July 20, 2012

2 565 2795 – Global Warming’s New Math

If you’re not concerned (if not scared) about climate change, you’re not paying attention.

Here’s Bill McKibben’s summary of his Rolling Stone piece which, with perfect timing, has grabbed people’s attention:

1) 2 degrees C–that’s what the world’s nations (even oil states) have agreed is the most we can possibly let temps rise. It’s actually too high–but it is the one thing about climate change that the world has agreed on

2) 565 gigatons co2–that’s roughly how much more carbon we can pour into the atmosphere between now and 2050 and have a reasonable chance of staying below 2 degrees. It’s not much–we burn about 30 gigatons a year, and growing, so at current rates would go by in 16 years

3) 2795 gigatons co2. This is the really scary number. It’s how much carbon the fossil fuel industry (and the countries that operate like fossil fuel companies) have already in their reserves. The stuff that props up their share price, lets them borrow money. The stuff they’re committed to burning.

What that means is: we now know for certain that the stated business plans of this industry will wreck the planet. It’s not even close–they’re planning to burn 5 x the carbon that any sane scientist sets as the absolute upper limit.

 

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Comments

  1. Reading this just makes me so angry. It should make everyone so angry – that our government wants to build a pipeline to sell even more oil for even more money and then claims they can cut emissions. They can’t. The best thing for Canada, and the world, would be if the oil sands are shut down, completely, within a matter of a few years. Of course it’ll hurt, but so does surgery to remove cancer. It’s a necessary pain to avoid further pain down the road.

  2. no pipeine from AB still have oil tanker from the midel east, the emission aren’t get and better, just giver for those county has no hungman right.

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