Earth’s Heated Argument

Bill McKibben outlines the three critical numbers in the balance between global salvation and global devastation-- and why the fossil fuel energy industry needs more than just a stern reprimand.

Global warming isn’t news. The looming but arguable threat has been pressed, folded and returned to us repeatedly over the past few decades. In Bill McKibben’s article in this past summers Rolling Stone, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math”, he outlines the three critical numbers in the balance between global salvation and global devastation-- and why the fossil fuel energy industry needs more than just a stern reprimand.

Three numbers that the world needs to know about :

2 Degrees Celsius is the maximum increase of global temperature agreed upon in the Copenhagen Accord. McKibben notes that we have already reached 0.8 degrees rise in global temperature. Add the continuing effect of the CO2 that has already been released into the atmosphere and this number almost doubles, bringing us dangerously close to what has been described by scientists as the tipping point of no return.

565 Gigatons. Scientists estimate that humans can pour roughly 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by mid-century and still have some reasonable hope of staying below two degrees. Last year alone our total CO2 emissions rose to 31.6 gigatons, and each year we break our own record. 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.

2,795 Gigatons of carbon contained in the available proven oil, gas and coal reserves that the fossil fuel industry is planning to burn that is already accounted for in forecasts and therefore, market value. The key point is that this new number – 2,795 – is higher than 565. Five times higher. 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.

Bill McKibben, ultimately asks for our sense of moral outrage demanding that we make the fossil fuel industry account and pay for the pollution, the CO2, which they dump into our atmosphere every day for free,

Citing this as a profit center, Naomi Klein states, "...these numbers make clear that with the fossil-fuel industry, wrecking the planet is their business model. It's what they do. [...] We need to view the fossil-fuel industry in a new light. It has become a rogue industry, reckless like no other force on Earth. It is Public Enemy Number One to the survival of our planetary civilization."

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