Environment The ugly math of global warming. Geez. - Page 2

Direckshun · 07-20-2012, 08:55 AM

Huge article posted by Rolling Stone on the issue.

This will just be a heavily edited summary of the piece by yours truly, as it is very long. Rest assured I have the key information included, you can click through to check out anything I've omitted to make this more manageable read for the DCer on the go.

The last two paragraphs explain why climate change legislation CANNOT move forward, politically. It is literally the bottom line.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...-math-20120719

Global Warming's Terrifying New Math:
Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe
By Bill McKibben
July 19, 2012 9:35 AM ET

If the pictures of those towering wildfires in Colorado haven't convinced you, or the size of your AC bill this summer, here are some hard numbers about climate change: June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States. That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe.

Since I wrote one of the first books for a general audience about global warming way back in 1989, and since I've spent the intervening decades working ineffectively to slow that warming, I can say with some confidence that we're losing the fight, badly and quickly – losing it because, most of all, we remain in denial about the peril that human civilization is in.

The First Number: 2° Celsius

If the movie had ended in Hollywood fashion, the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009 would have marked the culmination of the global fight to slow a changing climate. The world's nations had gathered in the December gloom of the Danish capital for what a leading climate economist, Sir Nicholas Stern of Britain, called the "most important gathering since the Second World War, given what is at stake."

In Paragraph 1, it formally recognized "the scientific view that the increase in global temperature should be below two degrees Celsius." And in the very next paragraph, it declared that "we agree that deep cuts in global emissions are required... so as to hold the increase in global temperature below two degrees Celsius."

Some context: So far, we've raised the average temperature of the planet just under 0.8 degrees Celsius, and that has caused far more damage than most scientists expected. (A third of summer sea ice in the Arctic is gone, the oceans are 30 percent more acidic, and since warm air holds more water vapor than cold, the atmosphere over the oceans is a shocking five percent wetter, loading the dice for devastating floods.) Given those impacts, in fact, many scientists have come to think that two degrees is far too lenient a target.

Despite such well-founded misgivings, political realism bested scientific data, and the world settled on the two-degree target – indeed, it's fair to say that it's the only thing about climate change the world has settled on. All told, 167 countries responsible for more than 87 percent of the world's carbon emissions have signed on to the Copenhagen Accord, endorsing the two-degree target. The official position of planet Earth at the moment is that we can't raise the temperature more than two degrees Celsius – it's become the bottomest of bottom lines. Two degrees.

The Second Number: 565 Gigatons

Scientists estimate that humans can pour roughly 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by midcentury and still have some reasonable hope of staying below two degrees. ("Reasonable," in this case, means four chances in five, or somewhat worse odds than playing Russian roulette with a six-shooter.)

This idea of a global "carbon budget" emerged about a decade ago, as scientists began to calculate how much oil, coal and gas could still safely be burned.

We're not getting any free lunch from the world's economies, either. With only a single year's lull in 2009 at the height of the financial crisis, we've continued to pour record amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, year after year.

In fact, study after study predicts that carbon emissions will keep growing by roughly three percent a year – and at that rate, we'll blow through our 565-gigaton allowance in 16 years, around the time today's preschoolers will be graduating from high school. "The new data provide further evidence that the door to a two-degree trajectory is about to close," said Fatih Birol, the IEA's chief economist. In fact, he continued, "When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of about six degrees." That's almost 11 degrees Fahrenheit, which would create a planet straight out of science fiction.

The Third Number: 2,795 Gigatons

This number is the scariest of all – one that, for the first time, meshes the political and scientific dimensions of our dilemma. The number describes the amount of carbon already contained in the proven coal and oil and gas reserves of the fossil-fuel companies, and the countries (think Venezuela or Kuwait) that act like fossil-fuel companies. In short, it's the fossil fuel we're currently planning to burn. And the key point is that this new number – 2,795 – is higher than 565. Five times higher.

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.

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.

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.

Bewbies · 07-20-2012, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by patteeu

All it will take is for all of us to give up air conditioning, internal combustion engines, and industrialization.

Not all of us, only those of us that live in the USA.

Brainiac · 07-20-2012, 02:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bewbies

Not all of us, only those of us that live in the USA.

And only those who don't receive carbon credits or whatever type of waiver the Democrats come up with.

mikey23545 · 07-20-2012, 02:52 PM

Why just this morning I walked into the garage only to find it was flooded with sea water. I waded towards my car to start bailing it out, and tripped over the body of a polar bear!

I tell you, only the government can save us from carbohydrates!...or is it hydrocarbons?

Ah, hell, that's right - they're going to save us from both!

Gore help us!

**AustinChief** · 07-20-2012, 02:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Direckshun

You're not contesting the theory, either. At least not in that post.

You're just contesting one minute part of the post.

Then declaring the math wrong, when it's right.

And the theory wrong, without explaining what theory you're even talking about or why.

