Be Excellent To Each Other

"The target that has been talked about in international negotiations for two degrees of warming is actually a prescription for long-term disaster." At the Copenhagen summit, a spokesman for small island nations warned that many would not survive a two-degree rise: "Some countries will flat-out disappear." When delegates from developing nations were warned that two degrees would represent a "suicide pact" for drought-stricken Africa, many of them started chanting, "One degree, one Africa."

How good are these numbers? No one is insisting that they're exact, but few dispute that they're generally right. The 565-gigaton figure was derived from one of the most sophisticated computer-simulation models that have been built by climate scientists around the world over the past few decades. And the number is being further confirmed by the latest climate-simulation models currently being finalized in advance of the next report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "Looking at them as they come in, they hardly differ at all," says Tom Wigley, an Australian climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "There's maybe 40 models in the data set now, compared with 20 before. But so far the numbers are pretty much the same. We're just fine-tuning things. I don't think much has changed over the last decade." William Collins, a senior climate scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, agrees. "I think the results of this round of simulations will be quite similar," he says. "We're not getting any free lunch from additional understanding of the climate system."

If you burned everything in the inventories of Russia's Lukoil and America's ExxonMobil, for instance, which lead the list of oil and gas companies, each would release more than 40 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Which is exactly why this new number, 2,795 gigatons, is such a big deal. Think of two degrees Celsius as the legal drinking limit – equivalent to the 0.08 blood-alcohol level below which you might get away with driving home. The 565 gigatons is how many drinks you could have and still stay below that limit – the six beers, say, you might consume in an evening. And the 2,795 gigatons? That's the three 12-packs the fossil-fuel industry has on the table, already opened and ready to pour.

We have five times as much oil and coal and gas on the books as climate scientists think is safe to burn. We'd have to keep 80 percent of those reserves locked away underground to avoid that fate. Before we knew those numbers, our fate had been likely. Now, barring some massive intervention, it seems certain.

Yes, this coal and gas and oil is still technically in the soil. But it's already economically aboveground – it's figured into share prices, companies are borrowing money against it, nations are basing their budgets on the presumed returns from their patrimony. It explains why the big fossil-fuel companies have fought so hard to prevent the regulation of carbon dioxide – those reserves are their primary asset, the holding that gives their companies their value. It's why they've worked so hard these past years to figure out how to unlock the oil in Canada's tar sands, or how to drill miles beneath the sea, or how to frack the Appalachians.

If you told Exxon or Lukoil that, in order to avoid wrecking the climate, they couldn't pump out their reserves, the value of their companies would plummet. John Fullerton, a former managing director at JP Morgan who now runs the Capital Institute, calculates that at today's market value, those 2,795 gigatons of carbon emissions are worth about $27 trillion. Which is to say, if you paid attention to the scientists and kept 80 percent of it underground, you'd be writing off $20 trillion in assets. The numbers aren't exact, of course, but that carbon bubble makes the housing bubble look small by comparison. It won't necessarily burst – we might well burn all that carbon, in which case investors will do fine. But if we do, the planet will crater. You can have a healthy fossil-fuel balance sheet, or a relatively healthy planet – but now that we know the numbers, it looks like you can't have both. Do the math: 2,795 is five times 565. That's how the story ends.

Meanwhile the tide of numbers continues. The week after the Rio conference limped to its conclusion, Arctic sea ice hit the lowest level ever recorded for that date. Last month, on a single weekend, Tropical Storm Debby dumped more than 20 inches of rain on Florida – the earliest the season's fourth-named cyclone has ever arrived. At the same time, the largest fire in New Mexico history burned on, and the most destructive fire in Colorado's annals claimed 346 homes in Colorado Springs – breaking a record set the week before in Fort Collins. This month, scientists issued a new study concluding that global warming has dramatically increased the likelihood of severe heat and drought – days after a heat wave across the Plains and Midwest broke records that had stood since the Dust Bowl, threatening this year's harvest. You want a big number? In the course of this month, a quadrillion kernels of corn need to pollinate across the grain belt, something they can't do if temperatures remain off the charts. Just like us, our crops are adapted to the Holocene, the 11,000-year period of climatic stability we're now leaving... in the dust.

"Sadly, it's probably too late to save much of it," says Joe Romm, a leading climate advocate who served as assistant energy secretary in the Clinton administration.

This is not to say that the entire continent will sink beneath the waves anytime soon. What is likely to vanish – or be transformed beyond recognition – are many of the things we think of when we think of Australia: the barrier reef, the koalas, the sense of the country as a land of almost limitless natural resources. Instead, Australia is likely to become hotter, drier and poorer, fractured by increasing tensions over access to water, food and energy as its major cities are engulfed by the rising seas.

I particularly liked how, according to TFA, the oil and gas companies are competing over drilling rights for Arctic fossil fuel reserves that were previously unreachable but can now be drilled for the first time because the Arctic ice has shrunk so far. That's the whole thing in a microcosm.

