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Tuesday, August 10, 2021

RSN: Charles Pierce | The UN Climate Report Is a 'Code Red for Humanity'

 


 

Reader Supported News
10 August 21

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10 August 21

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Locals evacuate the area with their animals as a wildfire rages in the suburb of Thrakomakedones, north of Athens, Greece, August 7, 2021. (photo: Giorgos Moutafis/Reuters)
Charles Pierce | The UN Climate Report Is a 'Code Red for Humanity'
Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "In the future, when historians are doing their work, many of them in underwater archives, they are going to be mystified by the role played by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."

This is the sixth time since 1988 that the IPCC has rung the alarm—but this one is different.

n the future, when historians are doing their work, many of them in underwater archives, they are going to be mystified by the role played by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Golly, they will say through their respiration devices, why didn’t anyone listen to these people? On Monday, the IPCC issued yet another report on the climate crisis, and the only way it could have been more direct about the imminent threat to human habitation is if you tied the report around a brick and threw it through a window at Exxon HQ. From the Guardian:

Within the next two decades, temperatures are likely to rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, breaching the ambition of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, and bringing widespread devastation and extreme weather. Only rapid and drastic reductions in greenhouse gases in this decade can prevent such climate breakdown, with every fraction of a degree of further heating likely to compound the accelerating effects, according to the International Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading authority on climate science.

This is the sixth time since 1988 that the IPCC has rung the alarm, and this time it’s hitting a gong the size of Wyoming with the hammer of doom.

António Guterres, the UN secretary general, warned: “[This report] is a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk.” He called for an end to new coal plants and to new fossil fuel exploration and development, and for governments, investors and businesses to pour all their efforts into a low-carbon future. “This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet,” he said.

Joe Manchin just caught a chill and doesn’t know why.

After a ship sinks, there always comes a point where the Coast Guard announces that its efforts have changed from “rescue” to “recovery.” I have a feeling from this report that we are at that kind of moment right now. So much of the damage appears irreversible that it’s time to make plans on how we’re going to live in a radically transformed biosphere.

Even if the world manages to limit warming to 1.5C, some long-term impacts of warming already in train are likely to be inevitable and irreversible. These include sea level rises, the melting of Arctic ice, and the warming and acidification of the oceans. Drastic reductions in emissions can stave off worse climate change, according to IPCC scientists, but will not return the world to the more moderate weather patterns of the past. Ed Hawkins, a professor of climate science at the University of Reading, and a lead author for the IPCC, said: “We are already experiencing climate change, including more frequent and extreme weather events, and for many of these impacts there is no going back.”

All of this was avoidable, of course, if we didn’t fundamentally believe that the climate crisis was essentially a political debate. The parallels to the pandemic are frighteningly exact: the scientific community is gradually acclimating itself (and us) to the fact that COVID is not going to be eradicated, but that, rather, it will be one of those diseases that is a part of being alive in this world, or whatever’s left of it. Welcome to Happy Fun Monday.

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A healthcare worker and a patient. (photo: ABC News)
A healthcare worker and a patient. (photo: ABC News)


America Is Flying Blind When It Comes to the Delta Variant
Dr. Eric Topol, Guardian UK
Topol writes: "The Delta variant was first identified in the United States in April and by May it was well onto its exponential growth curve, doubling every 10-12 days, as the basis for Covid infections, now reaching over 96% prevalence."

The lack of data around breakthrough infections is giving many Americans a false sense of security


he Delta variant was first identified in the United States in April and by May it was well onto its exponential growth curve, doubling every 10-12 days, as the basis for Covid infections, now reaching over 96% prevalence. Ironically, on 1 May, the CDC announced it would stop monitoring post-vaccination breakthrough infections unless they led to hospitalizations or deaths. This decision can be seen as exceptionally ill-advised and has led to a country flying blind in its attempt to confront its fourth wave of infections – one that has rapidly led to well over 100,000 new cases per day and more than 60,000 hospitalizations, both higher than the US first and second pandemic waves. It is unfathomable that we do not know how many of these are occurring in people who were vaccinated.