OH God.. PLEASE say this again so I can get you on record before I curb stomp this entire garbage article...

mikey23545 · 07-20-2012, 03:05 PM

..................Dead Polar Bear

......... .............Not Dead Polar Bear

Direckshun · 07-20-2012, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by patteeu

The theory that, absent man-made global warming, climate variance should follow a pattern defined by "simple chance" is bunk. Doing a calculation based on that theory and coming up with an eye-catchingly small number is meaningless. Is that clear enough for you?

That's a fair point, but it's not remotely a part of the article's argument. It's a minute point in the argument.

CoMoChief · 07-20-2012, 03:27 PM

We just need to pay Al Gore money or we're all going to die

Direckshun · 07-20-2012, 03:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Huffmeister

Just curious, do you have a link to the math or the study that claims that number? I'd like to see how they came up with that number, but can't seem to find anywhere in the article where he cites the source.

I don't, I'm not a math expert.

I think the point the author was making was that all these temperature records being broken is evidence of a pattern, not just chance. A pretty uncontroversial statement, unless somebody actually wants to argue the earth hasn't been getting hotter.

fan4ever · 07-20-2012, 03:35 PM

Was at the Birch Aquarium in San Diego last weekend; a room designated to man made global warming...and a nicely displayed box to donate to help fight global warming. Kind of a small scale version of the big scale idea.

**patteeu** · 07-20-2012, 03:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Direckshun

That's a fair point, but it's not remotely a part of the article's argument. It's a minute point in the argument.

It the first point he makes. He makes it because he's trying to poison the mind of the reader with this supposedly dire situation he's about to write about. If you can't trust his analysis on such a "minute point", how can you trust it on anything?

**AustinChief** · 07-20-2012, 03:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Direckshun

I don't, I'm not a math expert.

I think the point the author was making was that all these temperature records being broken is evidence of a pattern, not just chance. A pretty uncontroversial statement, unless somebody actually wants to argue the earth hasn't been getting hotter.

Seriously? This statement makes it abundantly clear that you have ZERO understanding of the basics of this debate. Anyone who says that this year's (or last, or next) record highs(or lows) are indicative of "global warming" (or try to use them to debunk global climate change) is clueless. I'd really like to go further on this but I'm not even sure where to begin.. Honestly, it'd be like trying to explain evolution to a creationist... not even sure it's worth it.

Direckshun · 07-20-2012, 03:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by patteeu

It the first point he makes.

Immaterial.

Quote:

Originally Posted by patteeu

He makes it because he's trying to poison the mind of the reader with this supposedly dire situation he's about to write about.

He's doing it to illustrate that the heat rising cannot be sheer randomness.

Which, I don't think anybody disagrees with. Far as I know, almost everybody agrees it's getting hotter and hotter.

Which is why it is a minute point of the piece.

Direckshun · 07-20-2012, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AustinChief

Seriously? This statement makes it abundantly clear that you have ZERO understanding of the basics of this debate. Anyone who says that this year's (or last, or next) record highs(or lows) are indicative of "global warming" (or try to use them to debunk global climate change) is clueless.

You're saying that the impossibly lengthy lists of records of heatwaves and droughts this year aren't even indicative of climate change?

bandwagonjumper · 07-20-2012, 03:49 PM

I've never understand when people denie global warming. There are now 6 billion people around. Hundred years ago the world population was about 1.6 billion people. The world population has more than trebbled in hundred years. The industrialization has expanded not in Europe and North America but now throughout the world. The only constant is the earth and the atmosphere. So its make sense that humankind influence the atmosphere negatively. The only question is that it doesn't make much of a difference if Europe and the USA implement laws against it because the big offenders are Russian, China and the third world?

**AustinChief** · 07-20-2012, 03:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Direckshun

You're saying that the impossibly lengthy lists of records of heatwaves and droughts this year aren't even indicative of climate change?

Yes. I am. And if you understood the science even a little you'd know that. #1 it's not some CRAZY impossible list of records being broken... get that sensationalist bullshit out of your head now. #2 The vast majority of global climate change ALARMISTS won't even agree with this nonsensical argument.

While I have serious issues with the entire global climate change argument.. this has NOTHING to do with that. If I were on that side of the fence, I'd tell you to quit talking because you're making them look a lot worse then they are.

