IEA Bombshell: Global Warming May Lead To "Miami Beach In Boston"

[bananas]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/06/644231/iea-bombshell-global-warming-miami-beach-in-boston-unless-urgent-action-is-taken/

IEA Bombshell: Global Warming May Lead To ‘Miami Beach In Boston’ Situation Unless Urgent Action Is Taken

By Joe Romm on Aug 6, 2012 at 12:20 pm

The International Energy Agency was, until recently, a conservative and staid body. When I was at the U.S. Department of Energy in the 1990s, we ignored most IEA reports, because, like the vast majority of energy forecasters, they inevitably projected that the future would simply continue the trends of the recent past.

But now, of course, if we stay on current trends, we are going to utterly destroy a livable climate and ruin the lives of billions of people. Even so, attention must be paid when a major international body is so uncharacteristically blunt, when they actually lead their website with this bombshell headline from their own news release!



<snip>

The IEA news release is about the recent remarks of Deputy Executive Director Richard H. Jones:

Ambassador Richard H. Jones warned that if energy policies do not adapt, enough carbon dioxide will be being emitted to reach 1,000 parts per million in the atmosphere. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that equates to 6º Celsius increase in temperature by the end of this century. “That’s basically Miami Beach in Boston,” he said.

<snip>

[Warren Stupidity]

1. Drill baby drill.

That is the level of discourse and the mainstream position on global climate change here in this country.

As a nation we are doing nothing.

I am on the island of Marthas Vineyard typing this. Off in the distance, the cape wind project remains stalled, now into its second decade of inaction. Meanwhile an old acquaintance, a local islander whose family has lived here for centuries, and who has the land, the agricultural zoning that makes it possible, and the financial resources, put up her own industrial strength windmill, and it generates her farm's entire electrical needs as the offshore winds keep that thing moving all the time, and it puts power back into the grid to pay for itself. It was a good long term investment for her. A no brainer. And her rich neighbors hate her for doing it, and the nantucket billionaires continue to block the cape wind project.

[marmar]

2. And both Boston and Miami Beach are likely to go the way of Atlantis.

nt

[Javaman]

3. what will the real Miami Beach look like then?

[kenny blankenship]

6. Postcards from Atlantis

Maybe Gainesville Florida will be the new Miami Beach. It might be like the beach in Lawrence of Arabia though (Aqaba, Jordan). Nice sand and waves, and nothing but desert wastes behind it.

[formercia]

4. Just think how much money Canadians will save

by not having to travel to Miami, which will probably be underwater by then.

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, bananas.

[AverageJoe90]

7. Things may be bad, but 1,000 ppm?

I don't think we'll quite get there even if all the worst feedback theories DO come to pass, and nothing at all gets done. Although by the time we did, civilization as we know it wouldn't be around anymore........

[bemildred]

8. The truth is we have only vague ideas about the effect of global warming.

Weather and climate are chaotic systems, and there are obvious catastrophic transitions in our planetary climate record already, and we have been pumping the system for thousands of years with our activities.