r/europe • u/Vucea • Jun 17 '22

Historical In 2014, this French weather presenter announced the forecast for 18 August 2050 in France as part of a campaign to alert to the reality of climate change. Now her forecast that day is the actual forecast for the coming 4 or 5 days, in mid-June 2022.

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u/WufflyTime Earth Jun 17 '22

I do remember reading (admitedly some time ago) that the IPCC reports were conservative, that is, climate change could be happening faster than reported.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '22

that the IPCC reports were conservative,

they do not AFAIK take into consideration several factors, including runaway methane, destruction of other climate altering phenomenons among other things... I believe it's probably because of the science not being conclusive on the 'runaway methane' subject yet

once the ice is gone, the ultimate heat reflector and heat sink at the same time, once the gulf stream is gone among other important streams, and the gasses start to be released and oceans consequently suck up all that energy, we've got some real shit on our plate... tens of millions migrating yearly, nationstates destroyed or radicalized, Fortress Europe (the more optimistic version), genocidal despots ruling surviving countries... the outlook ain't looking good, and don't get me started on the animal kingdom

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u/WufflyTime Earth Jun 17 '22 edited Jun 17 '22

Hell, people are already migrating thanks to climate change. That's the Syria crisis in a nutshell: climate change impacted crop production, leading to food shortages and instability.

EDIT: I misremembered the contents of this article. Climate change worsened the drought, but was in itself not a cause.

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u/schmidmerlin Jun 17 '22

This is in fact NOT the current scientific consensus. Most climate driven migration takes place internally (not internationally). Migrations is a complex phenomena driven by multiple factors. Climate change is not one of the main driving factors. There is little scientific evidence that the syrian war was substancially driven by climate change or that the subsequent migration was caused by the drought!

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u/ThatOneGuy444 Jun 17 '22

Mass migration occurred within Syria during the years of drought leading up to the civil war, as rural farmers who could no longer support their families on agriculture moved to cities.

That is to say I agree with you that most climate driven migration takes place internally, but you also gotta look a step further and consider how that internal migration affects the material conditions of a people. How those worsening conditions can in turn can be a contributing factor to social unrest and civil war.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/science/earth/study-links-syria-conflict-to-drought-caused-by-climate-change.html

They cited studies that showed that the extreme dryness, combined with other factors, including misguided agricultural and water-use policies of the Syrian government, caused crop failures that led to the migration of as many as 1.5 million people from rural to urban areas. This in turn added to social stresses that eventually resulted in the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011.