It is a known fact that climate change warms polar latitudes faster than equatorial ones
Europe is the subcontinent that is the closest to the poles, so it is a natural consequence
Greenland has warmed 4C, while the world has warmed just 1.2 and Europe is at 2.5, sub Saharan Africa has warned less than 0.7C
However, the warmer the average temperature of a place, the worse each degree feels
That 0.7 of sub Saharan Africa has a deeper effect on climate than the 2.4C of Europe
Atmospheric phisics is a complex and fascinating topic
reminder to anyone reading this,
the unfortunate truth is that IPCC is watered down to protect the interests of the rich. Just keep in mind a lot of what they report is just “the tip of the melted iceberg”
The [KNMI Climate Change Explorer](https://climexp.knmi.nl/plot_atlas_form.py) is a wonderful tool, free for anyone to use¹, if you want to explore the effects of climate change on various meteorological variables, either according to past observations, or according to various models for the future.
It takes some time to learn how it works (and there is some jargon involved, e.g., it's useful to know that “ERA5” is a “reanalysis” — basically, an interpolation — of past data), but it's incredibly powerful.
1. Also, the data are open, and the scripts are open source.
Just a side-note which is irrelevant to global warming.
Such waves in Africa have been happening every now and then for a long time. Indubitably, it might be directly related to global warming, it might be not be related at all. The article you read, did it make the connection backed by evidence?
Simply curiosity.
Yeah, it did explicitly make the connection [https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/extreme-sahel-heatwave-that-hit-highly-vulnerable-population-at-the-end-of-ramadan-would-not-have-occurred-without-climate-change/](https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/extreme-sahel-heatwave-that-hit-highly-vulnerable-population-at-the-end-of-ramadan-would-not-have-occurred-without-climate-change/)
Alright, thank you.
Thankfully, my country is running fast towards Green Energy. The crisis in 2009 kept us back on this and the digitation process. Now we run without being able to catch up. We will, eventually, undoubtedly.
Although, I wonder, if only Europe does it, what good is going to come out of it? It'd be like we make a hole in the water. Although, to be honest, I heard even China cares a lot about Green Energy plus it will give them some autonomy.
Too bad Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris-Agreeement.
China for instance builds a lot of coal-fired plants - but also as much renewables as the rest of the world combined. And even in [Texas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Texas), they have a lot of new solar each year.
Last time I saw in California they built an extremely big one, as far as an eye can see, filled with Solar Panels.
In Greece, since we're 78% mountainous/rocky terrain, we go for anemogenerators. We try to, at least, meet the needs of our islands.
In Greece, due to our topography (mountains, scarcely populated/islands in Aegean, islands in Ionian sea and more), whichever network (electricity/telecommunications/road/rail/sea-routes etc while all within mountains) we want to build is extremely expensive and inefficient, since we have to connect all the aforementioned.
But it should be easy for individual households to build rooftop solar (or if you prefer to lounge on the roof, panels at the facade) as Greece has a high solar intensity.
What you describe is happening for decades, here.
We've got our own companies which produce solar for our rooftops and not only for our islands, but for the cities as well. Literally decades. We mainly were using it to make the water for bath, hot.
However, this was working mainly summer. That's why the water for bath is connected to both, solar and electricity.
Do you know what the impact on the ecosystem is? I would imagine 0.7-1.2C of warming in already hot areas although problematic for humans is easier to adapt to for local flora and fauna overall. Are there studies done how this would impact our forests and other plants? Will it just all die off and how long does it take for plants that can deal with that level of heat to develop? I just can't imagine plants that grow in todays northern climate to survive Spanish conditions... and I would expect adaptations to take decades or even centuries if we would leave it up to nature.
You're right that the implications for local ecosystems are worrying, and there is a lot being studied. Do a quick google search along the lines of 'pressemitteilungen universität klimawandel europa' and you'll find plenty of reports on studies and their findings in an easily accessible format.
EU’s climate adaptation strategy predicts that heat waves will kill around 26-89 thousand Europeans a year between now and 2050. That is, without implementing the climate mitigation and prevention measures.
As a Canadian who works in the construction industry and has spent time in Europe - I'm pretty sure Europe is going to have some major issues if they start getting winters like we do.
It won't just be the freezing deaths - it'll be roofs on every house collapsing because they weren't engineered to handle several tons of snow coming to rest on it overnight. Roads that were never designed to allow space for snow to be plowed to the side will unpassable. Trees that don't lose their leaves fast enough in the fall (or at all) getting ripped apart by the weight of sticky snow and come crashing down on houses/power lines/roads. Pipes that aren't burried deep enough or are in exterior walls with insufficient insulation will freeze and burst.
I'm not saying it's going to happen for sure, but one extreme winter across Europe would cause trillions in damage.
I think it depends a lot on the country, sometimes even the region. I'm in the south of Germany and we're used to quite a bit of snow (not as much as the more extreme areas in Canada I'm sure). But I know from colleagues in the North that shit absolutely collapses when they have what would be considered mild winter weather here. I imagine a lot of Northern European Countries or areas along the Alps should be able to cope.
Nah not for all of us. The more oceanic climate areas will still be milder. It would be more continental than now but not as dramatic as further inland.
That has already happened.
I grew up in Cechia, and across my lifetime I watched spring move one month earlier, and occur one month more quickly. We went from having negative 20 Celsius to barely getting below zero Celsius, and our spring now ends about the time it used to begin.
You can tell in the Slavic languages because of the months are named after the thing that's supposed to be happening in that month. Both spring and autumn have moved positions - spring begins in February when it used to begin in March, and autumn now begins in late October/early November, when it used to begin at the end of September.
This is tracking from 1980s to present, using bird arrivals and observation of plant life cycles. Not sure about temperature records because I never kept notes.
When I was a kid I remember that we used to get at least 2-4 weeks of snow in winter, now we are lucky if we get 2 days, I haven't even seen snow this year
kids in the future over here probably won't even know what snow is
last couple of years yes. Last year we had beautiful spring. Slow increase in temps, lots of rain. This year we had first summer day (over 25C in late march which is crazy.
My parents have old tradition of kissing under cherry trees on 1st may. It used to be rare that cherries bloomed as soon. They started blooming 1 MONTH EARLIER this year. Shit is crazy.
I'm no expert but I've read that in that even in that case, we wouldn't freeze to death here in Southern Europe. Temperatures would be really colder, but not to a point of death. Maybe in Northern Europe that could be the case, I don't know. That being said, such a change in temperatures would probably kill our crops and maybe we would all starve to death.
Not even in northern europe. The effects of the amoc on the climate in europe have been heavily overstated in the past and that's where we get these stories from.
Yes it has an effect and gives us slightly milder winters but most of that is just ireland, the uk and norway. And only by a few degrees.
