires. All 13 provinces and territories were affected, with large fires in Alberta, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Quebec. The 2023 wildfire season had the most area burned in Canada's recorded history, surpassing the 1989, 1995, and 2014 fire seasons, as well as in recorded North American history, surpassing the 2020 Western US wildfire season.

Trees have actually been a detriment in some ecosystems like in Siberia

Can we feed and house 8 bullion people with a zero carbon budget. I say the answer is NO. What you are saying is bullions of people must starve and/or die of exposure to reach this goal of zero degrees of increase. So I think we are choosing to fail because the consequences of success is so terrible.

Good talk, but in my opinion we re not choosing to fail, we just won't make the decision to succeed. Behaving on autopilot does not require any kind of brain activity and therefore it is not a decision. Halt that autopilot. Let me add also, that Peter has a very good and adequate insight into all of this. I almost said that he should be travelling around the world give speeches, but I won't.

Under capitalism, these dramatic changes (IMHO it's too late regardless) are not possible.

Just stop! Stop! Just stop everything. That's where we're at. If you understand you just stop. Otherwise you're in cloud cuckoo land. Stop

This is one of the best talks on our predicament that I've listened to. It is tragic but our democracies are incapable of dealing with it, because political parties rely on donations from lobby groups and the rich who push their own agendas. The system needs to change for any real change, which is not happening. The system is not resilient. My conclusion is collapse is coming.

No rad futures

My mentor and Guru the late Jim Lovelock had cautioned me in 2002 that the IPCC is a body of consensus science and in science there can only be the truth or not !! Later I personally encountered the late Dr Pachauri of IPCC in 2015 and raised the flag of CH4 emissions in the ESAS region. The reply I got is we will deal with CH4 when appropriate !!! Really when the shit hits the fan as we are now over the cliff sadly !

Yea we do have to fail…we are about to trigger enough feedbacks to make the biosphere uninhabitable for most large mammals, especially humans.

When we describe carbon budgets, they are completely fictional quotas, made up a sort of crisis management psychology. We've made up this bogus paradigm because IPCC included economists who inform the scientists that global panic and shock would only lead to economic collapse or world wars and an accompanying much poorer crisis management. Should we choose war and economic collapse? No, but we should be explaining that it's the only plausible outcome when we let obstructionist incrementalists set policy and fail to radically shift. We have no carbon budget. Anyone who rationalizes the choices they make by pointing to carbon budgets, are crisis managers, not people addressing climate science. Regarding US policy for sustainable transportation, our leaders have chosen EVs as the solution. But the EVs on offer today range in impact from 17 tons (BMW i5) to 39 tons (Rivian R1T) CO2e just to build an EV, before powering it. Those are the manufacturer's estimates via their LCAs. While EVs lower emissions, they aren't compatible with zero carbon AT ALL.

Why 'or'? It's radically different from temperature anyway, what do we want to save? We are in it already. Towns have been destroyed like Derna, Acapulco, and Lahaina

0.4 degrees of current warming was from before CO2 began to rise sharply. 0.4 degrees of warming is attributed to urban heat island effect. Do we blame the rest on Co2 which is about 12% of greenhouse gases. Water vapour which varies widely is the most prevalent GHG but you won’t get a grant to study it. Why on a desert night in the absence of water vapour does Co2 not hold the heat??

I can see India losing over a million souls, this summer. The Phillipines are projected to hit 50°C, in May, while 22 hydrolectric plants are still shut down, for lack of water. No AC, and water short, just to keep bodies cool. Seeing July numbers, already, in the USA. Bad hurricane projections, and that's by ignoring the unprecedented SST. Horrible, more likely.

What is the temperature of earth supposed to be ??

How about you breakdown where the INCREASE in emission comes from… So when you say “we” are increasing emissions who do you mean by “we?”

