Research paper referenced in the video that makes Dr. Hossenfelder very worried:

Global warming in the pipeline: https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889

Abstract

Improved knowledge of glacial-to-interglacial global temperature change yields Charney (fast-feedback) equilibrium climate sensitivity 1.2 ± 0.3°C (2σ) per W/m2, which is 4.8°C ± 1.2°C for doubled CO2. Consistent analysis of temperature over the full Cenozoic era—including ‘slow’ feedbacks by ice sheets and trace gases—supports this sensitivity and implies that CO2 was 300350 ppm in the Pliocene and about 450 ppm at transition to a nearly ice-free planet, exposing unrealistic lethargy of ice sheet models. Equilibrium global warming for today’s GHG amount is 10°C, which is reduced to 8°C by today’s human-made aerosols. Equilibrium warming is not ‘committed’ warming; rapid phaseout of GHG emissions would prevent most equilibrium warming from occurring. However, decline of aerosol emissions since 2010 should increase the 19702010 global warming rate of 0.18°C per decade to a post-2010 rate of at least 0.27°C per decade. Thus, under the present geopolitical approach to GHG emissions, global warming will exceed 1.5°C in the 2020s and 2°C before 2050. Impacts on people and nature will accelerate as global warming increases hydrologic (weather) extremes. The enormity of consequences demands a return to Holocene-level global temperature. Required actions include: (1) a global increasing price on GHG emissions accompanied by development of abundant, affordable, dispatchable clean energy, (2) East-West cooperation in a way that accommodates developing world needs, and (3) intervention with Earth’s radiation imbalance to phase down today’s massive human-made ‘geo-transformation’ of Earth’s climate. Current political crises present an opportunity for reset, especially if young people can grasp their situation.

My basic summary (I am NOT a climate scientist so someone tell me if I’m wrong and I HOPE this is wrong for my children), scientists had dismissed hotter climate models due to the fact that we didn’t have historical data to prove them. Now folks are applying hotter models to predicting weather and the hotter models appear to be more accurate. So it looks like we’re going to break 2C BEFORE 2050 and could hit highs of 8C-10C by the end of the century with our CURRENT levels of green house gases, not even including increasing those.

EDIT: Adding more sources:

Use of Short-Range Forecasts to Evaluate Fast Physics Processes Relevant for Climate Sensitivity: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019MS001986

Short-term tests validate long-term estimates of climate change: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01484-5

  • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    10 months ago

    This means, instead of using silage to make fertilizer or allow tractors to run on ethanol, we send it far away, where it can be used make a lot more contributions to greenhouse gases than we would have if we’d just stop trying to rear animals.

    can you provide any numbers to support this? it seems to me if the carbon has been taken out of the atmosphere by crops, then burning it as ethanol has a higher carbon release than letting a cow turn at least some of it into food.

        • jak
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          10 months ago

          You’re correct, of course, but it’s a minuscule amount of land compared to livestock farming.

          • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            10 months ago

            if we are only talking about animals raised on agricultural waste, i doubt it. do you have any numbers to substantiate that?

            • jak
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              10 months ago

              You can make ethanol in a bathtub, so I don’t know what you’re looking for here.

              • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                10 months ago

                one bathtub can’t turn all of the worlds agricultural waste into ethanol. surely you have some kind of data to back up your claims though.

                • jak
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                  10 months ago

                  As far as I’m aware, the footprint of ethanol plants is not public information. If you’re unwilling to extend the benefit of the doubt far enough to accept that ethanol production takes less land than livestock production, I can’t help you.

                  • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                    10 months ago

                    the question is whether turning out agricultural waste into ethanol has less of a negative impact on the environment than feeding it to animals. a claim either way must be substantiated.