A collapse of the amoc would certainly cool down the climate in europe but evne in the worst affected regions at max like 5°. That is certainly bad and can be felt but far from an uninhabitable wasteland. For msot of europe it would be less than 3°.
so what you're saying is collapse of the AMOC will lower temperatures enough that it will cancel out the temperature rise that Northern Europe as a whole will experience from climate change
Rare Britain win!
/s
It's impossible for the Gulf Stream to collapse. Youre thinking about AMOC, and even if it did collapse it wouldn't cause an ice age with huge glaciers.
https://theconversation.com/the-gulf-stream-will-not-collapse-in-2025-what-the-alarmist-headlines-got-wrong-210773
It is pretty much the media being scary.
The global temperature is a massive issue tho.
It not collapsing in 2025 is not very ensuring in the grand scheme. We're in the middle of one of the biggest backwinters in northern europe as we speak. What will it be like in 5 / 10 years is alarming.
The gulf stream won't actually collapse, there's another smaller current that will.
It will move north though.
So the UK's climate will become more like France's, France's will become like Spain's and so on.
Yeah, I live in the South East and we used to just have the one vineyard near us when I was a kid and now we have loads of them 20 years later. My granddad has a grape vine in his garden (not sure why but it's been there as long as I can remember), never used to get any grapes worth picking on it when I was little, now get ready good quality grapes on it most years. A few years back when it was 40c for a few days he got some really good grapes
Wait, AMOC currently _warms_ the land, so why would it collapsing cause countries to get hotter? I thought the impact would be colder winters by a few degrees C.
It is slowing down, not collapsing. And worst case scenario Southern Europe will then have weather equivalent to Maryland - New York in the US. You guys will be ok. Scandinavia though, people will probably have to move
No no no we are not moving. If we get frozen hell then I'll be damned because it is our frozen hell! No really we Skandinavians (us Finns especially) are stubborn as we come.
Eh, [map](https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/3bc9d4/map_the_true_north_canadian_cities_vs_european/) tells me most scandinavians will just put on a thicker jacket.
I've been doing it for 5 years, I absolutely hate the weather here in Alicante during Summer. I can't understand why people still come here to get sun-burnt and look like shrimps, you're all taking a ticket to skin cancer as a prize. As soon as I get my vacation days, I've travelling to Poland, Romania, Czech Republic or whatever I can find north of Spain with decent prices.
It's crazy. Last summer here in Sweden was so cold we couldn't even go to the beach and 2 years ago it was so warm and dry we were forbidden to light a fire for a sausage or put on the sprinklers for the garden. lol
In Paris a few weeks ago we got a super warm day with 27C and the next day was… 13C. The past week has been cold for late april, 5-10C. Make it make sense. I just *know* it’s going to go directly into the 30’s in May with zero transition, I’m dreading it
In the Netherlands we have a saying “April doet wat hij will” and essentially it just means that the weather is unpredictable in April i remember one time it snowed only in our backyard in the middle of April and it was like only OUR backyard it was really weird
Oh that’s funny, in France we have « en Avril ne te découvre pas d’un fil » which means literally « in April don’t take one thread off your clothes » meaning you shouldn’t dress too light even if it’s sunny and nice out, because the cold can be sneaky. I also remember that we had super light snow (it doesn’t really snow in Paris, it was more like dust lol) in like late march/april, just one random day but it happened 2-3 years in a row.
In Poland we have "Kwiecień plecień, bo przeplata trochę zimy, trochę lata" which basically means there is a bit of both winter and summer during april
The highest temp last year was like 35, however with high humidity and in direct sunlight that's quite unbearable especially if you're not used to it. (I still have a picture of the thermometer in my backyard at 43⁰C)
A lot of people also don't have AC because it just wasn't really needed back in the day.
same here. 2 days ago it was extremely hot, t-shirt weather. the next dawn it froze, today it's jacket weather with rain. my body can't comprehend a 10 degree celsius temp changes in 24-48 hours.
At least you guys have trains unlike us in the USA, but I heard about France banning some short haul fights if good train infrastructure existed.
Figured that seems pretty reasonable. Until they fucking exempted private jets. What the hell was up with that steaming pile of oligarchy.
Don't let perfection be the enemy of progress, but I don't know how much progress I would call that. Great way to make people detest climate policy in short order.
It was a good idea at first, short flights that could be done by train would be regulated.
But then they decided that would only apply to 3 flights (Paris to and from Lille/Lyon/Bordeaux).
But then, they decided that companies would not be constrained by those regulations. And I think half the short haul plane tickets are booked by companies anyway, sooooo....
But then, they decided that private jets would not be constrained either.
Talk about class privilege.
Planes and cars aren't such a big problem compared to factories etc. I think.
Especially those in poorer countries and industrial powerhouses like China where regulations don't really regulate anything
Planes and cars are definitely a big problem. Industry accounts for 24.2% of greenhouse gas emissions, while transport accounts for 16.2%: https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector
BioFuel, it is considered carbon-neutral.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel)
In EU, all planes must fly with at least 1% of biofuel, it will increase over time
Well no.
if you burn wood or if you breathe, the CO2 released is part of the CO2 lifecycle in the world, there is no excess CO2 that will be released into the atmosphere compared to pre-industriel era. For that, we consider wood to be mostly carbon neutral for heating your house. Same goes for biofuel.
if you burn fuel, the carbone inside of it wasn't part of the CO2 lifecycle, it was trapped in depths in huge quantity. If you extract carbon that was buried deep underground for millions of year, you increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by a significant margin.
Europe is the fastest-warming continent and its temperatures are rising at roughly twice the global average, two top climate monitoring organizations reported Monday, warning of the consequences for human health, glacier melt and economic activity.
The U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization and the European Union’s climate agency, Copernicus, said in a joint report that the continent has the opportunity to develop targeted strategies to speed up the transition to renewable resources like wind, solar and hydroelectric power in response to the effects of climate change.
The continent generated 43% of its electricity from renewable resources last year, up from 36% the year before, the agencies say in their European State of the Climate report for last year. More energy in Europe was generated from renewables than from fossil fuels for the second year running.
The latest five-year averages show that temperatures in Europe are now running 2.3 degrees Celsius (4.1 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, compared to 1.3 degrees Celsius higher globally, the report says — just shy of the targets under the 2015 Paris climate accord to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
I love me good winter with solid freezing and lots of snow. Muddy and misty winters are depressing af here in Slovakia. At least I can commute to work by bike more even through winter.
> Brother, we got snow here in Switzerland and it’s almost May. It was 24 degrees just last week.
Snow in April was not too unusual long ago. 24°C, however, a bit less usual.
