{"id":31388,"date":"2016-10-05T11:39:43","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T10:39:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/?p=31388"},"modified":"2016-10-06T11:56:52","modified_gmt":"2016-10-06T10:56:52","slug":"the-new-climate-math-is-a-declaration-of-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2016\/10\/05\/the-new-climate-math-is-a-declaration-of-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the new climate math is a declaration of war"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is new climate math and it is the most irresistible\u00a0yet. So we’ve heard from two of the most eloquent\u00a0voices for action on climate change: Bill McKibben and George Monbiot.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Writing in response to a report<\/a> released by US NGO Oil Change International (OCI), McKibben and Monbiot echoed OCI’s\u00a0conclusion that\u00a0no new coal mines or oil or\u00a0gas wells can be opened up, lest we exceed the carbon budget imposed on\u00a0us by atmospheric physics.<\/p>\n

In New Republic<\/a>, McKibben had a\u00a0characteristically elegant device to explain the findings. There are\u00a0942 gigatons of C02 stored in working mines and fields.<\/p>\n

But the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that we can’t exceed 800 gigatons to stand a decent\u00a0chance\u00a0of staying within 2C. That’s the upper limit set by the Paris climate agreement.<\/p>\n

Thus, said McKibben, the earth’s response to climate change would\u00a0be henceforth governed by this\u00a0inequation:<\/p>\n

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942>843<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

From this\u00a0he concluded that no new extraction sites should be opened. To do so would be to fail the simplest of maths tests.<\/p>\n

OCI\u00a0founder\u00a0Stephen Kretzmann put it this way: \u201cContinued expansion of the fossil fuel industry is now quite clearly and quantifiably climate denial.”<\/p>\n

A\u00a0mathematician\u00a0might write it like this:<\/p>\n

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942>843 \u21d2 no new extraction<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That symbol means ‘it logically follows’. But\u00a0the logic is flawed. Critically, in reaching their final conclusion OCI\u00a0made political and social choices that bear examination.<\/p>\n

A year ago, Carbon Tracker Initiative looked at the same problem as OCI and came\u00a0to a different conclusion<\/a>. Yes, they said,\u00a0opening new coal mines was\u00a0bonkers.\u00a0But some new\u00a0oil\u00a0and gas fields might\u00a0be acceptable.<\/p>\n

There are several reasons why having\u00a0larger\u00a0amounts of carbon in working fields that we can safely put into the air doesn’t automatically mean no new fields can be opened.<\/p>\n

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This new math profoundly changes our situation–fossil fuel frontier now closed, unless we want to break the planet https:\/\/t.co\/FTCRvKY2Kd<\/a><\/p>\n

— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) September 22, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n