Renewables are NOT renewables.They ARE replaceable energy harvesting machines. A full life cycle analysis of so-called renewables shows that the levelized cost of renewables is not as low as is being claimed and they are far more environmentally destructive that fossil fuels. They rely on carbon and toxicity colonialism. It is a well known fact that the lower the energy density of a power source, the greater the material intensity (read environmental destruction). The talk of renewables and EVs is like a lot of lemmings running towards a cliff tiwards their own destruction. We are living in what William R. Catton described in his classic 1980 book, OVERSHOOT, as ecological overshoot. The work by earth system scientists on planetary boundaries is now clearly illustrating Catton’s basic thesis. When Catton wrote OVERSHOOT he was confident that we could address the issues he described. In 2009 Catton wrote BOTTLENECK which was a much more pessimistic book. He described our Civilization as heading towards a bottleneck, a time of significant restriction and crisis. Renewables are not going to change that. In fact, they may make it worse. They will require a duplication (or more) of existing electricity transmission network with all the attendant material costs and environmental destruction, not to mention costs, to deal with distributed and disparate power sources. Wind turbines are equally material intense and also rely on carbon and toxicity colonialism. A scientist who worked for the CSIRO in Australia, published a book in 2003 entitled DEEP FUTURE: OUR PROSPECTS FOR SURVIVAL. In that book he was reasonably optimistic. After more detailed study and analysis and monitoring of global trends, in 2013 he published GLOBAL OVERSHOOT:CONTEMPLATING THE WORLD’S CONVERGING PROBLEMS. So a sociologist (Catton) and a scientist (Cocks) end up at a similar conclusion. Global warming is just one symptom of ecological overshoot, but by buying into the false hope of renewables,EVs, etc, we are simply not addressing ecological overshoot. In our growth obsessed world, it is highly unlikely that governments will ever acknowledge that infinite growth on a finite planet is simply NOT POSSIBLE. So we invent fairy tales like decoupling economic growth/the economy from energy consumption and material/resource use, flying in the face of the idol of GDP. The earth is not flat so we shouldn’t treat it as such. Looking to renewables to “save” us is flat-earth thinking. Prof Lisi Krall has offered a novel thesis to explain our growth addicted Civilization, tracing the roots of that addiction back 10,000 years to the birth of agriculture. Our addiction to growth has very long and deep roots. We therefore need much more disciplined thinking and analysis to understand our civilization’s predicament or we will be, as a species, what Prof Anderson describes as an evolutionary bottleneck.

Question for all you climate people. If we put aside the cause of the current global warming. If we say current global average temp is 15 Deg C up from 13.5 Deg C preindustrial age (say 1850). Who is to say that 13.5 Deg C was the optimum temp for the world? I have no idea whether 13.5Deg C was optimum. Perhaps 10 Deg C is optimum (presume this would lead to larger ice caps, lower sea levels, larger uninhabitable areas at the poles. larger habitable areas at the equator etc) or perhaps 18 Deg C is optimum (presume this would lead to no ice caps, higher sea levels, larger uninhabitable areas at the equator, larger habitable areas at the poles etc). Given that whatever the average temp of the globe is, there will always be a temperature gradient between the poles and the equator wont life just mover to the part of that gradient that suits them? I live in the UK and the two bee hives that died on our farm over the winter due to the cold, would certainly have liked it to be warmer!

I don't feel like the police deserve to be 'celebrated'.... Certainly not in most countries I've visited or lived in.

Countries like China , India have no chance for slowdown fosil fuel 2030 . I see almost impossible zero emissions at 2030 for poor countries .One reason is that fosil fuels will be much more cheaper, so simple!!!

A first step has to be to add a tax on the extraction of more fossil fuels. In the order of twice the total World GDP per pint. Making it financially suicidal to keep extracting it.

Hothouse Earth, is when Primates evolved. Proto-horses evolved before, and are still here. It's all in the geologic record. We "can" survive, contrary to Guy M. He won't listen to my arguments, since I don't have any kind of degree. It'll be nearer Cape Horn, and in New Zealand, plus other southern islands.

If Mr.Anderson knows so much he will be happy to debate openly with Mr.William Happer. I know he is too scared to do so. The truth will always win in the end.

'Our' 'democratic' institutions are to some extent controlled by us masses who say 'but I like my car'. Keep riding the bicycles, and hope others follow.

In the past, CO2 levels have been often many times higher than they are now and there was no problem with the climate. Why should there be now?

1:07:30 "There's not clear answer to what we need to do"

Stop burning things!

"deeply colonial models"; Anderson is one of the few who is direct and blunt enough to acknowledge this truth. the models are not flawed in terms of the science or legitimacy, but they are heavily biased and exonerative towards western countries. it's disgusting

This is why all the rich people are building underground bunkers

Many great climate scientists consider we are well above 11.5 and are close to 2 degrees even now. Their data is strong, and it is convincing. Which is something much of the IPCC data and assertions are profoundly are not.

Would you please comment on the recent passing of a bill in the Tennessee Senate which bans climate engineering, and geoengineering in their state ... ? To talk about climate change without talking about climate engineering is absolute BS.

Omg. Kevin is quoting Antonio Gramsci! The Marxist philosopher. 🤔

Our political leaders are largely in the realm of the absurd. Any look at the IPCC and COP makes me all the more confident in human extinction.

Kevin Anderson always telling the truth and correcting all the delusional optimists that think we are on the right track - we’re heading towards the abyss at record pace

the politions are to afraid to tax pollution!!!!!! since we are capitaists we must let the money/cost of goods guide us!