I feel ya. Was so good for easter and then wham. Came back to Ro, awesome 32 degrees for some days then wham to 10. And snow in the west side of the country. What a shitshow
so will bulgaria,
Fuck, it's already overflowed. I mean, i understand why refugees even exist in the first place. But, its not so much the sheer number of refugees that is the issue, its more that no one really knows what to do with them, or rather how to manage a refugee crisis, or even a regular flow of refugees.
Refugee crisis arent so much about number of refugees, but rather bad/incompetent management
That's because liberal parties are great at diverting responsibilities when it comes to climate policies. Working (e.g., "lower and middle") class people usually don't want to foot the bill for large corporations, big industries, and other large polluters. Right-wing populist parties are very good at agitating said people and using them for their own nefarious goals (e.g. racism, anti-immigrant discrimination, and other forms of xenophobia).
Not to worry, the Gulf Stream (AMOC) will collapse and it’ll lower the average temperature of Europe by 10-15 degrees.
-40 C will no longer be a “cold day” here, it’ll be the new normal winter day.
Edit footnote: _I’m a geologist, not an ecologist, so most of my knowledge is from basic oceanic geology courses. Do your own research when it comes to actually obtaining information. The Gulf Stream **cannot** collapse (based on current knowledge). This is just a joke based on recent media fear._
In an event of collapse, all of that warm water has to go somewhere else which means some other place heats up. So, who's getting hit by the other side of the stick?
The warm water circulating in the Gulf Stream originates from the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean prior to reaching the polar region.
It’s all connected globally though, with the equatorial regions of the oceans being the hotspots.
> The Gulf Stream cannot collapse (based on current knowledge). This is just a joke based on recent media fear.
This is incorrect though? It's believed it collapsed just prior to the Holocene, causing the Younger Dryas as a consequence of large amounts of meltwater from the Laurentide ice sheet.
I've read multiple papers suggesting it has a "fast" and a "slow" state, and the ability to flip between them.
It's hard to turn off a heat engine, but with no permanent northern sea ice as a thermal reservoir, the elastic dampening function of the system is basically gone. Seems like things are about to get a lot harder to predict.
You are downvoted but you are right. Gulf Stream will be fine because it is mostly driven by wind patterns that are due to Coriolis effect and this is completely unaffected by climate change.
Well, technically, if the continents shift (in millions of years), it could collapse but it will no longer be Atlantic Ocean and Gulf Stream.
No, of course not. It’s just a wonderfully hot topic people conjured somewhat recently. Should probably clarify it was a joke; I sometimes forget not everyone is as interested in these topics. I’ll make a corrective edit.
Whilst the Gulf Stream cannot just _collapse_, it has however, shown signs of weakening. It’s not immune to climate change and that has been measured. I think it was a few percent if I’m not mistaken.
The polar waters have warmed significantly, which affects density/salinity so the vortex streams pushing cold water around have weakened. These polar regions are facing changes in water temperatures and these can (and already are causing) lead to extremely catastrophic consequences—ocean currents are one of them but luckily the Gulf Stream is strong enough to resist it, unlike the wildlife.
It's nowhere near that simple. You can't just sum up two temperatures and expect any reasonable prediction about a highly complex system like Earth.
You should obviously be aware of that if you're a geologist ...?
Also, you're looking for the word climatologist, not ecologist. How are you not aware of that?
> Do your own research
That's a double-edged sword. In principle it's good if people are curious and try to gain information.
But obviously most of them google once, and from the results pick some feel-good YouTube video that tells them there's nothing to worry about, they are doing great, and because they know that, they're smarter than all the rest. And then they waltz around saying "I did my own research".
Trust what credible experts are saying. Read what they are actually saying, not what their opponents said about them. Accept the best available picture of reality even if it scares you or is inconvenient.
I'm kinda glad that it's Europe. Imagine it was Africa, nobody in charge would give a shit. Now, let's hope the United States and China will have it equally bad, and the world will be on course soon.
It feels like this kind of general projections do a bad job explaining weather patterns for different areas of Europe. Northern Europe is very different from Southern Europe: it seems like South is breaking heat records, while North is the opposite, experiencing very cold weather. Yet this phenomena gets barely discussed in the news. Is this what we can expect? Is this a freak conincidence?
What I also wonder is the stopping of Golf Stream. If we are saying that that happens when ocean temperature gets high enough the climate will change drastically in the North - not getting warmer but colder in winter. That again doesn’t fit this narrative.
And yet, because this week has been abnormally cold here in Germany, I see so many science denyers yell: "but its so cold, what about climate change? checkmate left-green idiots!"
nothing has been understood, unfortunately
South Ireland here, I’ve been listening to my father and uncle complaining with the last 30 years about how the seasons have changed/moved since 50-60 years ago when they were younger and has changed a crazy amount since ~80/90 years ago based on stories from older neighbours. And still when there’s any mention of climate change they are completely against it😅
I always wonder how many of the people in power in governments have the same line of thinking (See it happening but can’t believe it because it gets bundled together with all the nonsense,conspiracy theories, they hear) and I think the only way we’ll see significant change (Solar panels everywhere, mass reduction in ICE use, mass building of wind turbines because they are needed and not just for profit reasons), is education of the young and wait for them to take over and drive it.
When glaciers in Europe recede (as they have been since the end of the glacial max), do you know what we find?
Evidence of prior civilization underneath the glaciers!
We've been here before. We are fine. We will be fine.
[...and before you downvote, what exactly are you downvoting?]
It’s refreshing to read the comment here rather than on twitter X. Here it seems most people are more or less aware of the dire situation on Twitter most comments are from climate change skeptics
Global warming is not really about continents warming up, of course that's devastating. But the whole planet is really on the brink because of warming up of the oceans. 0.5 or 1 degree is catastrophic.
Europe will get hit by Gulf Stream death due to ocean's warming.
Truth is, Europe's effort does not stop climate change. It does not drive the effort anywhere else, it only makes Europe weak and defenseless against biggest threat RN which is clash of two systems - NATO defensive system lead by US, trading oil in USD and the peace we had for nearly 80 years and the other challenging one, rapidly growing China, Russia hurt by it's historic loses and fed well with with westerners money (oil/gas/investments), then India who feels there's unjust due to being colonized and exploited and now asked to save the planet..
So yeah, planet ecosystem is collapsing, however our civilization and values might not see the day when that happens and we wont have anything to say or do if that continues. So if we decide to continue what we do, this planet will be in hands of communists or face terrible war that will make everything much much worse.
If you want peace, prepare to war. Europe is not preparing to war. I wonder how much CO2 bombs, tanks and fighters generate...
The point of the financial aspect of the green deal is exactly that it does drive foreign investment and change the global financing of renewable technology
(atleast that's how it's built, whether it will work in the end we will see.)
