This post is a brief coda to my last one arguing that the biggest science story of 2023 is not ChatGPT and its AI siblings, but the many ways climate change is degrading our oceans, threatening planetary imbalance. In the past week this perspective has been reinforced by several extraordinary pieces of news.
My previous post was published just before news hit of Sam Altman’s firing then rehiring at OpenAI, a sequence of events electing vast worldwide attention. All this unfolded as – for the first time – Earth’s average daily temperature went to more than 2˚C above preindustrial levels (on Nov. 17 and 18), a fact that received commensurately paltry coverage.
Then on Nov. 24 we learned that the amount of atmospheric CO2 has shot up to 422ppm, 5ppm higher than the same day last year and 26ppm above its level a decade ago. Atmospheric CO2 is now 20% above the 350ppm many scientists regard as the safe sustainable level.
Now, according to a new report from the UN Environment Program, CO2 abatement efforts are so feeble the world is on-track to see temperatures rise this century by a “hellish” 3˚C. To keep warming within the agreed 1.5˚C target, “22 billion tons of CO2 must be cut from the currently projected total in 2023,” The Guardian notes. “That is 42% of global emissions and equivalent to the output of the world’s five worst polluters: China, US, India, Russia and Japan.”
In the face of such alarming figures, reading more about GPT’s seems like the proverbial story of rearranging the deck-chairs as the Titanic sinks.
The next COP climate change conference begins Nov. 28. Let’s hope world leaders show some genuine leadership.