Only a period of enforced “planned austerity” can save the world from dangerous global warming, a warmist academic has claimed at a TED lecture.
Alice Bows-Larkin, a climate researcher from the Tyndall Centre at the University of Manchester, said in her talk – which has since been viewed over 332,000 times – that “wealthy nations” must stop economic growth in order to avert disaster. (H/T Climate Depot)
She said:
“If our economies grow, then so do our emissions. So I’d just like to take a quote from a paper by myself and Kevin Anderson back in 2011 where we said that to avoid the two-degree framing of dangerous climate change, economic growth needs to be exchanged at least temporarily for a period of planned austerity in wealthy nations.”
“This is a really difficult message to take because what it suggests is that we really need to do things differently. This is not about just incremental change. This is about doing things differently, about whole system change, and sometimes it’s about doing less things….”
[Actually, Bows-Larkins means “fewer”]
“…And this applies to all of us, whatever sphere of influence we have. So it could be from writing to our local politician to talking to our boss at work or being or the boss at work, or talking with our friends and family or quite simply changing our lifestyles. Because we really need to make significant change. At the moment, we’re choosing a four-degree scenario. If we really want to avoid the two-degree scenario, there really is no time like the present to act.”
Pressed gently to elucidate on her claims by a TED moderator, Bows-Larkins said that not even the target of a “70 per cent cut” in global carbon emissions by “2070” would be anywhere “near enough to avoid two degrees.” (A two degree rise in average global temperatures, Bows-Larkin had argued earlier, was the very most the world could bear without impossibly hideous consequences).
Perhaps not, but since carbon dioxide is a natural byproduct of almost every known industrial process, it would certainly bring the global economy crashing to a halt causing untold misery to billions.
Bows-Larkin, however, appears to be relatively sanguine about the prospect. That’s because in her head, she has already seen what the world would look like if its temperature were allowed to rise 4 degrees C above pre-industrial levels – and this, she avers, while presenting no evidence other than her say-so, would be infinitely worse than a global mega-depression.
“Now, let’s just pause for a moment and think about this four-degree global average temperature. Most of our planet is actually made up of the sea. Now, because the sea has a greater thermal inertia than the land, the average temperatures over land are actually going to be higher than they are over the sea. The second thing is that we as human beings don’t experience global average temperatures. We experience hot days, cold days, rainy days, especially if you live in Manchester like me.”
“So now put yourself in a city center. Imagine somewhere in the world: Mumbai, Beijing, New York, London. It’s the hottest day that you’ve ever experienced. There’s sun beating down, there’s concrete and glass all around you. Now imagine that same day — but it’s six, eight, maybe 10 to 12 degrees warmer on that day during that heat wave. That’s the kind of thing we’re going to experience under a four-degree global average temperature scenario.”
Yes, really. That unmitigated, half-literate, stiltedly-delivered drivel is about as rigorously scientific and evidence based as Bows-Larkin’s talk ever gets.
But TED – an increasingly popular and trusted authority among the world’s chattering classes – nevertheless appears to believe that Bows-Larkin’s views are sufficiently well-grounded to be taken seriously.