Lev Lafalyette – Critical Issues for the Global Climate

We are often told that the future of our planet is a choice between two extremes. But according to Lev Lafayette, the reality lies in the complex interaction of technology, policy, and human behaviour. Lev has spent his career managing complex systems – both in the world of IT and in the realm of social theory. In his upcoming presentation, ‘Critical Issues for the Global Climate,’ Lev moves past the rhetoric to provide a sober analysis of where we are actually headed, based on the IPCC’s most likely pathways and the current state of global mitigation technologies.

Synopisis

Increasingly, climatology is a well-understood science albeit with a great variety of variables that often interact with each other in complex and subtle manner, generating a variety of simultaneous equations and race conditions. Nevertheless, it is possible to provide modelled forecasts based on probable future greenhouse gas emissions, advanced in mitigating technologies, and policy decisions which are described by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as Representative Concentration Pathway (RCPs) and Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). In this presentation, a grounded attempt is made to propose what the most likely outcomes are, based on both an realistic analysis of international politics, economic development, and technologies, along with regional responses to adapt to the new circumstances.