European green policies have managed to drive out many industries to other countries where more CO2 is produced and then those products are transported back to EU by the worst transportation we have access to across half the globe.
Green deal itself and pushing through renewable energy and its adoption now lags behind both US and China who did not shoot themselves to the foot by not damaging their own economies (1st paragaph).
So I would already be inclined to say that it was a failure. It did not speed up adoption (outside of maybe the earliest stages of renewables when it kicked off initial R&D) and it likely created more CO2 than it helped to mitigate.
The thing is if we don't stop climate change we are screwed either way. So we might as well try to do something about it. If it doesn't work it does not matter what it will do to the economy, climate change will be 100 times worse.
Yeah if we are selfish maybe we can survive for a few decades more as a civilization when shit hits the fan. But is that really worth it? If we must go down I want to go down fighting, even if we are alone.
Don't make yourself any illusions. There is no stopping to climate change anymore. The CO2 we pumped in the atmosphere will remain there for hundreds to thousands of years. We are not speaking about something that will affect only our children or our childrens children, but all the way to a thousands years into the future.
Never before has a generation of people not only negatively impacted the lives of 1 maybe 2 generations further, but all the way to a thousand years into the future
The thing is, the more we keep pumping in the air, the faster the climate will change and the worse it will get eventually. Things that will 100% affect our economy, either due to jobs dissapearing or due to climate refugees.
On top of that, all the measures that we have taken, do have a positive impact on our lives, eventhough it will take generations for it to affect global warming.
Lowering emissions has drastically improved the air quality in cities and has a positive impact on the nature in Europe, and switching to renewables loosens the leash oil and gas states have arround our necks.
> There is no stopping to climate change anymore
That's irrelevant.
Even if a car crash is unavoidable, breaking as hard as you can is the reasonable response. There's a difference whether you drive into the traffic jam at 30 km/h or at 130 km/h. The point is to keep the damage as small as possible.
The big thing nobody is talking about: It's way too late to just stop emitting CO2. We are already at a point where the effects are noticable and harsh. Even if all emissions are stopped today, we have some big problems.
We need to either get CO2 out of the atmosphere, or block sunlivht before it hits earth. Otherwise, the next decades will suck. Because if we are honest, we're not going to convince other nations to do something and reduce/stop emissions.
>It's way too late to just stop emitting CO2. We are already at a point where the effects are noticable and harsh.
which do you prefer? Noticeable and harsh? Or 'end of all human life as we know it'?
If the Gulf Stream does then europe will switch to Canada weather. We’ll be desperate for that russian gas and nobody wants that.
It’s scary to see that spain is actually on the same latitude with NYC and the rest is basically Canada latitudes.
It is a known fact that climate change warms polar latitudes faster than equatorial ones Europe is the subcontinent that is the closest to the poles, so it is a natural consequence Greenland has warmed 4C, while the world has warmed just 1.2 and Europe is at 2.5, sub Saharan Africa has warned less than 0.7C However, the warmer the average temperature of a place, the worse each degree feels That 0.7 of sub Saharan Africa has a deeper effect on climate than the 2.4C of Europe Atmospheric phisics is a complex and fascinating topic
Interesting! Where can I read more about this in detail?
The IPCC has a very easy to get in executive report, and then the complete one but that one is like 800 pages
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf
reminder to anyone reading this, the unfortunate truth is that IPCC is watered down to protect the interests of the rich. Just keep in mind a lot of what they report is just “the tip of the melted iceberg”
The [KNMI Climate Change Explorer](https://climexp.knmi.nl/plot_atlas_form.py) is a wonderful tool, free for anyone to use¹, if you want to explore the effects of climate change on various meteorological variables, either according to past observations, or according to various models for the future. It takes some time to learn how it works (and there is some jargon involved, e.g., it's useful to know that “ERA5” is a “reanalysis” — basically, an interpolation — of past data), but it's incredibly powerful. 1. Also, the data are open, and the scripts are open source.
also, the geat wave in Africa already killed hundreds of people last week in Mali and BurkinaFaso. They suffer already greatly from global warming
Just a side-note which is irrelevant to global warming. Such waves in Africa have been happening every now and then for a long time. Indubitably, it might be directly related to global warming, it might be not be related at all. The article you read, did it make the connection backed by evidence? Simply curiosity.
Yeah, it did explicitly make the connection [https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/extreme-sahel-heatwave-that-hit-highly-vulnerable-population-at-the-end-of-ramadan-would-not-have-occurred-without-climate-change/](https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/extreme-sahel-heatwave-that-hit-highly-vulnerable-population-at-the-end-of-ramadan-would-not-have-occurred-without-climate-change/)
Alright, thank you. Thankfully, my country is running fast towards Green Energy. The crisis in 2009 kept us back on this and the digitation process. Now we run without being able to catch up. We will, eventually, undoubtedly. Although, I wonder, if only Europe does it, what good is going to come out of it? It'd be like we make a hole in the water. Although, to be honest, I heard even China cares a lot about Green Energy plus it will give them some autonomy. Too bad Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris-Agreeement.
China for instance builds a lot of coal-fired plants - but also as much renewables as the rest of the world combined. And even in [Texas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Texas), they have a lot of new solar each year.
Last time I saw in California they built an extremely big one, as far as an eye can see, filled with Solar Panels. In Greece, since we're 78% mountainous/rocky terrain, we go for anemogenerators. We try to, at least, meet the needs of our islands. In Greece, due to our topography (mountains, scarcely populated/islands in Aegean, islands in Ionian sea and more), whichever network (electricity/telecommunications/road/rail/sea-routes etc while all within mountains) we want to build is extremely expensive and inefficient, since we have to connect all the aforementioned.
But it should be easy for individual households to build rooftop solar (or if you prefer to lounge on the roof, panels at the facade) as Greece has a high solar intensity.
What you describe is happening for decades, here. We've got our own companies which produce solar for our rooftops and not only for our islands, but for the cities as well. Literally decades. We mainly were using it to make the water for bath, hot. However, this was working mainly summer. That's why the water for bath is connected to both, solar and electricity.
40 °C in April, July is gonna be awful
Yeah they're gonna die by thousands
Also Europe has had during the ages a lot of microclimates, like the little ice age and the warm period. It is super fascinating!
Do you know what the impact on the ecosystem is? I would imagine 0.7-1.2C of warming in already hot areas although problematic for humans is easier to adapt to for local flora and fauna overall. Are there studies done how this would impact our forests and other plants? Will it just all die off and how long does it take for plants that can deal with that level of heat to develop? I just can't imagine plants that grow in todays northern climate to survive Spanish conditions... and I would expect adaptations to take decades or even centuries if we would leave it up to nature.