07-20-2012, 08:55 AM
Direckshun Black for Palestine Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Springpatch Casino cash: $1166510	The ugly math of global warming. Geez. Huge article posted by Rolling Stone on the issue. This will just be a heavily edited summary of the piece by yours truly, as it is very long. Rest assured I have the key information included, you can click through to check out anything I've omitted to make this more manageable read for the DCer on the go. The last two paragraphs explain why climate change legislation CANNOT move forward, politically. It is literally the bottom line. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...-math-20120719 Global Warming's Terrifying New Math: Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe By Bill McKibben July 19, 2012 9:35 AM ET If the pictures of those towering wildfires in Colorado haven't convinced you, or the size of your AC bill this summer, here are some hard numbers about climate change: June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States. That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe. Since I wrote one of the first books for a general audience about global warming way back in 1989, and since I've spent the intervening decades working ineffectively to slow that warming, I can say with some confidence that we're losing the fight, badly and quickly – losing it because, most of all, we remain in denial about the peril that human civilization is in. The First Number: 2° Celsius If the movie had ended in Hollywood fashion, the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009 would have marked the culmination of the global fight to slow a changing climate. The world's nations had gathered in the December gloom of the Danish capital for what a leading climate economist, Sir Nicholas Stern of Britain, called the "most important gathering since the Second World War, given what is at stake." In Paragraph 1, it formally recognized "the scientific view that the increase in global temperature should be below two degrees Celsius." And in the very next paragraph, it declared that "we agree that deep cuts in global emissions are required... so as to hold the increase in global temperature below two degrees Celsius." Some context: So far, we've raised the average temperature of the planet just under 0.8 degrees Celsius, and that has caused far more damage than most scientists expected. (A third of summer sea ice in the Arctic is gone, the oceans are 30 percent more acidic, and since warm air holds more water vapor than cold, the atmosphere over the oceans is a shocking five percent wetter, loading the dice for devastating floods.) Given those impacts, in fact, many scientists have come to think that two degrees is far too lenient a target. Despite such well-founded misgivings, political realism bested scientific data, and the world settled on the two-degree target – indeed, it's fair to say that it's the only thing about climate change the world has settled on. All told, 167 countries responsible for more than 87 percent of the world's carbon emissions have signed on to the Copenhagen Accord, endorsing the two-degree target. The official position of planet Earth at the moment is that we can't raise the temperature more than two degrees Celsius – it's become the bottomest of bottom lines. Two degrees. The Second Number: 565 Gigatons Scientists estimate that humans can pour roughly 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by midcentury and still have some reasonable hope of staying below two degrees. ("Reasonable," in this case, means four chances in five, or somewhat worse odds than playing Russian roulette with a six-shooter.) This idea of a global "carbon budget" emerged about a decade ago, as scientists began to calculate how much oil, coal and gas could still safely be burned. We're not getting any free lunch from the world's economies, either. With only a single year's lull in 2009 at the height of the financial crisis, we've continued to pour record amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, year after year. In fact, study after study predicts that carbon emissions will keep growing by roughly three percent a year – and at that rate, we'll blow through our 565-gigaton allowance in 16 years, around the time today's preschoolers will be graduating from high school. "The new data provide further evidence that the door to a two-degree trajectory is about to close," said Fatih Birol, the IEA's chief economist. In fact, he continued, "When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of about six degrees." That's almost 11 degrees Fahrenheit, which would create a planet straight out of science fiction. The Third Number: 2,795 Gigatons This number is the scariest of all – one that, for the first time, meshes the political and scientific dimensions of our dilemma. The number describes the amount of carbon already contained in the proven coal and oil and gas reserves of the fossil-fuel companies, and the countries (think Venezuela or Kuwait) that act like fossil-fuel companies. In short, it's the fossil fuel we're currently planning to burn. And the key point is that this new number – 2,795 – is higher than 565. Five times higher. 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. 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. 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.
Posts: 37,488

07-20-2012, 02:52 PM	#18
mikey23545 MVP Join Date: Aug 2000 Casino cash: $149648	Why just this morning I walked into the garage only to find it was flooded with sea water. I waded towards my car to start bailing it out, and tripped over the body of a polar bear! I tell you, only the government can save us from carbohydrates!...or is it hydrocarbons? Ah, hell, that's right - they're going to save us from both! Gore help us!
Posts: 10,363

07-20-2012, 03:05 PM	#20
mikey23545 MVP Join Date: Aug 2000 Casino cash: $149648	..................Dead Polar Bear ......... .............Not Dead Polar Bear
Posts: 10,363

07-20-2012, 03:27 PM	#22
CoMoChief The Revolution Has Begun Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: KCMO Casino cash: $123378	We just need to pay Al Gore money or we're all going to die __________________ 2013 Adopt-A-Chief: Eric Berry #29
Posts: 28,309

07-20-2012, 03:35 PM	#24
fan4ever Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Scottsdale, AZ Casino cash: $31738	Was at the Birch Aquarium in San Diego last weekend; a room designated to man made global warming...and a nicely displayed box to donate to help fight global warming. Kind of a small scale version of the big scale idea.
Posts: 3,149

07-20-2012, 03:49 PM	#29
bandwagonjumper Starter Join Date: Apr 2009 Casino cash: $11404	I've never understand when people denie global warming. There are now 6 billion people around. Hundred years ago the world population was about 1.6 billion people. The world population has more than trebbled in hundred years. The industrialization has expanded not in Europe and North America but now throughout the world. The only constant is the earth and the atmosphere. So its make sense that humankind influence the atmosphere negatively. The only question is that it doesn't make much of a difference if Europe and the USA implement laws against it because the big offenders are Russian, China and the third world?
Posts: 263

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