They're making the wind stronger too.

Who is going to stop China, India, South America and Africa though? We've shown them the shit they can have and do, how do we say "yeah we have it, but you can't"?

There was an interesting article on the BBC News website about Iron Fertilisation of the oceans.

The only solution I can see is if a new form of safe, cheap energy production is found and given to the whole world.

Disregarding whether we are as close to the edge as this article says, I have no idea what can be done though. Sure, the Western world may have a very slim shot at doing something about it if we all got our act together, however unlikely that is.

Germany is one of the only big countries that has actually tried hard to change its energy mix; on one sunny Saturday in late May, that northern-latitude nation generated nearly half its power from solar panels within its borders. That's a small miracle – and it demonstrates that we have the technology to solve our problems. But we lack the will. So far, Germany's the exception; the rule is ever more carbon.

Who is going to stop China, India, South America and Africa though? We've shown them the shit they can have and do, how do we say "yeah we have it, but you can't"?

You could argue that we just have the misfortune to have become self-aware at this low point and thus consider it being that low to be 'normal'. ... However you look at it, we're just along for the ride on this planet.

America's Climate Choices: Panel on Advancing the Science of Climate Change; National Research Council (2010). Advancing the Science of Climate Change. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press. ISBN 0-309-14588-0. "(p1) ... there is a strong, credible body of evidence, based on multiple lines of research, documenting that climate is changing and that these changes are in large part caused by human activities. While much remains to be learned, the core phenomenon, scientific questions, and hypotheses have been examined thoroughly and have stood firm in the face of serious scientific debate and careful evaluation of alternative explanations. * * * (p21-22) Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small. Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts. This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities.

If Europe/America doesn't lead the world, we definitely can't ask them to stop. So we have to go first, it's a pre-condition to having any sort of chance at all; there's no choice to be made.

To quote just one of many, many sources to rebut that

What this thread needs is a raving right-winger

That doesn't rebut the numerous ice ages this planet has encountered in the past. We might be accelerating a natural process here, and would prefer not to be giving the added input, which is understandable.

Regardless, something's happening, which is a bit shit, so we should probably do what we can to stop/slow it.

What this thread needs is a raving right-winger to come along and say everything is fine and we should all make more money.

The Chancellor has demanded that the Energy Secretary Ed Davey abandon the UK's pathway towards climate targets.

In a leaked letter, George Osborne says renewables are too expensive and suggests expanding plans for gas-fired generation.

The government's adviser, the Climate Change Committee, says this will cause the UK to miss its 2030 climate goals.

The CCC warns that with volatile gas prices, consumers could end up paying more for electricity, not less.

There's an echo in here!

China is apparently ploughing lots of cash into renewables.

What this thread needs is a raving right-winger to come along and say everything is fine and we should all make more money.

In a leaked letter, George Osborne says renewables are too expensive and suggests expanding plans for gas-fired generation.

But that's the problem with the way democracy works - no-one cares about long-term.

only permitting people to be MPs for a single term

Don't confuse a scientific theory with the more colloquial or philosphical use.

And anyway... the current sea level is about the lowest it's ever been, ever, in geological history. Technically, the earth could be considered still in an ice age and this is an interglacial period.

You could argue that we just have the misfortune to have become self-aware at this low point and thus consider it being that low to be 'normal'.

However you look at it, we're just along for the ride on this planet. The only thing in our favour is that, if we were to stop killing each other over whose magical sky daddy is best for a moment, we could get spread our eggs across multiple baskets. The planet is going to do what it likes and while it's intelligence that could save us, our stupidity is distracting us.

<covers head and runs for it>

Also, what others have said, even supposing that there's even anything in it at all (which I personally doubt)

the whole notion that little old insignificant us (the UK) should unilaterally cripple its already wounded economy to act as a 'moral example' to China and India, let alone a whole bunch of other secondary, Second World/developing economies around the globe, is just laughable nonsense IMO.

the whole notion that little old insignificant us (the UK) should unilaterally cripple its already wounded economy to act as a 'moral example' to China and India, let alone a whole bunch of other secondary, Second World/developing economies around the globe, is just laughable nonsense IMO.

Out of interest, the UK kicks out 8.5 tonnes of CO2 per capita, compared to China's 5.3 and India's incredible 1.4, so yes, we would be setting a rather good example.

Grim...'s life hints #64: When on holiday near a pool and a bar / other source of alcohol, stop posting on the Internet.

/Cavey buggers off to belly-flop into pool and embarrass grandchildren

whereas if you really planned and worked on it, you could find a way to embarrass them their whole life

A perfect analogy for energy short-termism.
The belly flop will embarrass them for 2 minutes, whereas if you really planned and worked on it, you could find a way to embarrass them their whole life

...like destroying the planet's environment with a carbon-belching fast car!