Most people who get Covid infections after being fully vaccinated have mild to moderate symptoms, and generally have been thought to avoid hospitalizations. But that sense of confidence about vaccine protection was built upon the pre-Delta data when the CDC was monitoring breakthroughs. Still being reported by CDC, from their latest website data, and a constant refrain from public health officials, is that “99.99% of people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 have not had a breakthrough case resulting in hospitalization or death.” That could not be further from the truth. In the July Provincetown Delta outbreaks that the CDC reported on the risk of fully vaccinated requiring hospitalization was 1%, not .01%, and that may not be a reliable estimate for the incidence of such infections occurring throughout the country.

Without tracking, we have no idea of the proportion of people fully vaccinated who are getting ill, hospitalized, or dying. There is no question the frequency of requiring hospitalization is increasing, as reflected by data from some counties that are tracking breakthroughs on their own and reporting that 10 to 20% of admissions are in vaccinated individuals. But we have no denominator.

Why is this so critically important? For one, the false sense of security transmitted by CDC’s lack of data in the Delta wave likely fosters complacency and lack of protective measures such as masks and distancing. The mission of the CDC to prevent such illness, and the first step is to collect the relevant data. It would be very simple to know the vaccination status of every American with a breakthrough infection admitted to the hospital with Covid-19, along with key demographics such as age, time from vaccination, which vaccine, and co-existing medical conditions. The PCR diagnostic test for each patient has an accompanying cycle threshold (Ct) value, which is an indicator of viral load, and would be important to track. Moreover, the sample of the virus could undergo genomic sequencing to determine whether there has been further evolution of the virus and blood samples for neutralizing antibody levels that could be obtained in as many patients as possible. Contact tracing of these individuals would help determine the true rate of transmission from other vaccines, something that is pure conjecture. Such systematic collection of data would be the foundation for understanding who is at risk for breakthrough infections, determining the current level of effectiveness of vaccines and whether, when, and in whom, booster shots should be recommended. It is remarkable that none of this is getting done for hospitalized patients, who represent an undetermined fraction of the people who are getting quite ill, some requiring monoclonal antibody infusions to pre-empt getting admitted.

This is not by any means the first breakdown of the CDC in managing and communicating about the pandemic. But with billions of dollars allocated to CDC earlier this year for improved Covid-19 surveillance, this represents a blatant failure that is putting millions of vaccinated Americans at unnecessary risk for breakthrough infections and leaving us without a navigational system for the US Delta wave.

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Donald Trump. (photo: Andrew Harrer/Getty Images)
Donald Trump. (photo: Andrew Harrer/Getty Images)


Trump and GOP's Shady Fundraising Tactics Lead to Millions of Donor Refunds This Year
Peter Wade, Rolling Stone
Wade writes: "One of former president Trump's biggest campaign expenses this year has been refunding donors who were duped into making multiple increasing donations. Trump and the Republican Party have returned $12.8 million to donors in the first half of 2021, according to newly released federal records."

Since the 2020 election, the former president and the Republican Party have refunded more than $77 million after donors unwittingly opted in to recurring payments


ne of former president Trump’s biggest campaign expenses this year has been refunding donors who were duped into making multiple increasing donations. Trump and the Republican Party have returned $12.8 million to donors in the first half of 2021, according to newly released federal records.

The New York Times reported that the refunds account for approximately 20 percent of Trump’s total fundraising so far this year. The refunds are the result of shady campaign tactics where donors unwittingly agreed to make recurring donations thanks to a pre-checked box on the donation form that set up weekly or monthly automatic payments. Another pre-checked box signed donors up for a “money bomb,” which doubled their contribution. Both boxes were accompanied by tiny text that was worded in a confusing way, making it more likely donors left them checked without understanding what they were agreeing to.

Trump resorted to these tactics, known as “dark pattern design,” that are set up to intentionally deceive the user starting in September 2020, when it was becoming clear he was falling behind then-candidate Joe Biden.

The 2021 refunds only add to the total number of reimbursements the campaign and party have had to give back. In the last two months of 2020, Trump and the Republican National Committee gave back $64.3 million to online donors.

In response, Trump spokesperson Jason Miller told the Times, “Our campaign was built by the hardworking men and women of America, and cherishing their investments was paramount to anything else we did.”

While dark pattern design is relatively common, the way Trump and the Republicans used it was exceptional, experts have said. Biden’s campaign also issued donor refunds, but according to the Times, it was much less common. While the Biden campaign’s refund rate was 2.2 percent, Trump’s was nearly five times higher at 10.7 percent, federal records indicate.

