You can have a healthy fossil-fuel balance sheet, or a relatively healthy planet - NOT BOTH

[kpete]

Global Warming's Terrifying New Math
Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe - and that make clear who the real enemy is

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If you told Exxon or Lukoil that, in order to avoid wrecking the climate, they couldn't pump out their reserves, the value of their companies would plummet. 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. The numbers aren't exact, of course, but that carbon bubble makes the housing bubble look small by comparison. It won't necessarily burst – we might well burn all that carbon, in which case investors will do fine. But if we do, the planet will crater. 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.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719#ixzz215foMomX

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