Will Tar Sands Pipeline Be "Game Over" for Averting Catstrophic Climate Change?

August 7, 2011 at 08:30AM
Sustainability 2030 in CO2, CO2 Reduction Targets, Climate Change, James Hansen, McKibben, tar sands

Are the economic interests of the monolithic "energy" industry now splintering in an historically significant way, with the fledgling clean tech energy sector diverging enough from the fossil fuel sector to support the Stop the Tar Sands Pipeline political action (White House Aug. 20)?

Read, Why Cleantech Should Join the Fight Against Tar Sands, by Bill McKibben and L.D. Gussin (green.biz,August 05, 2011).

Check out Tar Sands Action's upcoming sit in and associated political action scheduled for August 20th to September 3rd: 

we’re planning a peaceful protest in Washington DC to defuse the largest carbon bomb in North America.  With people power and time-tested tactics of civil disobedience – join thousands of people from across the continent in a wave of sustained sit-ins. Together we’ll amplify our voices and escalate the movement and stop the Keystone XL pipeline to the Canadian tar sands

Game Over? If the pipeline to connect the tar sand fields of Alberta (the 2nd largest oil field in the world after Saudi Arabia, but 3x the cost per barrel) to Texan oil refineries is built, and with it the world launches the tar sands oil industry, will it be "game over" for any hope of reversing catastrophic climate change (see noted NASA climatologist James Hansen, Tar Sands Pipeline Slammed . . .)?

CO2 Reduction Needed?  As humanity "[fights] against time [see recent paper by Hansen], [it has] at most a few decades to achieve a re-industrial program, of a size never before attempted?" No one knows "if time lost now can be made up." However, given that . . .

• (1) humanity is a good 35+ years behind in mounting an effective response,

• (2) we need to limit absolute increases in CO2 to a peak of around 400 ppm by 2015-2020 and then reduce absolute concentrations ASAP to the 300-350 ppm range (or to at or below the pre-industrial level of 280 ppm) but no later than 2030 (see Climate Change links below),

• (3) concentrations under our current business-as-usual (BAU) trajectory are forecast to reach 425 ppm by 2030 and 550 ppm by 2050 (2x the historic maximum of the past 650,000 years), and

• (4) a sustainable regenerative economy will be more prosperous and secure than BAU,

it would seem prudent to not lose any more time.  

Climate Change Links:

• World Watch Institute Climate Change Reference Guide

• James Hansen, Target Atmospheric CO2-Where Should Humanity Aim

• Lester Brown, Plan B--Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Chapter 4: Stabilizing Climate

• IPCC targets lead to (at least) 54% odds of catastrophic climate change

• Mainstream Emissions Targets are Insufficient

• James Hansen, Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change

• Scientific American, IPCC Modelling Proves too Conservative with CO2 Reduction Targets Insufficient

Article originally appeared on Strategic Regenerative Sustainability (http://www.ssi2030.com/).