“I’ve never seen anyone do what the Trump campaign just did,” Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, told Business Insider of the tactics. He went on to describe it as “a complete rip-off.”

“They knew exactly what they were doing,” he said. “They knew they were tricking people into signing up for what they thought was one contribution when they were really signing up for multiple contributions. Then when they got caught, they sent the money back. It’s like if a bank robber got caught and said, ‘Oh, well, I gave the money back.'”

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A portrait of Katie Logan, who alleges she was sexually assaulted by a People of Praise high school teacher in Minnesota two months after she graduated in 2001. (photo: Tim Gruber/WP)
A portrait of Katie Logan, who alleges she was sexually assaulted by a People of Praise high school teacher in Minnesota two months after she graduated in 2001. (photo: Tim Gruber/WP)


The Christian Group With Ties to Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett Says Allegation of Sexual Abuse Was Mishandled
Beth Reinhard, The Washington Post
Reinhard writes: "A Minneapolis-area school run by the Christian group People of Praise mishandled a student's allegation of sexual abuse against a teacher, the school board president acknowledged in a recent email to teachers and parents."

 Minneapolis-area school run by the Christian group People of Praise mishandled a student’s allegation of sexual abuse against a teacher, the school board president acknowledged in a recent email to teachers and parents.

People of Praise began investigating reports of abuse within the close-knit community last year. The Aug. 6 email also acknowledged an ongoing investigation into similar reports involving the same teacher.

Katie Logan told The Washington Post she was molested by Dave Beskar two weeks after her graduation from Trinity School at River Ridge in 2001, when she was 17. She also told The Post about her report to police in December 2020.

At the time of the alleged incident, Beskar was a 35-year-old teacher and girls’ basketball coach who lived in a People of Praise home for celibate men. Logan reported the alleged incident to a school official in 2006, but Beskar remained on staff until 2011, when he became the headmaster of two new charter schools in Arizona.

Beskar returned to the Minneapolis area to become headmaster of another Christian school in 2015. He resigned last month from Chesterton Academy of the Twin Cities, according to a school official, after The Post published Logan’s account in June.

That month, Trinity Schools received the “additional reports of sexual misconduct” by Beskar, according to the email from Jon Balsbaugh, president of the Trinity board of trustees, which operates three schools in Eagan, Minn., South Bend, Ind., and Falls Church, Va. He wrote that he could not provide details because of privacy concerns.

In the email, Balsbaugh does not identify Logan as the victim but describes a report of sexual misconduct reported by an “alumna” that occurred shortly after the student’s graduation in 2001.

“Trinity School as an organization did not respond to and handle earlier reports regarding Mr. Beskar the way that we would handle such reports today or that we want such matters to be handled,” Balsbaugh said in the email. “We wish we could go back in time and handle things differently.”

In a separate email to The Post on Monday, Balsbaugh said that if the school received an allegation of abuse today, law enforcement and child protective services would be contacted. He also said the accused would typically be put on administrative leave while the report is investigated.

“We are creating more robust policies and procedures for receiving, investigating, and addressing reports of sexual misconduct and other forms of abuse,” he said.

Beskar did not respond to requests for comment on the email. He told police that he had no physical or sexual contact with Logan.

The broader People of Praise inquiry began last year, following the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, who has roots in People of Praise and who served on the board of Trinity Schools after Beskar left.

Barrett’s rising national profile led about three dozen people raised in People of Praise to come together in a private Facebook group and share stories of sexual and physical abuse. One of the Facebook group’s founders, Sarah Kuehl, went public with her own account last fall, leading People of Praise to hire law firms to investigate her claim and other abuse allegations.

Craig Lent, chairman of the religious group’s board of governors, went to Logan’s home in July, she said, to apologize to her and her parents, longtime People of Praise members, and to deliver a report by the Lathrop GPM law firm into her allegation. The report by the firm said it found credible Logan’s account that Beskar came to her house to use the family computer and later pressed up against her and put his finger in her vagina. The report, which was obtained by The Post, also says that Beskar did not respond to a request for an interview.

The report echoed the investigation by police in Eden Prairie, Minn., after Logan filed a 2020 complaint. Police recommended charging Beskar with a felony of criminal sexual conduct in the third degree, records show. The statute of limitations in 2001 and the way the law was written at that time precluded charges being filed, a spokesman for the county attorney’s office told The Post.

