Have you forgotten COP 26?

European Governments are having to explain how they will achieve what they said they will do. Ireland performs the exercise, and there is very tough negotiations going on right now. The Greens are a minor but essential player in the Governing coalition here. Everyone has agreed farmers will cut emissions by between 22% & 30%. Farmers want to do 22% & no more. The Greens want a lot more from them, and have the Energy(?) ministry. Farmers are among our biggest polluters. If farmers have to give more ground, they will take it out on whoever they elected. Greens have seats in city constituencies mainly. So either way the Governing coalition will lose seats out of this. Farmers might go broke over this. This is the first really tough decision being made here. Nobody cares about the planet, actually, just short term gain.

It's also blindingly obvious that with every country in mainland Europe battling forest fires, centuries worth of sequestered carbon is being added back in to the atmosphere. Ditto in the Excited States. But that's not going to be counted. Everyone's statistics will show carbon reductions, not increases.

And the numbers they provide, assuming they are honest (and many will be), will be valid for what they DID do, but not what NATURE did. It is important to separate political efforts from the science. Science needs ALL the numbers, governments provide the numbers for what they can CONTROL. It is important to remember that all human effort and engineering cannot control nature, we can only influence it. Also important to remember that we DO influence it, intentionally or not, and not always as we would choose! We have to work within the framework of what is possible and what we CAN do to try to save lives and human civilization. (Such as it is.)

As far as I remember, none of the agreements from any of the COP meetings are binding. So they can just decline do what they promised.

I'm pretty sure it's going to be counted. If anything will be done about it is another question...

I see many reasons in your comments why Governments might not be held accountable for failures. Let's not forget something I said earlier Accounting trickery "That's not in our carbon budget, that's in Nature's carbon budget" may allow us an easy mind, but doesn't change the reality that we are the generation ruining the planet. The conditions for vastly increased burning have been created in the main by human-caused global warming.

The next stage will probably be "Oh it's too late to do anything now. We're in positive feedback, and it's going to get worse whatever we do." It's a stinging indictment of man's attempts to govern himself that we seem set to ruin the perfectly balanced planet we were allowed to conduct the experiment on.

My view on this is that assessment is far too cynical and borders on not only predestination, but negative predestination. Every major technological advance, whether viewed individually or in concert over an epoch, came to an apocryphal head. One example is the invention oif the printing press. For a time it literally upset everything even destroying some instituions and resposnsible for revolution and widespread death.... and then came The Enlightenment.

I don't thing enough people will just give up because they think "It's too late now. Nothing we do can help" regarding the consequences of our dependence on the technology of power. The will to survive no matter what is massive and often massively under appreciated, especially by the relative ease of living common in modern civilizations. No matter how bad you think you have it, none of us can possibly have an appreciation of how short and brutal life so often was in the Past.

Maybe I'm just absurdly optimistic, but even though I do imagine tribulation is ahead of us all, I think the outcome will be a New Enlightenment, even if it takes a hundred years. There are just too many of Us, too spread out, for Humanity to just disappear any time soon.

Maybe I'm pessimistic, maybe you're optimistic. I did have a 'probably' stuck in there. Let's let others weigh in, and in any event, time will tell.

There is a perfectly clear methodology by which mankind will ruin earth, or send it into a positive feedback loop drastically reducing it's ability to support life, and leading to billions of deaths and damaging nature beyond recognition. The method of avoiding that is world unity in making drastic corrections, or Divine Intervention making said drastic corrections.

Enorbet, you're entitled to be skeptical until the end, and the cement seems firmly set that way, but you can't deny the logical development of post #27, the evidence and opinions of experts, and the tens of thousands of forest acres burning as we discuss this by saying I am negative! Where's your usual appeal to Science? The measurements? The papers? The hours-long Youtube videos? Oops! They all support my concusions.

Personally, I feel what irks you is my reference to Relevation 11:18: The section I have in bold is on the nail, and it is hard to deny. But you are an intelligent thinking man, and the implications of the rest of the verse trouble you.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...te-legislation

I'm seeing a distinct absence of carbon budgets. I'm going to continue to doubt they have any political significance whatsoever.

If you're in the Excited States, I'm not surprised. I see a distinct lack of them too. Everywhere you look, things are going in the wrong direction. Europe is tinkering with carbon budgets so the public feels something is being done, but nothing really is.