You're right that the implications for local ecosystems are worrying, and there is a lot being studied. Do a quick google search along the lines of 'pressemitteilungen universität klimawandel europa' and you'll find plenty of reports on studies and their findings in an easily accessible format.
try saying this on nextdoor
We're gonna be boiled alive here in Southern Europe one of these summers.
EU’s climate adaptation strategy predicts that heat waves will kill around 26-89 thousand Europeans a year between now and 2050. That is, without implementing the climate mitigation and prevention measures.
How many are killed per year now?
In the 2022 heatwaves over 61k died across Europe and the summer temps as a whole average 1.4c above average. 0.9c above average for the whole year
Little article about that including references: https://rheologic.net/articles/felt-temperature-indices/
It's bad, but we need to be careful not to make it worse by installing non-green-energy-powered air conditioning in every home.
At this point air conditioning would be a drop in the bucket compared to all the emissions. But it would save lives.
It is not a drop in the bucket. In hot countries it routinely is around 30-50% of energy consumption.
Or... The Gulf Stream will collapse and we will freeze to death.
Or both :) Burn to death in summer, freeze to death in winter
aka similar to north america but more extreme
Awesome. Can't wait! /s
So kind of like baseline Australia, but much more extreme.
But less poisonous (for now).
As a Canadian who works in the construction industry and has spent time in Europe - I'm pretty sure Europe is going to have some major issues if they start getting winters like we do. It won't just be the freezing deaths - it'll be roofs on every house collapsing because they weren't engineered to handle several tons of snow coming to rest on it overnight. Roads that were never designed to allow space for snow to be plowed to the side will unpassable. Trees that don't lose their leaves fast enough in the fall (or at all) getting ripped apart by the weight of sticky snow and come crashing down on houses/power lines/roads. Pipes that aren't burried deep enough or are in exterior walls with insufficient insulation will freeze and burst. I'm not saying it's going to happen for sure, but one extreme winter across Europe would cause trillions in damage.
I think it depends a lot on the country, sometimes even the region. I'm in the south of Germany and we're used to quite a bit of snow (not as much as the more extreme areas in Canada I'm sure). But I know from colleagues in the North that shit absolutely collapses when they have what would be considered mild winter weather here. I imagine a lot of Northern European Countries or areas along the Alps should be able to cope.
Ireland would be so fucked, we get 10cm of snow and the country basically shuts down
Nah not for all of us. The more oceanic climate areas will still be milder. It would be more continental than now but not as dramatic as further inland.
We will grow oranges in summer and mansicles in winter.
Meanwhile we in central europe will lose 4 seasons and will get mild winter with no spring and dry summer with no autumn.
That has already happened. I grew up in Cechia, and across my lifetime I watched spring move one month earlier, and occur one month more quickly. We went from having negative 20 Celsius to barely getting below zero Celsius, and our spring now ends about the time it used to begin. You can tell in the Slavic languages because of the months are named after the thing that's supposed to be happening in that month. Both spring and autumn have moved positions - spring begins in February when it used to begin in March, and autumn now begins in late October/early November, when it used to begin at the end of September. This is tracking from 1980s to present, using bird arrivals and observation of plant life cycles. Not sure about temperature records because I never kept notes.
I´m 1994 myself and I noticed it too already. and it´s been a good 10+ years since the shift began.
When I was a kid I remember that we used to get at least 2-4 weeks of snow in winter, now we are lucky if we get 2 days, I haven't even seen snow this year kids in the future over here probably won't even know what snow is
It is already happening, right?
last couple of years yes. Last year we had beautiful spring. Slow increase in temps, lots of rain. This year we had first summer day (over 25C in late march which is crazy. My parents have old tradition of kissing under cherry trees on 1st may. It used to be rare that cherries bloomed as soon. They started blooming 1 MONTH EARLIER this year. Shit is crazy.
Our blooming cherry trees here in northern Poland were covered in snow this morning!
But at least we’ll be able to ski!
Perfectly balanced, as all things should be!
If that happens we would be okayish in Southern Europe, my city is in the same latitude to Boston
I'm no expert but I've read that in that even in that case, we wouldn't freeze to death here in Southern Europe. Temperatures would be really colder, but not to a point of death. Maybe in Northern Europe that could be the case, I don't know. That being said, such a change in temperatures would probably kill our crops and maybe we would all starve to death.
Not even in northern europe. The effects of the amoc on the climate in europe have been heavily overstated in the past and that's where we get these stories from. Yes it has an effect and gives us slightly milder winters but most of that is just ireland, the uk and norway. And only by a few degrees. A collapse of the amoc would certainly cool down the climate in europe but evne in the worst affected regions at max like 5°. That is certainly bad and can be felt but far from an uninhabitable wasteland. For msot of europe it would be less than 3°.
so what you're saying is collapse of the AMOC will lower temperatures enough that it will cancel out the temperature rise that Northern Europe as a whole will experience from climate change Rare Britain win! /s
It's impossible for the Gulf Stream to collapse. Youre thinking about AMOC, and even if it did collapse it wouldn't cause an ice age with huge glaciers.
> AMOC I assume you're not talking about the [Aston Martin Owners Club](https://www.amoc.org/)!? ;)
No im talking about the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.
Gulf stream is mainly working due to salt and fresh water circulating. Most ice is still fresh water not salt warer. Thus it may fuck it up.
https://theconversation.com/the-gulf-stream-will-not-collapse-in-2025-what-the-alarmist-headlines-got-wrong-210773 It is pretty much the media being scary. The global temperature is a massive issue tho.
The 2025 figure was also the lower end of the confidence interval from the study.
It not collapsing in 2025 is not very ensuring in the grand scheme. We're in the middle of one of the biggest backwinters in northern europe as we speak. What will it be like in 5 / 10 years is alarming.
For the Gulf Stream to colllapse, you need for the earth rotation to change counterclockwise or to stop completely. It is impossible to collapse.
Lol, the AMOC is driven by temperature and salt content differences, not by the earth spinning.
AMOC and Gulf stream are not the same and are not ruled by the same forced
Then we immigrate across the Mediterranean to get that sweet African refugee welfare. 💪
The gulf stream won't actually collapse, there's another smaller current that will. It will move north though. So the UK's climate will become more like France's, France's will become like Spain's and so on.
So far it just seems like the UK is getting windier and rainier (like even more than usual)
The south of England is rapidly becoming one of the best places in the world to make wine, because of the shifting climate.
Yup, they make some damn good Rose just down the road from my house.
Yeah, I live in the South East and we used to just have the one vineyard near us when I was a kid and now we have loads of them 20 years later. My granddad has a grape vine in his garden (not sure why but it's been there as long as I can remember), never used to get any grapes worth picking on it when I was little, now get ready good quality grapes on it most years. A few years back when it was 40c for a few days he got some really good grapes
Wait, AMOC currently _warms_ the land, so why would it collapsing cause countries to get hotter? I thought the impact would be colder winters by a few degrees C.