Kuehl and some other members of the private Facebook group said they are concerned that People of Praise leaders are singling out the former teacher and failing to acknowledge a broader climate that emphasizes traditional gender roles and discourages “gossip” among community members, protecting abusers.

“The problem is not just one person, or one school or one branch,” Kuehl said.

Members of the “PoP Survivors” Facebook group created a website to offer information and support to other victims of abuse. The group is urging People of Praise to acknowledge a “systematic failure” to protect children, to add more women to leadership positions and to do outreach to former community members and Trinity students.

Lent declined to comment on the recent email and ongoing investigation.

Balsbaugh wrote in the email that “the final responsibility for protecting students and restoring trust rests with me,” but he did not detail his role in Logan’s case.

Logan said that in 2006 she called the school’s highest-ranking woman, Dean of Girls Penny Arndt, and told her about the alleged incident with Beskar. Arndt told police she relayed that account to the president of the Trinity Schools board at the time, Kerry Koller. She said she didn’t know what, if any, action Koller took. He died last year.

Arndt reported the allegation to Balsbaugh after he became the school’s headmaster in 2009 “so that it didn’t fall by the wayside because Dave was still there,” according to an audio recording of her police interview.

Balsbaugh told police that he did not learn of Logan’s complaint until Beskar had left the school in 2011. He also told police he thought Logan was 18 at the time of the “inappropriate advances” and that therefore no crime had occurred.

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Roberta Kaplan. (photo: AP)
Roberta Kaplan. (photo: AP)


Time's Up Chair Resigns After Reportedly Aiding Cuomo Effort to Discredit Accuser
Jacob Knutson, Axios
Knutson writes: "Roberta Kaplan resigned Monday as chair of Time's Up, an organization established to fight workplace sexual misconduct, after an investigation found she was involved in New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's effort to discredit a woman who accused him of sexual harassment, according to the New York Times."

oberta Kaplan resigned Monday as chair of Time’s Up, an organization established to fight workplace sexual misconduct, after an investigation found she was involved in New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's effort to discredit a woman who accused him of sexual harassment, according to the New York Times.

Why it matters: The report from investigators appointed by the New York attorney general found that Kaplan reviewed a draft of a letter that "denied the legitimacy of [ex-Cuomo aide Lindsey] Boylan's allegations, impugned her credibility, and attacked her claims as politically motivated."

What they're saying: Kaplan, who founded Time’s Up's legal defense fund, said in her resignation letter that she could not answer questions about her involvement with Cuomo because she is a practicing lawyer, according to the Times.

  • “I therefore have reluctantly come to the conclusion that an active litigation practice is no longer compatible with serving on the Board at Time’s Up at this time and I hereby resign," the letter reads.

The big picture: Melissa DeRosa, a top aide for Cuomo who investigators said also helped the governor discredit Boylan and other accusers, resigned from her position on Sunday.

  • Attorneys representing Cuomo and New York's executive chamber have criticized the attorney general's investigation as partisan and have denied that Cuomo and other executive chamber members attempted to retaliate against accusers.

Go deeper: Cuomo's lawyer appears to dig him deeper in controversy

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A migrant carrying a baby crosses the Chucunaque River after walking for five days in the Darién Gap. (photo: Luis Acosta/AFP/Getty Images)
A migrant carrying a baby crosses the Chucunaque River after walking for five days in the Darién Gap. (photo: Luis Acosta/AFP/Getty Images)


'If I Go Back, I'll Die': Colombian Town Scrambles to Accommodate 10,000 Migrants
Joe Parkin Daniels, Guardian UK
Daniels writes: "When the loudspeaker announced that the day's last boat across Colombia's Gulf of Urabá would begin boarding, a desperate scrum of Haitians rushed forward, jostling for spaces on the rickety craft."

Necoclí, population 20,000, faces bottleneck as Covid rules lift and unrest, poverty and violence grow across region

hen the loudspeaker announced that the day’s last boat across Colombia’s Gulf of Urabá would begin boarding, a desperate scrum of Haitians rushed forward, jostling for spaces on the rickety craft.

Most had been stuck in this remote Caribbean coastal town for days, trapped in a migration bottleneck caused by the loosening of Covid travel restrictions and growing unrest, poverty and violence across the region.

