Two New Working Papers from EcoEquity
EcoEquity is pleased to announce the release of two new essays on our website:
<www.ecoequity.org/docs/InconvenientTruth2.pdf>The
Inconvenient Truth: Part II, by Tom Athanasiou
<www.ecoequity.org/docs/TheWorthOfAnIceSheet.pdf>The
Worth of an Ice-sheet: A critique of the
treatment of catastrophic impacts in the Stern
Review, by Paul Baer
<http://www.ecoequity.org/docs/InconvenientTruth2.pdf>The
Inconvenient Truth: Part II
By <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Tom Athanasiou
We've seen the movie, so we know the first part -
we're in trouble deep. And one of the good things
about 2006 is that this ceased to be a public
secret. It's now out in the open. We not only
know that the drought is spreading, the ice
melting, the waters beginning to rise, but we
also know that we know. And this changes
everything.
The science is in, and the "skeptics" aren't what
they used to be. They're still around, of course,
but their ranks have thinned, and their funders
are feeling the heat. It's fair to say that
they've been reduced to a merely tactical danger.
They're flaks and everyone knows it. Still, this
good news comes with bad - their job was to
stall, and they did it well. And it's now late
in the game.
You don't have to take my word for it. 2006 was a
year in which the scientists, men and women
schooled in the arts of careful and measured
conclusion, chose instead to speak frankly. So
know that Dr. James Hansen, director of NASA's
Goddard Institute of Space Studies and perhaps
our single most respected climate scientist,
spoke for many of his fellows when he said that
we're "near a tipping point, a point of no
return, beyond which the built in momentum and
feedbacks will carry us to levels of climate
change with staggering consequences for humanity
and all of the residents of this planet."
We're in trouble deep. And it's time, past time,
for at least some of us to go beyond warning to
planning, to start talking seriously about a
global crash program to stabilize the climate...
Which is exactly what
<http://www.ecoequity.org/docs/InconvenientTruth2.pdf>this
essay (we hesitate to call it a manifesto) sets
out to do...
<http://www.ecoequity.org/docs/WorthOfAnIceSheet.pdf>The Worth of an Ice Sheet
by <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Paul Baer
The recent Stern Review of the Economics of
Climate Change, led by former World Bank Chief
Economist Sir Nicholas Stern for the UK
Department of the Treasury, received a lot of
attention for its recommendation the greenhouse
gases be stabilized below 550 ppm CO2-equivalent.
Unfortunately, there was a price - Stern
simultaneously dismissed stabilization targets
below 450 ppm CO2-equivalent, or any sort of
"peak and decline" trajectory that would have a
high probability of keeping temperature increase
below 2ºC.
In
<http://www.ecoequity.org/docs/WorthOfAnIceSheet.pdf>this
analysis, EcoEquity research director Dr. Paul
Baer takes a close look at Stern's treatment of
potential catastrophic risks (like the melting of
the Greenland ice sheet) and demonstrates that
Stern's treatment of these risks is clearly
inadequate. And he draws the obvious conclusion:
Those who claim that Stern has shown that
pathways consistent with the 2ºC target are not
economically justified are simply wrong.
Note: this essay appeared first on the
"<http://www.postnormaltimes.net/blog>Post-Normal
Times" science-policy blog on December 23, and
you may read and comment on it
<http://www.postnormaltimes.net/blog/archives/2006/12/the_worth_of_an_1.html>
here.
<https://www.earthisland.org/ecoEquity/donate.html>Your Big Chance to Donate
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