It's depressing to belong to the generation that's in the process of ruining the earth.

1. And again: I think that there is a severe misunderstanding about what a "carbon budget" really is. In your household budget you might save for unexpected events, but you do not budget for "furnace scheduled to explode on 3 september, replacement cost) as a line item. Your budget includes expected and scheduled events, some ill-define maintenance, and saving against unexpected events that cannot be scheduled or predicted. Business budgets may include contingency (slush) funds but are mostly about what can and should be predicted as business needs and usual expenses for the next quarter anther next fiscal year, generally not for the effects of an unexpected pandemic. Carbon Budgets are based upon the carbon USED/RELEASED by the normal and expected usage by the people and industry of the nation, not what is released by natural events.

2. An agreement to reduce the nations carbon footprint makes sense, but how to GET there is generally left undefined. Clearly the goal is to reduce the overall release of greenhouse gasses, but the country cannot destroy itself in seeking that goal. Short term adjustments to maintain the health and survival of the country and people while pursuing the long term goal are to be expected. In the current cases the energy effects falling out of the ground wars in Europe and Africa are seriously messing with the plan, and humanity may become extinct as a result, but that outcome is NOT s sure thing. Seeking the long term goal is still the right thing to do.

3. Scientific and Engineering advancements have made Solar, Wind, Wave, and Geothermal energy sources cheaper, faster, and easier to implement in most areas of the world, and far cleaner with less carbon footprint than older technologies. Power companies were already starting to migrate to these sources for economic reasons starting two or three decades ago. Sane countries and technical and financial factors are now encouraging and accelerating that trend, Every fossil fuel plant retired, every well capped, every reduction in energy waste of every kind results in a net reduction in planned carbon release forever. Single events, and countries and companies, that are less than sane and that reverse the trend are short term reversals that cannot overcome the more widespread trend of the majority of the nations of the world.

The real question is not about our perception of "carbon budgets", although that is a useful measure for thinking and planning, but rather will the net change be enough to control global warming to the extent that humankind might be able to survive, and perhaps even preserve our civilization. Focusing on lesser issues and details may have value, but we need to keep the bigger picture in mind.

Personally, I think you're uncomfortable with where this thread rested - that this generation will be the one that is probably going to fundamentally damage the earth, and fulfill Bible prophecy in so doing. Either that or you're fond of writing.

To avoid that "thermal runaway" scenario, carbon output needs to be reduced drastically, not increased. But that won't happen now, because it means real pain & poverty for masses of people. So an alternative will happen later, when we are forced to face the forseeable consequences of our actions, or when God intervenes. I mentioned Revelation 11:18 already, I won't do it again.

You may have missed the part about how this has been trending since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and we have known about it since about 1912 for sure.If we can reduce carbon output in time to keep the global average temperature from rising too much, we can still stop it form being the larger disaster. It will still be a serious inconvenience, that is no longer avoidable, but it need not mean human extinction. That is my goal, and that of huge portions of the world population. Oh good. I appreciate your restraint.

People will surely dispute how long we have known about the implications of global warming for sure.

As for the "If we can reduce carbon output in time..." is unrealistic thinking. Who will; volunteer to take the pain? Who can force that sort of thing through? Livelihoods are at stake, it's too painful to contemplate. We're going in circles here, I'm not going to repeat what I said in posts #27 & #36.

Pain? We have been migrating to solar and wind and off of carbon for more than 30 years because it is cheaper, faster, and better. There is no pain in doing it a bit faster, unless you are in love with your gas (or coal) burning automobile. I am looking forward driving electric cars for the rest of my life because they are BETTER, and that is not painful! I have had some solar powered features, but never a fully solar powered house. I have wanted a solar house since 1974, and now it is easier and cheaper than it was then! I see no pain in this.

I DO see pain in being displaced or killed by weather and disaster factors driven by climate change. Even were it painful, and I do not see that it is, the cost of NOT controlling carbon is far higher than the cost of controlling it.

Speak for yourself. The USA (your location) is the world's worst polluter per capita.

You would think so. But nobody is prepared to make the required changes. Your last president and possibly your next didn't even accept global warming was real.

Two problems we are working on fixing, but there is some serious insanity on that side of the political spectrum slowing us down. I understand some other countries have the same problem. Sane people must continue to strive to save life on this planet, the other options are unacceptable.