IPCC 4th report

Russel Norman extracts some stats from the 4th IPCC report. There’s a couple in turn I want to comment on:

now warming at about 0.13C per decade

So by the time our kids die, at current rates the average temperature would be 1.3 degrees higher in 100 years.

Sea level rise now about 3.1mm per year

So again in 100 years, sea levels on current rates may be one foot higher.

Now even an extra foot is undesirable I agree, but what I hope to see is sensible economic debate about the costs of reducing carbon vs the cost of adapting to warmer temperatures. A mixture of both is needed of course, but the debate always seems to focus on the former only.

The big unknown also is what will be the state of our technology in 100 years. 100 years ago there was almost no commercial plane travel, no computers, no space travel, no nuclear power, no Internet etc. We have no idea what out level of technology will be in 2100. Now this is not a reason to do nothing at all and wait for the great invention, but it is a reason to doubt the most extreme fear-mongering scenarios. With the right incentives human innovation is brilliant.