The article written by Peter Hannam of the Sydney Morning Herald picks upon the aptly named Cape Grim monitoring site and the likelihood that it will tip over 400ppm carbon in the atmosphere in the next few weeks or months.
The article goes on to offer a nice visual illustrating the increasing temperature. Note the disconnect from the tight spiral of the last few months.
The nature of tipping points is parhaps not well understood. The dictionary definition (and there is one in my dictionary even though it is actually two words) is;
The crisis stage in a process when a significant change takes place.
In this case the language of the article shifts from increasing emissions to actively decreasing them with carbon capture. This of course is only the language of the scientists. The language of the politicians is more helpful when trying to determine whether crucial tipping points will be reeached.
Within the article the ubiquitous anonymous “goverrnment spokesman” declares,
“There is now absolutely no doubt that we will beat our 2020 target” of cutting 2000-level emissions by 5 per cent”
“We are playing our part to tackle climate change and our 2030 target [of cutting 2000-level emissions about 19 per cent] is ambitious and significant”
“The budget also effectively abolishes the 35% tax collected from the profits of oil and gas production in the UK and on the UK continental shelf, by reducing the rate to 0%. This is also backdated to 1 January 2016.”
These pronouncements make understanding tipping points much easier. Because simple observation of governments makes it clear that where tipping points exist, they will have passed long before any action is taken to avoid them.
The one thing that the article gets wrong is the following;
“Within the next couple of weeks, a remote part of north-western Tasmania is likely to grab headlines around the world as a major climate change marker is passed”
kam001