In Necoclí, the water in the hostels was out most days, and the beach under the coconut trees was getting dirtier. Crossing the gulf would not just represent the next step towards the US but a way out of purgatory in paradise.

Since January, more than 25,000 irregular migrants have passed through this part of the country, compared with 4,000 last year, when migration ground to a halt because of strict lockdowns across the region.

Necoclí, a town of 20,000 people better known for its beaches and seafood cocktails, is struggling to accommodate around 10,000 new arrivals, amid chronic water shortages. Travel companies have put on more boats, but not enough to meet demand, and more migrants arrive every day.

Local officials have declared a “public calamity”, warning that they cannot cope with an influx of thousands of people who have become trapped between the sudden surge of migration and the haphazard infrastructure of the people-smuggling business.

“This is a recurring and historical phenomenon; Colombia is not the cause or the destination of this migration,” Juan Francisco Espinosa, the head of Colombia’s migration agency told reporters this week. “This year we’re seeing numbers that are absolutely alarming.”

Necoclí has long been a transitory way station for migrants, but numbers are now much higher than usual due to worsening conditions in countries of origin – such as Haiti, Venezuela and Cuba - and the loosening of travel restrictions.

About 75% of the 25,000 migrants that have passed through Necoclí and the surrounding region this year are from Haiti, which was thrust further into chaos by the assassination of its president last month.

One of those left stranded on the beach was Roberde Deneus, 20, who left his home in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s rundown and sprawling capital, two years ago. Amid rampant unemployment and spiraling gang wars, he moved to Brazil, where for a time he found work. When that dried up, he decided to head north for the US.

“I don’t care how long it takes, that’s where I’m going,” he said one recent night, grinning broadly while sipping a beer on the beach. “I’ll see you in Miami.”

Having already travelled from Brazil to Colombia via Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador, Deneus was waiting to cross the Gulf of Urabá and begin the arduous five-day trek through the Darién Gap jungle that separates Colombia and Panama.

That crossing is one of the world’s most dangerous routes in the Americas, a lawless swath of jungle plagued by bandits, disease and wild animals. Beyond that lie Central America and Mexico, where police and criminals routinely target migrants for rape, robbery and murder.

For now, however, Deneus was most concerned about getting on a boat.

“I have a ticket for a boat in four days,” he said. “Until then, I wait.”

In Necoclí, an entire economy has grown up around the migrants. Street vendors hawk camping gear and cookware to the migrants. A sign advertising boat tickets is written in Haitian Creole, and the price in dollars.

Unlike many of his compatriots, Walker Adonis, 37, speaks both English and Spanish, having lived legally in the US for several years. While waiting for his turn on a boat, he was helping his fellow migrants navigate the language barriers, he said. “Haitians are hardworking but our country is a mess.”

Long before the brazen assassination of President Jovenel Moïse – allegedly at the hands of Colombian mercenaries – the western hemisphere’s poorest nation was wracked by violence and poverty. Thousands of people have been forced from their homes by gang warfare, and the UN estimates that nearly half of the population is in need of immediate food assistance.

“In Haiti you either have, or you don’t,” said Adonis.

On Friday, ministers from Panama and Colombia pledged to work together to resolve the crisis, with coordination to improve transport and protection from criminals in the Darién Gap, though details of the plan were still vague.

“Only greater economic development and democracy in Latin American countries will make each nation retain their nationals with opportunities for life, employment and development,” said Marta Lucía Ramírez, Colombia’s vice-president and foreign minister.

Although most of the migrants currently in Necoclí are Haitians, a sizable group come from Venezuela, which has been mired in political and economic crisis for the best part of a decade.

A few weeks ago, one group of mostly Venezuelan travelers set up a makeshift camp of tents and hammocks on the beach, a few paces beyond the dock, where families including young children and elderly women are living while they save up for a ticket.

“In Venezuela we have absolutely nothing,” said Johana Guadalupe, 20, who is three months pregnant and decided to head towards the US after a year of begging with her husband on the streets of Quito, Ecuador. “We want to give our child a better life than we can back home.”

Zaida Salón, 50, has been staying in the camp with her family for a week, and has no money for the onward journey. Her brothers are helping out, selling camping equipment to other migrants who pay in dollars. The family rely on a local church for food handouts.