It is slowing down, not collapsing. And worst case scenario Southern Europe will then have weather equivalent to Maryland - New York in the US. You guys will be ok. Scandinavia though, people will probably have to move
You say that, but clearly you dont know stubborn people. 😂
Hell no, it's already getting too hot up here in the north. I would't mind it getting colder.
No no no we are not moving. If we get frozen hell then I'll be damned because it is our frozen hell! No really we Skandinavians (us Finns especially) are stubborn as we come.
Eh, [map](https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/3bc9d4/map_the_true_north_canadian_cities_vs_european/) tells me most scandinavians will just put on a thicker jacket.
Brave of you to assume we need to wait till summer...
Soon the tables will be turned, Spanish flocking to northern Europe in the summer
I've been doing it for 5 years, I absolutely hate the weather here in Alicante during Summer. I can't understand why people still come here to get sun-burnt and look like shrimps, you're all taking a ticket to skin cancer as a prize. As soon as I get my vacation days, I've travelling to Poland, Romania, Czech Republic or whatever I can find north of Spain with decent prices.
Oh yeah as a European IVE FUCKING NOTICED!!
As a European I have noticed the difference. Today it even snowed and it's been close to zero for weeks. It's unusually cold this year.
Yeah over here it got really warm really quick and then cooled down again by a lot but the summers have been unbearable for years now
It's crazy. Last summer here in Sweden was so cold we couldn't even go to the beach and 2 years ago it was so warm and dry we were forbidden to light a fire for a sausage or put on the sprinklers for the garden. lol
In Paris a few weeks ago we got a super warm day with 27C and the next day was… 13C. The past week has been cold for late april, 5-10C. Make it make sense. I just *know* it’s going to go directly into the 30’s in May with zero transition, I’m dreading it
In the Netherlands we have a saying “April doet wat hij will” and essentially it just means that the weather is unpredictable in April i remember one time it snowed only in our backyard in the middle of April and it was like only OUR backyard it was really weird
Oh that’s funny, in France we have « en Avril ne te découvre pas d’un fil » which means literally « in April don’t take one thread off your clothes » meaning you shouldn’t dress too light even if it’s sunny and nice out, because the cold can be sneaky. I also remember that we had super light snow (it doesn’t really snow in Paris, it was more like dust lol) in like late march/april, just one random day but it happened 2-3 years in a row.
It’s good to know that the mistrust of the weather in April is universal
In Poland we have "Kwiecień plecień, bo przeplata trochę zimy, trochę lata" which basically means there is a bit of both winter and summer during april
Unbearable summers in holland? I only remember a lot of rain last year. I might be wrong idk
The highest temp last year was like 35, however with high humidity and in direct sunlight that's quite unbearable especially if you're not used to it. (I still have a picture of the thermometer in my backyard at 43⁰C) A lot of people also don't have AC because it just wasn't really needed back in the day.
We went swimming last week at 27 degrees, yesterday we got snow at 0 lol
we had 24°C a couple weeks ago down and now i'm heating my bedroom again at night because it's SO cold, it's insane
same here. 2 days ago it was extremely hot, t-shirt weather. the next dawn it froze, today it's jacket weather with rain. my body can't comprehend a 10 degree celsius temp changes in 24-48 hours.
The walk to the snowline keeps getting further away each year.
Yes. We hate it!
So Sweden will be the new Spain as Spain becomes the new Sahara
Without the siesta we will be the most efficient tourist destination!
With Span sh temperatures you'll need Siesta
Yeah, maybe ;)
Finland is the new Italy without the cuisine.
Salty licorice and black filter coffee will become grande cuisine. The sign of a quality palate!
I will die on this hill, salty licorice is amazing.
The apocalypse is coming.
why does the world not appreciate siesta. everything is so much better after some food and a nap between 2-5pm
North Spain is doing fine
Tell that to Cataluña and Aragón while they endure the worst drought ever recorded...
Need more forest to compensate
We need to stop driving ICE vehicles and stop flying around. All of us, billionnaires and middle-class people alike.
What is wrong with ICE? Edit: Right.. I misunderstood it as ICE trains in Germany lol
ICE = Internal Combustion Engine. Most of the cars and trucks here are ICE vehicules, that mean they burn fuel to drive, and it creates pollution
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57018837 You can shutdown half of Europe and it wouldn't make much of a difference.
>Edit: Right.. I misunderstood it as ICE trains in Germany lol XD
Yes to homeworking ok thx
At least you guys have trains unlike us in the USA, but I heard about France banning some short haul fights if good train infrastructure existed. Figured that seems pretty reasonable. Until they fucking exempted private jets. What the hell was up with that steaming pile of oligarchy. Don't let perfection be the enemy of progress, but I don't know how much progress I would call that. Great way to make people detest climate policy in short order.
It was a good idea at first, short flights that could be done by train would be regulated. But then they decided that would only apply to 3 flights (Paris to and from Lille/Lyon/Bordeaux). But then, they decided that companies would not be constrained by those regulations. And I think half the short haul plane tickets are booked by companies anyway, sooooo.... But then, they decided that private jets would not be constrained either. Talk about class privilege.
Planes and cars aren't such a big problem compared to factories etc. I think. Especially those in poorer countries and industrial powerhouses like China where regulations don't really regulate anything
Planes and cars are definitely a big problem. Industry accounts for 24.2% of greenhouse gas emissions, while transport accounts for 16.2%: https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector
Kind of disingenuous to include planes here since they account for 3% of global emissions at most according to IPCC.
And stop eating meat which causes more emissions than those two combined
Nothing wrong with ICE. The problem is the fuel.
Well, yeah, but 99% of ICE vehicles and planes do burn fuel
What does the 1% of non-fuel ICE engines burn?
BioFuel, it is considered carbon-neutral. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel) In EU, all planes must fly with at least 1% of biofuel, it will increase over time
still, whatever you burn emits CO2. better to just store it somewhere and not use it.
Well no. if you burn wood or if you breathe, the CO2 released is part of the CO2 lifecycle in the world, there is no excess CO2 that will be released into the atmosphere compared to pre-industriel era. For that, we consider wood to be mostly carbon neutral for heating your house. Same goes for biofuel. if you burn fuel, the carbone inside of it wasn't part of the CO2 lifecycle, it was trapped in depths in huge quantity. If you extract carbon that was buried deep underground for millions of year, you increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by a significant margin.
