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Breaking Down the IPCC Report (Patreon)

Published:
2021-11-08 19:00:05
Imported:
2026-06

Content

Hi everyone, November is an "AMA" month here on jam!Patreon, but I'd like to try something a bit different. COP26 was this past week and as usual it got me up in my climate feels. 

I'm always thinking about how I can help and it made me curious about whether a comic explainer on the latest IPCC report would be of any use to people. I think this report is incredibly important, but it is fairly technical and almost 4000 pages long. The goal of the report is to provide policy makers with information they need to make decisions with regards to climate, but it also contains a lot of information that, I feel, ordinary citizens need to know about to make decisions within their own lives. 

Unfortunately, I'm starting to feel like I've lost sight of the forest while staring at the lichen on a tree. I track this topic very closely, and so I'd like some feedback on where other people are at, with respect to this report, and climate change more broadly. 

Some key context: 

  • I have no interest in changing the minds of climate deniers, because I feel like that's a waste of my time. 
  • I just want to increase accessibility to this knowledge. 
  • I'm hoping for the end product to be empowering rather than doomer. 

Ok, so... AMA about the IPCC report? What information you want a comic of this nature to cover/avoid? Thanks!


Comments

Anonymous

hey so i have been thinking about a similar sort of project recently, except instead of looking at the ipcc reports specifically, i'd like to look at some of the past extinction events that were influenced by climate change, as it turns out this is a bit of a recurring pattern in earth's history. there are a couple of helpful points that are illuminated by this view. first, the absolute values of atmospheric CO2 have changed quite a lot throughout earth's history, and this is completely normal. what's more important is the rate at which this value changes - when you have events such as large scale volcanism or a certain asteroid impact that cause rapid changes to the atmosphere, that's when you things start to fall apart, because there's no time for life to adapt. i think this helps contextualise our current situation, in which 1-2C of warming might not sound like much, but it's happening on a timescale that is literally unprecedented in the geological record. the second point is a bit more of a general observation that life has endured through catastrophes that were not only worse than what is happening now, but they were worse than literally anything that humans can bring about through our current means, because civilisation would collapse long before we ever reached that point. i think this helps to recentre the discussion away from grandiose "saving the world"-type narratives and more towards the fact that this is something that will impact almost everyone's lives (aside from the rich ppl who caused the problem, who will of course bail themselves out when the time comes), so therefore every mitigating factor that we can enact going forward will seem more worthwhile. i'm not sure if this counts as a "hopeful" perspective lol but it is at least a proactive one for ppl to adopt. if you're interested in learning more about past extinction events then i recommend checking out "the ends of the world" by peter brannen, which provides some detailed non-technical summaries, with a focus on what we can learn from the past that is relevant to today. aside from all that, i think an ipcc summary comic would be very interesting, and it seems like something that's already taking up a lot of your mental real estate anyway lol. i agree that trying to construct an ironclad "proof" that would convince deniers would largely be a waste of time, so maybe a more action-focused approach could work? you could lay out some of the key changes that need to happen, to help people hold their governments and corporations to account. you could also highlight notable misinformation campaigns and track them back to their sources. building up a case that shows this is a 100% solvable problem would probably help a lot of ppl, yourself included :)

Anonymous

"I know a bit about" is more like "I've heard of this report and a little bit on the radio, but don't know the details", but I'd like to learn more.

IcyMidnight

I think a comic explainer that distills down a 4000 page report that I'll never read would be an awesome service to me and the world!

Thor Wilbanks

4000 pages sounds intimidating. Maybe this is not a one-month project?

Tired Old Dog

There is talk of the report on the news but it doesn’t give any information about what it actually says or how it is formatted. XKCD had a graphic a while back showing temp rise over centuries. It might be helpful to reference. 👍

Matt Zweig

I think there’s a lot of talk about the large scale national projects and policies, but I would be curious about what’s possible or recommended for smaller scale policy makers at the county or city level. I’ve also heard a bit about the historical GHG emissions and the current emissions. It seems to be a hot topic for country level negotiations. Is there more context or recommendations in the IPCC report on how to reconcile these two views of who is most responsible to change? Is there a less ‘finger-pointy’ way of framing this framing disagreement?

jam
>>71462653

Thanks, yeah I figured that is what most people know. "There was a report". And maybe vaguely that it's important, so Im interested to share more about it

jam
>>71461567

Not THAT much mental real-estate... I'm just kind of shocked (and dismayed) that such a foundational report with such important conclusions didn't get a lot of press. Thanks for the reccs!

jam
>>71467470

I absolutely cannot read all 4000 pages lol. But even the high-level conclusions are important to know about. A lot of the comic will be "why is this report important" and "what should we do about it"

jam
>>71487252

Yes, great point. One of my big motivators is that I feel that this report could be a great reference for anyone. A lot of the criticism of COP26 and other country-level actions is that they haven't had sufficient effect, and a lot of people involved believe a local/ground-up approach is necessary

Miyaa

So let me give you my semi-professional thoughts. I do have atmospheric science degrees (bachelor’s & master’s), so I know just enough to know which experts to trust. I would talk to Climate Central. Based in NYC, but they’ve done a fair bit with making climate issues relevant for both the USA & Canada. They have all sorts of climate data for Canada and probably already have a synopsis of the new IPCC tailored for Canada. My experience is getting climate data even from the Environment Canada is difficult and could require purchasing a subscription. They could help there. As for specific people, maybe talk to Tyler Hamilton and Johanna Wagstaffe. Both are meteorologist and reside in Vancouver and they have a Twitter presence. If you could explain what you are trying to do I think either of them would really be happy to help. At the very least, they could better direct you to people and resources who would be best to help you start on this project.

jam
>>71569085

Thank you for the advice! The project isn't going to be as big or as long as I maybe made it seem -- I'm not the right expert for that. Maybe a 4-8 page comic summary. I would also prefer to keep it more generic than try to drill down into local information for this particular project. But thank you, I'll make note of those resources!