Report: Earth's energy imbalance removes almost all doubt from human-made climate change

I don't know if they are predicting such devastation, but it seems they are predicting we are headed
in that direction. It's the direction which is being predicted, not the final destination, no one in science is
going to stick their head out that far. But laypersons / policy makers can, and can they must.

By simple logic, if you head towards a wall and do not change your direction, you will eventually hit the wall.

https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/

What my own fears are regarding the issue are not the point, but I can tone the thing down a bit, so:

We can assume that one side of the argument or the other, one side will eventually be proven correct, and the other in error.

Given that we do not know, in advance, which side will err, the question becomes:

As policy makers, which group do we err with, if err we must?

Those that do nothing, where no money will be spent, but it could lead to a terrible outcome if they are wrong.

Or those that want something to be done, which will cost money, where we will do something, which might prevent a terrible outcome and if we err, all we lost was money and effort.

What say you? Seems to me the prudent choice is the latter.

 

Does the amount of warming have to result in the extinction of homo sapiens in order to get us to act? We could easily melt down all of Greenland and Antarctica
with much less warming than that described below. We could easily destroy all coral reefs and kill off many fish species too. The oceans become more stratified
and depleted of oxygen when we warm the planet by a few degrees C, not to mention ocean acidification's effects on many species.

The climate response to five trillion tonnes of carbon | Nature Climate Change

• Published: 23 May 2016

Part of the Abstract:
Here, using simulations12 from four comprehensive Earth system models13, we demonstrate that CO2-attributable warming continues to increase approximately linearly up to 5 EgC emissions. These models simulate, in response to 5 EgC of CO2 emissions, global mean warming of 6.4–9.5 °C, mean Arctic warming of 14.7–19.5 °C, and mean regional precipitation increases by more than a factor of four. These results indicate that the unregulated exploitation of the fossil fuel resource could ultimately result in considerably more profound climate changes than previously suggested.


This report from Nature is covered in a an article from the Guardian.

World could warm by massive 10C if all fossil fuels are burned | Climate change | The Guardian

The new work, published in Nature Climate Change, considers the impact of emitting 5tn tonnes of carbon emissions. This is the lower-end estimate of burning all fossil fuels currently known about, though not including future finds or those made available by new extraction technologies.

The researchers used a series of sophisticated climate models and found this rise in CO2 would lead to surface temperatures rising by an average of 8C across the world by 2300. When the effect of other greenhouse gases is added, the rise climbs to 10C.

The warming caused by burning all fossil fuels would also have enormous impact on rainfall. The new research shows rainfall falling by two-thirds over parts of central America and north Africa and by half over parts of Australia, the Mediterranean, southern Africa and the Amazon.

 

What the world would be like with 1.5 to 2.0 degree C. increase in GMT above mid eighteenth century levels.

A Degree of Concern: Why Global Temperatures Matter – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet (nasa.gov)

 

I say your goalpost keeps moving... your challenge was predicated upon 'extinction of the human species' until I asked you to cite that prediction. I'll presume we can now continue the discussion without that particular sword of damacles swinging over us...?

If we go with the alarmists, we will expend massive amounts of resource drastically altering our industry and economy. If that doesn't succeed in stabilizing the climate, that's less resource we have available with which to adapt to the change. If the carbon taxes don't work, we'll wish we had spent it on storable food, the new houses, infrastructure and irrigation equipment necessary to farm new lands instead of lining the pockets of already obscenely wealthy carbon offset investors who, even now, galavant around the globe on private jets and yachts spewing out more carbon in a week than many of the people they're demanding 'make sacrifices' could hope to generate in a lifetime.

 

my post #29 is partially my response to this as well.

Additionally, I'm totally on board with substantially reducing the use of fossil fuels and replacing them with renewables well before the year 2300. Thats entirely reasonable, and quite frankly, if we're still slaving to big oil by then, we're all F'd anyway. What I'm opposed to is trying to fundamentally alter our industry and economy just in the next decade or so to try to prevent from having to shift some farmland around and save the houses of some people who live too close to the water.

 

Options are not needed because the "problem" is imaginary. Climate sensitivity is low enough that the Paris temperature target will be achieved without changing anything.

 

This view that you present is not backed up by the best available science. You have claimed that the climate sensitivity is not higher than 1.5 degrees C.
The IPCC AR6 claims with high confidence that the climate sensitivity is greater than 2.0 degrees C. and the most likely range is between 2.5 degrees C.
and 4.0 degrees C. The IPCC AR6 report is consistent with all of the evidence that I have studied.

IPCC_AR6_WGI_Full_Report.pdf
Here is the most recent assessment by the IPCC:

A.4.4 The equilibrium climate sensitivity is an important quantity used to estimate how the climate responds to radiative forcing. Based on multiple lines of evidence21, the very likely range of equilibrium climate sensitivity is between 2°C (high confidence) and 5°C (medium confidence). The AR6 assessed best estimate is 3°C with a likely range of 2.5°C to 4°C (high confidence), compared to 1.5°C to 4.5°C in AR5, which did not provide a best estimate

 

The IPCC's conclusion is political, not scientific. The best science puts ECS between 1 and 1.5C.