permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

Kevin Anderson: What they won't tell you about climate catastrophe
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2012-11-15/kevin-anderson-what-they-won-t-tell-you-about-climate-catastrophe

Scientists and officials are not telling the public the awful truth: we are
hurtling toward catastrophic climate change. A review, summary and critique
of an earth-breaking speech by Dr. Kevin Anderson, Deputy Director of the
Tyndall Centre in Britain. Speaking to the Cabot Institute in Bristol
November 6th, Anderson told the sold-out crowd our future is not possible.
Professor Kevin Anderson

Are the climate deniers right? Are some scientists colluding with
government to hide the truth about climate change? "Yes", according to top
British scientist Kevin Anderson - but not the scandal you've heard about. 
*Top
scientists and government reports won't tell you we are heading toward
catastrophic climate change*. Emissions are skidding out of control,
leading us to a world six degrees Centigrade hotter on average, much faster
than anyone thought possible. Why doesn't the public know

Why are world conferences still talking about staying below 2 degrees, as
though that is possible?

In a devastating speech at Bristol University Tuesday November 6th, 2012, Dr.
Kevin Anderson 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Anderson_%28scientist%29>accused
too many climate scientists of keeping quiet about the unrealistic
assessments put out by governments, and our awful odds of reaching global
warming far above the proposed 2 degree safe point.

In fact, says Anderson, we are almost guaranteed to reach 4 degrees of
warming, as early as 2050, and may soar far beyond that - beyond the point
which agriculture, the ecosystem, and industrial civilization can survive.

All this comes from one of the world's top climate scientists, plugged in
to the latest research and numbers. Kevin Anderson is from the UK's premier
climate modeling institution, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change
Research<http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/>,
and the University of Manchester. He delivered the speech "*Real Clothes
for the Emperor*, Facing the Challenges of Climate Change" at the Cabot
Institute of the University of Bristol in Britain.

His estimates are backed up by recent reports from the International Energy
Agency, and now the global accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. I also
quote from Joe Romm's blog at thinkprogress.org, and a comment by Lewis
Cleverdon from Wales, in the Transition blog transitionculture.org.

I'm Alex Smith for Radio Ecoshock. In this program, I'm going to play
selections from Kevin Anderson's latest speech, accompanied by some
explanation and references to other sources. Anderson speaks very quickly,
assuming a highly informed European audience, and includes some technical
data and reports unknown to most of us. So we're going to work through this
together.