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To: Governments, the United Nations, European Union, businesses large and small, communities, charities, mothers, fathers, single people, anyone with an interest in the future of humanity and the species that share the planet with us

Stop burning fossil fuels now!

Since James Hansen's speech to Congress in 1987 we have known we are causing a problem with our world that is existential for our civilisation as well as many species we share the planet with.

Humanity has had many meetings since - including IPCC COPs - but still the emissions go up.

Net zero by 2050 - unachievable with currently agreed measures - is probably very dangerous. We need to get the atmosphere back to 350ppm CO2 to have a reasonable chance of a long term future.

That simply cannot be achieved with current strategies and promises. We need to:
1) Obtain international agreement to stop burning fossil fuels before the end of THIS decade;
2) Identify economic means to support citizens to move off fossil sources of energy as soon as possible and move existing fossil-industry workers to work compatible with a habitable world.

Why is this important?

As far as we know, we are the only creatures in the universe who currently understand something of its existence. It would be a shame if that capacity were lost due to something we had it in our power to fix.

More concisely, if you have children, you will want to leave them a world in which our civilisation can continue to thrive and produce new wonders.

Category

Updates

2022-02-06 09:03:02 +0000

In the UK, the chattering classes are spending all their time obsessing about whether a single politician should or shouldn't lose his job.

Meantime the clock that really matters keeps ticking.

https://www.mcc-berlin.net/fileadmin/data/clock/carbon_clock.htm

2022-01-30 13:09:20 +0000

Average temperature is currently rising about 0.2 degrees Celcius per decade. The oceans are limiting this increase by absorbing much of the heat. That's killing corals and starting to melt ice from underneath. We need to stop emitting carbon into the atmosphere, and the sooner we stop, the better chance we have of stopping a runaway warming.

2022-01-29 19:15:18 +0000

NASA have recently seen the amount of energy the planet retains from the sun double to one watt per square meter.

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/figure_1_v2.gif

The planet is already 1.2 degrees warmer on average than the pre-industrial era.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/state-of-the-climate-how-the-world-warmed-in-2021

If warming reaches 1.5 degrees - which at current rates will happen before 2035, we are at risk that many positive feedbacks will start to come into effect, sending us in to an uncontrollable warming phase humanity can no longer do anything to stop.

We must stop burning fossil fuels as soon as possible. It will not wait for a future generation to deal with. It will not wait for "net zero" in 2050.

2022-01-29 19:14:57 +0000

The atmosphere had 280 parts per million of CO2 before the industrial revolution. This can be measured. In fact, air from ice cores has been measured going back 800,000 years.

https://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/images/air_bubbles_historical.jpg

In 2021 it was measured at an average of 419ppm. So far as we can see, it has never before risen so high in such a short space of time.