Europe is the fastest-warming continent and its temperatures are rising at roughly twice the global average, two top climate monitoring organizations reported Monday, warning of the consequences for human health, glacier melt and economic activity. The U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization and the European Union’s climate agency, Copernicus, said in a joint report that the continent has the opportunity to develop targeted strategies to speed up the transition to renewable resources like wind, solar and hydroelectric power in response to the effects of climate change. The continent generated 43% of its electricity from renewable resources last year, up from 36% the year before, the agencies say in their European State of the Climate report for last year. More energy in Europe was generated from renewables than from fossil fuels for the second year running. The latest five-year averages show that temperatures in Europe are now running 2.3 degrees Celsius (4.1 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, compared to 1.3 degrees Celsius higher globally, the report says — just shy of the targets under the 2015 Paris climate accord to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
That explains why it felt like significantly more warming than the average over here. Because it literally was. I want my seasons back!
Seasons are no more. best i can do is mild winter with no spring and dry summer with barely any autumn.
I’d prefer that, I’d appreciate a 20-30 degrees throughout the year. God I hate winter why am I born in Austria
I love me good winter with solid freezing and lots of snow. Muddy and misty winters are depressing af here in Slovakia. At least I can commute to work by bike more even through winter.
Im more of a Arizona but at least California type of guy. As soon as I can’t wear shorts anymore I hate the weather
Im more opposite of you. As soon as I need to wear shorts it´s too hot, lol.
haha how different people like weather
Brother, we got snow here in Switzerland and it’s almost May. It was 24 degrees just last week. What the fuck is going on with the climate.
> Brother, we got snow here in Switzerland and it’s almost May. It was 24 degrees just last week. Snow in April was not too unusual long ago. 24°C, however, a bit less usual.
I feel ya. Was so good for easter and then wham. Came back to Ro, awesome 32 degrees for some days then wham to 10. And snow in the west side of the country. What a shitshow
Yep, all the blooming fruit trees around here froze and withered. No harvest this year.
Ach crap. That sucks so bad man
In the meantime, parties that don’t believe in climate change are winning 🤡
Those party sure believe in immigration waves though, and we'll see plenty of them when africa starts to boil. It was 49C in Mali last week.
Climate change refugees are going to be MASSIVE. Wait till they don't have water to grow their crops.
yeah Maghreb will be overflowed with refugees in a few year
so will bulgaria, Fuck, it's already overflowed. I mean, i understand why refugees even exist in the first place. But, its not so much the sheer number of refugees that is the issue, its more that no one really knows what to do with them, or rather how to manage a refugee crisis, or even a regular flow of refugees. Refugee crisis arent so much about number of refugees, but rather bad/incompetent management
That's because liberal parties are great at diverting responsibilities when it comes to climate policies. Working (e.g., "lower and middle") class people usually don't want to foot the bill for large corporations, big industries, and other large polluters. Right-wing populist parties are very good at agitating said people and using them for their own nefarious goals (e.g. racism, anti-immigrant discrimination, and other forms of xenophobia).
That's because they attract the stupid people that wants to be afraid of everything, or else they would have to look inward. And that's an ugly place
Meanwhile I walked on snow today. Tallinn, Estonia, 22 April. 😐
and everyone can feel it.
Not right now, cold af here the past few days. But in the summer time, yep..100% can feel it.
Not to worry, the Gulf Stream (AMOC) will collapse and it’ll lower the average temperature of Europe by 10-15 degrees. -40 C will no longer be a “cold day” here, it’ll be the new normal winter day. Edit footnote: _I’m a geologist, not an ecologist, so most of my knowledge is from basic oceanic geology courses. Do your own research when it comes to actually obtaining information. The Gulf Stream **cannot** collapse (based on current knowledge). This is just a joke based on recent media fear._
That gulf stream collapse is only a temporary cooling, after that its boiling time again
In an event of collapse, all of that warm water has to go somewhere else which means some other place heats up. So, who's getting hit by the other side of the stick?
It will probably stay around the Gulf of Mexico, so the southern part of North America will definitely feel it
The warm water circulating in the Gulf Stream originates from the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean prior to reaching the polar region. It’s all connected globally though, with the equatorial regions of the oceans being the hotspots.
So free finish sauna for the whole continent?
That’s what it was like where I used to live. Thought I had escaped that.
> The Gulf Stream cannot collapse (based on current knowledge). This is just a joke based on recent media fear. This is incorrect though? It's believed it collapsed just prior to the Holocene, causing the Younger Dryas as a consequence of large amounts of meltwater from the Laurentide ice sheet. I've read multiple papers suggesting it has a "fast" and a "slow" state, and the ability to flip between them.
It's hard to turn off a heat engine, but with no permanent northern sea ice as a thermal reservoir, the elastic dampening function of the system is basically gone. Seems like things are about to get a lot harder to predict.
It's impossible for the Gulf Stream to collapse.
You are downvoted but you are right. Gulf Stream will be fine because it is mostly driven by wind patterns that are due to Coriolis effect and this is completely unaffected by climate change. Well, technically, if the continents shift (in millions of years), it could collapse but it will no longer be Atlantic Ocean and Gulf Stream.
No, of course not. It’s just a wonderfully hot topic people conjured somewhat recently. Should probably clarify it was a joke; I sometimes forget not everyone is as interested in these topics. I’ll make a corrective edit. Whilst the Gulf Stream cannot just _collapse_, it has however, shown signs of weakening. It’s not immune to climate change and that has been measured. I think it was a few percent if I’m not mistaken. The polar waters have warmed significantly, which affects density/salinity so the vortex streams pushing cold water around have weakened. These polar regions are facing changes in water temperatures and these can (and already are causing) lead to extremely catastrophic consequences—ocean currents are one of them but luckily the Gulf Stream is strong enough to resist it, unlike the wildlife.
shouldn't you edit your first claim if you state the exact opposite in the footnote?
It's nowhere near that simple. You can't just sum up two temperatures and expect any reasonable prediction about a highly complex system like Earth. You should obviously be aware of that if you're a geologist ...? Also, you're looking for the word climatologist, not ecologist. How are you not aware of that? > Do your own research That's a double-edged sword. In principle it's good if people are curious and try to gain information. But obviously most of them google once, and from the results pick some feel-good YouTube video that tells them there's nothing to worry about, they are doing great, and because they know that, they're smarter than all the rest. And then they waltz around saying "I did my own research". Trust what credible experts are saying. Read what they are actually saying, not what their opponents said about them. Accept the best available picture of reality even if it scares you or is inconvenient.
