Post by davidm on Jul 25, 2012 11:14:59 GMT 9.5
Or more precisely under the critical numbers. There are 2 offered here and a number that tells us no peak is there to help us.
www.commondreams.org/view/2012/07/24-2
The First Number: 2° Celsius
The Second Number: 565 Gigatons
The Third Number: 2,795 Gigatons
Questions:
1. Are the boundaries-limits too restricted?
2.If they are not or even if they are, give us a narrative if you can that saves civilization.
www.commondreams.org/view/2012/07/24-2
The First Number: 2° Celsius
So far, we've raised the average temperature of the planet just under 0.8 degrees Celsius, and that has caused far more damage than most scientists expected. (A third of summer sea ice in the Arctic is gone, the oceans are 30 percent more acidic, and since warm air holds more water vapor than cold, the atmosphere over the oceans is a shocking five percent wetter, loading the dice for devastating floods.) Given those impacts, in fact, many scientists have come to think that two degrees is far too lenient a target.
The Second Number: 565 Gigatons
Scientists estimate that humans can pour roughly 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by midcentury and still have some reasonable hope of staying below two degrees.
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computer models calculate that even if we stopped increasing CO2 now, the temperature would likely still rise another 0.8 degrees, as previously released carbon continues to overheat the atmosphere. That means we're already three-quarters of the way to the two-degree target.
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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
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computer models calculate that even if we stopped increasing CO2 now, the temperature would likely still rise another 0.8 degrees, as previously released carbon continues to overheat the atmosphere. That means we're already three-quarters of the way to the two-degree target.
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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
The Third Number: 2,795 Gigatons
The number describes the amount of carbon already contained in the proven coal and oil and gas reserves of the fossil-fuel companies, and the countries (think Venezuela or Kuwait) that act like fossil-fuel companies. In short, it's the fossil fuel we're currently planning to burn. And the key point is that this new number – 2,795 – is higher than 565. Five times higher.
Questions:
1. Are the boundaries-limits too restricted?
2.If they are not or even if they are, give us a narrative if you can that saves civilization.
