Climate Letter #406

What would it take to limit climate change to 1.5C by 2100? A new study provides a set of answers that sound realistic. A comparison is made with the amount of effort required to stop at 2.0C, which by itself is anything but easy. Many points are covered, starting of course with the need to avoid further delay. The goal is said to still be achievable, but that assumes the necessary political will to do the job is in place—maybe not quite there yet.

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Climate Warnings: Heard, but not listened to. The author covers events of the past three decades, which include a number of loud and clear warnings about how the climate would change that soon became realized but largely went unheeded. No one can say they weren’t warned. Are today’s predictions more likely to be wrong?

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What extreme weather can do to those who are most vulnerable. This story vividly describes what can happen when a particular community reaches a state of total desperation. Their plight is clearly weather-related, but whether or not today’s “global warming” is the primary cause for this location is not the main point. The main point is that this is an example of where global warming is likely to take us, on a far larger scale, if the current predictions of scientists are actually realized.

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A revolutionary discovery that is fundamental to the nature of magnetism. A whole new class of magnets has been created, with wide open potential. A director of the National Science Foundation is impressed by what he sees: “Their probing of generally accepted tenets about magnetism has led to a new understanding of  an old paradigm. This research has the potential to catapult sustainable, energy-efficient materials in a very wide range of applications.” It sounds like renewable forms of energy would be high on that list.