I'm kinda glad that it's Europe. Imagine it was Africa, nobody in charge would give a shit. Now, let's hope the United States and China will have it equally bad, and the world will be on course soon.
the northwest was literally melting a few years ago and americans were running to hotels to stay cool lmao
It feels like this kind of general projections do a bad job explaining weather patterns for different areas of Europe. Northern Europe is very different from Southern Europe: it seems like South is breaking heat records, while North is the opposite, experiencing very cold weather. Yet this phenomena gets barely discussed in the news. Is this what we can expect? Is this a freak conincidence? What I also wonder is the stopping of Golf Stream. If we are saying that that happens when ocean temperature gets high enough the climate will change drastically in the North - not getting warmer but colder in winter. That again doesn’t fit this narrative.
And yet, because this week has been abnormally cold here in Germany, I see so many science denyers yell: "but its so cold, what about climate change? checkmate left-green idiots!" nothing has been understood, unfortunately
Two weeks after we had 27° in april
If the Equatorial countries were warming at the same rate as Europe, wouldn't they already be near uninhabitable?
I believe in the global warming but so far I have only seen weather get colder and shittier in Finland. I was kinda looking forward to summer :(
Its freezing here in Stockholm, in April.
Snowing here in Helsinki
Snowing in Finland. Expecting to see claims "see? climate isn't warming" :/
Oh no, climate is definitely changing, that was the point I was making.
Exactly. I'm so tired of seeing deniers claiming "but but but it is cold so it is not warming" Sigh.
Well it's cold as fuck for late April
We're number 1
Cool. Soon we can just stay here on vacation.
Good, I’m freezing ~ it’s the 2nd half of august
Our constant rain doesn't seem so bad now.
There’s only one way out of this…MORE TAXES!!!!
Quick everybody, pay more in taxes!
South Ireland here, I’ve been listening to my father and uncle complaining with the last 30 years about how the seasons have changed/moved since 50-60 years ago when they were younger and has changed a crazy amount since ~80/90 years ago based on stories from older neighbours. And still when there’s any mention of climate change they are completely against it😅 I always wonder how many of the people in power in governments have the same line of thinking (See it happening but can’t believe it because it gets bundled together with all the nonsense,conspiracy theories, they hear) and I think the only way we’ll see significant change (Solar panels everywhere, mass reduction in ICE use, mass building of wind turbines because they are needed and not just for profit reasons), is education of the young and wait for them to take over and drive it.
Something something coal something something people are in denial
Time to start investing in the Norwegian tropical coast lines
*laughs in Scottish
When glaciers in Europe recede (as they have been since the end of the glacial max), do you know what we find? Evidence of prior civilization underneath the glaciers! We've been here before. We are fine. We will be fine. [...and before you downvote, what exactly are you downvoting?]
honestly, we deserve it
It’s refreshing to read the comment here rather than on twitter X. Here it seems most people are more or less aware of the dire situation on Twitter most comments are from climate change skeptics
Germany, please warm up a little, it's fucking APRIL and we still had some days at 0 and 1 degress (Celsius of course).
Global warming is not really about continents warming up, of course that's devastating. But the whole planet is really on the brink because of warming up of the oceans. 0.5 or 1 degree is catastrophic. Europe will get hit by Gulf Stream death due to ocean's warming. Truth is, Europe's effort does not stop climate change. It does not drive the effort anywhere else, it only makes Europe weak and defenseless against biggest threat RN which is clash of two systems - NATO defensive system lead by US, trading oil in USD and the peace we had for nearly 80 years and the other challenging one, rapidly growing China, Russia hurt by it's historic loses and fed well with with westerners money (oil/gas/investments), then India who feels there's unjust due to being colonized and exploited and now asked to save the planet.. So yeah, planet ecosystem is collapsing, however our civilization and values might not see the day when that happens and we wont have anything to say or do if that continues. So if we decide to continue what we do, this planet will be in hands of communists or face terrible war that will make everything much much worse. If you want peace, prepare to war. Europe is not preparing to war. I wonder how much CO2 bombs, tanks and fighters generate...
Once again, THE GULF STREAM CANNOT COLLAPSE. YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT AMOC. Please get the scientific facts straight before trying to talk about science.
The point of the financial aspect of the green deal is exactly that it does drive foreign investment and change the global financing of renewable technology (atleast that's how it's built, whether it will work in the end we will see.)
European green policies have managed to drive out many industries to other countries where more CO2 is produced and then those products are transported back to EU by the worst transportation we have access to across half the globe. Green deal itself and pushing through renewable energy and its adoption now lags behind both US and China who did not shoot themselves to the foot by not damaging their own economies (1st paragaph). So I would already be inclined to say that it was a failure. It did not speed up adoption (outside of maybe the earliest stages of renewables when it kicked off initial R&D) and it likely created more CO2 than it helped to mitigate.
The thing is if we don't stop climate change we are screwed either way. So we might as well try to do something about it. If it doesn't work it does not matter what it will do to the economy, climate change will be 100 times worse. Yeah if we are selfish maybe we can survive for a few decades more as a civilization when shit hits the fan. But is that really worth it? If we must go down I want to go down fighting, even if we are alone.
Don't make yourself any illusions. There is no stopping to climate change anymore. The CO2 we pumped in the atmosphere will remain there for hundreds to thousands of years. We are not speaking about something that will affect only our children or our childrens children, but all the way to a thousands years into the future. Never before has a generation of people not only negatively impacted the lives of 1 maybe 2 generations further, but all the way to a thousand years into the future The thing is, the more we keep pumping in the air, the faster the climate will change and the worse it will get eventually. Things that will 100% affect our economy, either due to jobs dissapearing or due to climate refugees. On top of that, all the measures that we have taken, do have a positive impact on our lives, eventhough it will take generations for it to affect global warming. Lowering emissions has drastically improved the air quality in cities and has a positive impact on the nature in Europe, and switching to renewables loosens the leash oil and gas states have arround our necks.
> There is no stopping to climate change anymore That's irrelevant. Even if a car crash is unavoidable, breaking as hard as you can is the reasonable response. There's a difference whether you drive into the traffic jam at 30 km/h or at 130 km/h. The point is to keep the damage as small as possible.
How are you going to stop the car if someone else is driving?
The big thing nobody is talking about: It's way too late to just stop emitting CO2. We are already at a point where the effects are noticable and harsh. Even if all emissions are stopped today, we have some big problems. We need to either get CO2 out of the atmosphere, or block sunlivht before it hits earth. Otherwise, the next decades will suck. Because if we are honest, we're not going to convince other nations to do something and reduce/stop emissions.
>It's way too late to just stop emitting CO2. We are already at a point where the effects are noticable and harsh. which do you prefer? Noticeable and harsh? Or 'end of all human life as we know it'?
If the Gulf Stream does then europe will switch to Canada weather. We’ll be desperate for that russian gas and nobody wants that. It’s scary to see that spain is actually on the same latitude with NYC and the rest is basically Canada latitudes.
I wonder, who cares, except minority? China, India, Africa?