POLI 342 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Positive Feedback, Middle Ages, Collective Action
11 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Climate Justice
• Challenges the norm that climate is not correlated to with justice
• Climate change: altering underlying dynamics of climate through human action
• IPCC: (1988) scientific body formed by the UN providing governments with
scientific evidence of global warming
• Scientific uncertainty can’t reliably estimate the probability and extent to which it
will occur
o Not predictive
• Greenhouse gases (GHG’s): humans increase them through industrial processes
• Carbon budget: limited to 1 trillion tonnes globally, 50/50 chance of limiting global
warming to 2ºC
o Threshold temperature change, above that would trigger major
catastrophes
• Aspiration for 1.5ºC in 2015 Paris Accord according to the EU
o To improve chances, limit to ~700 billion tonnes = 25% left
• Already emitted 500 billion tonnes since the middle ages
• Will take ~40 years to burn the next 500 billion at the current rate
o By 2040, we will exhaust the world
• At this rate, also possible within 20 years (deforestation)
• Fossil fuel reserves if all was burned, emit 3x carbon budget
o Does not include unconventional fossil fuels i.e. Albertan tar sands
• Can burn less than ¼ of fossil fuels
• Resurgence of coals in Europe
• Currently, seems impossible to do so
• Climate change: 0.6º change since 20th century
• Future: surface temperature increase of 1.8º-2.4º C over the next century
o Can coexist with dramatic cold i.e. Western Europe (water currents will
stop)
• Area around tropics and North Atlantic will be affected
• Wildlife as well – species extinction will increase
• Swamps in South East Asia (majority of global population live in coastal regions
or vulnerable areas)
• Britain, Shanghai, North and South America and India would be under water
• Positive feedback effect: vicious cycle that would not be stopped by intervention
• Will not affect everyone evenly- short term impact varies be region based on
resources and circumstances
Philosophical Inquiry
• Scientific uncertainty (dealt by Gardner): are we justified in being sceptical about
climate change?
o Nature of climate change makes it inevitable to be limited in certainty