“If I go back to Venezuela, I’ll die,” said Salón, who was a member of the national guard until she deserted last year. “The only option is to keep moving forward.”

Meanwhile, along the usually sleepy boulevard, a crowd of migrants lined up outside a dock, jostling to board the last of the day’s boats. Deneus helped some friends with their bags, wrapped in bin liners to keep them dry on the choppy waters. “Bon voyage!” he shouted above accordion music from a nearby bar. “I’ll see you very soon.”

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White-coated climate scientists call for more protests before it is too late. (photo: Charlie Gardner/Twitter)
White-coated climate scientists call for more protests before it is too late. (photo: Charlie Gardner/Twitter)


What Scientists Are Saying About the UN Climate Report
Zoya Teirstein, Grist
Teirstein writes: "As the wake-up call has gone largely unheeded, with little done globally to rein in emissions, the IPCC's main takeaways have grown increasingly dire with each successive assessment."

Can’t decipher the biggest climate report of the year? Here’s help from the experts.

he United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, came out with its sixth annual climate change assessment on Monday. The IPCC report, which compiles all of the latest scientific research on climate change and presents it in one massive assessment, has served as a wake-up call for policymakers and the public every time it has been published.

As the wake-up call has gone largely unheeded, with little done globally to rein in emissions, the IPCC’s main takeaways have grown increasingly dire with each successive assessment. This year, the report’s authors delivered one of their bleakest messages yet: Climate change is baked into our immediate future, and the window of opportunity to do something about how bad its effects can be is closing fast.

The planet has already warmed just over 1 degree Celsius, 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, above pre-industrial levels due to human activity. That number might sound small, but it can translate into some pretty severe climate impacts — ones that are already being felt across the globe. In the U.S., climate scientists have determined that major wildfires in California, extreme flooding in the Northeast, and drought in the West have all been exacerbated by that one degree of warming. The sixth annual assessment found that the planet is all but guaranteed to continue heating up and will reach 1.5 degrees of warming — the boundary line between ‘manageable’ and ‘catastrophic’ warming — in the next two decades.

But what does that distinction really mean — and how can someone without a science background decipher a technical and lengthy climate change report? Luckily, some of the IPCC report authors and other climate scientists took to Twitter to break down the biggest takeaways.

First off, Jessica Tierney, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Arizona and a lead author of the assessment, wrote a thread explaining how the report actually works. It is conducted by volunteer scientists over the course of three years. Why do they volunteer for such a time-consuming job? “Because we care about making sure the world knows about what has happened and what will happen if we don’t cut emissions,” Tierney wrote. The main portion of the report has 12 chapters, but if you want a concise summary of the main takeaways, go straight to the “summary for policymakers.

Darrell Kaufman, a paleoclimate scientist at Northern Arizona University and another lead author of the report, described how this report differs from the IPCC’s previous report in 2013. The global surface temperature is 0.3 degrees Celsius (0.54 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer now than it was back then. What does that tell us? “There’s no going back, at least not for centuries,” Kaufman wrote. He also noted that global temperatures are warming to a level that hasn’t been documented on planet Earth for about 125,000 years, the Last Interglacial period.

Scientists who were not involved in writing the report are also digesting the findings online. Take Zeke Hausfather, director of climate and energy at the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental research center in Berkeley, California, who was a contributing author to the report. In a Twitter thread, Hausfather says the assessment “provides an unprecedented degree of clarity about the future of our planet.” The previous IPCC report, he noted, estimated that the planet would likely warm somewhere between 1 and 6 degrees C (1.8 to 10.8 degrees F). This report narrows that range to 2 to 5 degrees C (3.6 to 9 degrees F) if the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is doubled*.

That’s both good and bad news, Hausfather said. It means the mildest warming scenario is all but off the table. We are not going to be riding out the climate crisis at a cool 1 degree C of warming. On the other hand, the absolute worst-case scenarios are also unlikely. The planet is projected to hit 1.5 degrees C of warming by the 2040s, but there’s still time for us to determine how bad it gets from there.

Finally, if twitter threads aren’t your thing, Miriam Nielsen, a climate science Ph.D. student at Columbia University, made a 7.5-minute video explaining how the report works and what’s in it in crystal clear terms.

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