Global Warming's New Math

Tue Jul 24 07:11:30 CDT 2012

First -- I didn't say it's "impossible" to change things on the front end,
just that McKibben's article enlightened me about how much of the
(inescapably huge) cost of the transition would hit right away... and
therefore enlightened me about the roots of denial.

As to whether it's irrational to explore for more fossil fuels when 5/6ths
of what we've already found shouldn't be burned... Idunno, "irrational" is a
stretchy term, and so is "rationalization."

Maybe we'll invent a nifty cheap way to capture and sequester CO2 at the
source (although IMHO the basic thermodynamics and engineering involved make
that unlikely).

Maybe we'll gene-engineer a tree or grass or alga or diatom that gobbles CO2
better than anything extant, converts it into a benign fixed form by the
teraton, and lays it down someplace out of the way with minimal impact on
everything else in the ecosystem...

Or maybe the two billion people currently on a fast track (the fastest ever)
from subsistence to middle-class comforts, and the two billion more who'll
arrive before global population levels off, will look upon the excesses of
we G20 types and say "Nah, we're too wise and far-sighted to repeat their
mistakes; we'll pass on the cars and refrigerators and A/C and fertilizers
and plastics and..."

Isn't it pretty to think so?

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of Rich
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2012 7:30 PM
To: Monte Davis
Cc: Dave Monroe; pynchon -l
Subject: Re: Global Warming's New Math

I guess what I'm getting at which you monte could explain better than I
could about such things is is the search for more fossil fuels considering
the impossibility of changing things to the extent as you say on the front
end whether that search in that context is an irrational act? 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 23, 2012, at 12:48 PM, "Monte Davis" <montedavis at verizon.net> wrote:

> I don't think McKibben was saying "simple greed" at all -- rather, 
> that the cost of the transition to a lower-carbon energy economy is 
> more front-loaded than I, at least, had realized. Any firm commitment 
> to stabilize and reduce
> CO2 emissions worldwide means a big financial/economic hit *right 
> now,* because the future burning of so much coal/oil/gas still 
> underground is already baked into valuations.
> 
> As for anger -- I associate that (and a carefree way with important facts)
> much more with Wolf than with McKibben, but YMMV.   
> 
> Nor, of course, is the "greed" simple, if you follow through all the 
> ramifications of the cheap hydrocarbons we're addicted to. They 
> enable, or reduce the cost of, many many Good Things dear to even the
greenest, so...
> well, we have met the enemy and he is us. "Like an instrument 
> installed, wired by Them into our bodies as a colonial outpost," ya know?
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On 
> Behalf Of Rich
> Sent: Sunday, July 22, 2012 9:11 PM
> To: Monte Davis
> Cc: Dave Monroe; pynchon -l
> Subject: Re: Global Warming's New Math
> 
> Mckibben and co call it simple greed but is it really that simple? I 
> don't discount the aggressive obliviousness of the energy companies 
> but surely it seems our systems which are fundamentally dependent on 
> fossil fuels  are not so easily displaced. Forget the stock price for 
> a minute; what about the seismic shift on employment just to name one. 
> How many us rely on oil for our jobs. It's galling having to rely on 
> bp to solve our problems but I doubt naomi Klein or McKibben can solve 
> it either. Their anger is noted; give me something more useful to 
> think about
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On Jul 22, 2012, at 2:31 PM, "Monte Davis" <montedavis at verizon.net> 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-
>> n
>> ew-mat
>> h-20120719
>> 
> 