2028: The End of the World As We Know It?

[formercia]




Takepart.com – 15 hrs ago


“There is nothing radical in what we’re discussing,” journalist and climate change activist Bill McKibben said before a crowd of nearly 1,000 at the University of California Los Angeles last night. “The radicals work for the oil companies.”
Taken as on its own, a statement like that would likely sound hyperbolic to most Americans—fodder for a sound bite on Fox News. Anyone who saw McKibben’s lecture in full, however, would know he was not being hyperbolic.
McKibben was in Los Angeles as part of his nationwide “Do the Math” tour. Based on a recent article of his in Rolling Stone, (“The one with Justin Bieber on the cover,” McKibben joked) the event is essentially a lecture circuit based on a single premise: climate change is simple math—and the numbers do not look good. If immediate action isn’t taken by global leaders: “It’s game-over for the planet.”
MORE: It's Been Global Warming, Stupid
The math, McKibben explained, works like this. Global leaders recently came to an international agreement based on the scientific understanding that a global temperature raise of 2°C would have “catastrophic” consequences for the future of humanity. In order to raise global temperatures to this catastrophic threshold, the world would have to release 565 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Here’s the problem: Fossil fuel companies currently have 2,795 gigatons of carbon dioxide in their fuel reserves—and their business model depends on that fuel being sold and burned. At current rates of consumption, the world will have blown through its 565-gigaton threshold in 16 years.

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More at the link:
http://news.yahoo.com/2028-end-world-know-203540191.html

[Enthusiast]

1. Bah! Hoax!

Global warming is a hoax. I kid.

It looks like the fossil fuel concerns will fight any effort to rein in CO2 emissions until the earth's inhabitants die from heat.

[No Elephants]

2. Why do they hate their kids and grandkids?

Maybe they've bought themselves another planet from a Mormon family?

[formercia]

3. There will always be Air Conditioning for those who can afford it.

They will make even more money on developing the Canadian former Arctic. Canada and Russia will fare well. The rich will always buy up the best land. The people who will suffer are the poor and those unable to adapt or move towards cooler climes.

[Leopolds Ghost]

4. That's the article I tried to tell people about. The one that said anyone who supports Keystone is

an enemy of the human race. I think No Elephants is the person who posted it here and brought it to our attention...