Global Warming's New Math

[malignd at aol.com]

Without us "cold" and "dispassionate" and "ugly" don't exist.  We created the context for understanding those judgements.  Not that I'm voting for my own obliteration ...

Nature, without humans, is cold and dispassionate, and just as likely to be ugly.  I vote for us.




-----Original Message-----
From: kelber <kelber at mindspring.com>
To: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sun, Jul 22, 2012 11:38 pm
Subject: Re: Global Warming's New Math


You know,  a friend asked me that question once, in a slightly different form:  If you were giving the human race a grade, what would it be?  A month or so earlier,  I might have said D or F.  But I said "A."  Why?  I had just finished reading Gravity's Rainbow for the first time.  And it struck me what a wonderful thing human intelligence is, that it could create such a mind-expanding novel, filled with wit and morality and silliness and fascinating connections.  Why do we consider the Hitlers, the Monsantos, the sadists, the criminally greedy the ultimate shapers of the human legacy?  Why can't the essence of what it is to be human be defined by the Pynchons, the Oscar Wildes, the cruciverbalists, the non-stop party people, the beekeepers, the folklorists, the loving grandmas, and on and on?  Intelligence, even though it sometimes takes an evil turn, is a rarity worth preserving.  Nature, without humans, is cold and dispassionate, and just as likely to be ugly.  I vote for us.


Laura

-----Original Message-----
From: Rich 
Sent: Jul 22, 2012 10:02 PM
To: David Morris 
Cc: Monte Davis , Dave Monroe , pynchon -l 
Subject: Re: Global Warming's New Math


Is humanity even worth saving? I'm ever wavering

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 22, 2012, at 9:40 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:




We've (are) lost.  New Orleans and the rest of the world's coastal cities are Atlantas's.  And bye bye to countless species.


The 20th/21st Centuries won't be fondly remembered.

On Sunday, July 22, 2012, Monte Davis  wrote:

The core argument, without caveats and qualifications:

1) From Kyoto through Copenhagen, a 2 degree C. global increase has been
widely accepted as a threshold we really don't wanna cross;
2) We can calculate how much more fossil-fuel burning will get us there;
3) Current proven reserves held by energy co's and nation/companies are
about *six times* that  amount;
4) The stock price of energy companies (and the credit-worthiness of Saudi
Arabia, Venezuela, USA states fracking their shale, et al) is tightly
correlated with their reserves. Ergo, any combination of policies/actions
that would be effective in keeping the increase under 2 degrees would in
effect say to all those parties: "Five-sixths of that collective asset just
became worthless." (Yeah, I know, coal & oil & gas are also feedstocks for
polymers, fertilizers etc, but at this level that's a detail. Yeah,  I know,
CO2 capture & sequestration is possible -- but do the math, and it would
require infrastructure -- and expenditure -- on the same scale as all
today's pipelines and refineries and tankers and coal trains.)

Some of you are no doubt saying "duhh," but it snapped my head around even
though I've been reading McKibben & co for a long time. It's the difference
between a handwaved "the fossil-fuel industry can't keep growing in future
decades as it has for the last century or two"... and saying to that
industry, the world's largest: "five-sixths of the biggest asset investors
recognize in you *right now* is a mirage." That makes it much easier to
understand the fervor of denial.



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of Dave Monroe
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2012 9:35 PM
To: pynchon -l
Subject: Global Warming's New Math

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-mat
h-20120719





 
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