http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nDvey2a-6M
Rough Transcript:
Day 4 - Slowing my
Descent 800 cal per day, for now
I'm tempted to say I
screwed up but rather I manifest our screwup.
This is not a one-man job, no disrespect to anyone else's effort. Coming up with a diagnosis and treatment plan
that will avert environmental Armageddon is not a one-man job. I can do it. I
have the aptitude. I have done this kind
of work my entire life, and I can do it alone.
But it at such a hideous, hideously, slow pace. Faster than anyone, because I realize it
needs to be done. But so much slower
than it needs to be done.
I don't know how many
days it's going to take me to answer the question that I thought I had answered
last week, which is fundamental to being able to articulate, and stand, and
win; a maximum of 1.5° rise.
I’m John Q, and if
you don't understand what that means you need to watch that movie, John Q I'm
not a heart surgeon but I am a dad, who's going to be buried by his son, I am
not going to bury my son.
I'm smart and I'm
determined and I have a background that enables me to do this, but there are
still too many gaps in my fundamental understanding.
See John Q. See that movie. See it see it tonight. In that movie his coldhearted, bureaucratic,
Dr. an administrator at least told him what was required to save his save his
son – ‘your son needs a new heart, he needs it now, or he’s going to die.
Our bureaucrats, some
of them told us the equivalence of this clarity up until Copenhagen, and now
they've they've waffled for years since Copenhagen, with tons of un-actionable
mealymouthed stuff coming out of them.
‘Your son's gonna die! Your sons
gonna die! Your sons gonna die! I do
something! Do something! Do something!’ Do
what!? By when?!
I don't intend to
leave this life until I can leave a clear answer to that. I don't know if it's
going to take me a couple more days, or another week or so; not to become a
brain surgeon, not to become a heart surgeon. John Q didn’t become a heart
surgeon. But I need to know, based on
the data that's out there, the Copenhagen Synthesis I now think is the document
I think I should point people to, not the Copenhagen Diagnosis which is part of
caving to the 2° C. No.
I'm certain that 1.5°
C maximum rise by 2100 is the avoidance of hell and high water but I need to
check that against Romm’s book by the name “Hell and High Water;” by Hansen's
work, by Mann’s work and by the Copenhagen Synthesis (not sure now), a PDF that
I just found. You should look at them as
well.
I need some
fundamental elements. I need to know how much additional carbon that enables us
to emit how much additional CO2 that we can put the atmosphere without risking
1.5 degrees C. I need to figure out
where methane seepage fits, a few figures in there, pieces of this puzzle; but
no one bothered pulling, pulling together.
So, I've got to
refigure the price per ton. I'm guessing that's the $240 but that's not good
enough, guessing, that is. When enough of us died to get the proper argument on
the table I need to give you a number. I need to get in the ballpark on what
the wreckage costs per ton of carbon is.
Now I just did some wild figuring and came up with $11,000 per ton. I
don't mean silly figuring out. Real
broad order of magnitude. I think it was
something like this is a currently a $70 trillion world economy, the next
thousand generations makes it a 70,000 trillion dollar world economy; I figured
something like 150 more billion tons of carbon that we could burn without
breaking 1.5 degrees C; took 20% of a 70,000 trillion dollar economy for the
next thousand years and figured we’re wrecking 20% of that, which is a
conservative figure given the economist Nicholas Stern's work, where he figures
initially we’re destroying 20% of world GDP, going up to 35% in the medium term,
and worse from there; and came out with if we are destroying only 20% of the
world economy, it is something like $11,000 per ton. This is huge.
It's a hell of a lot more than $240 per ton, and I want to know what
that is. You need to know what that is,
and I need to leave you with that.
So going about 800
cal per day for another couple of days, for another couple of weeks, I don't
know, but can't leave you without a clearer roadmap. All this will go into an
update of Tracking Plan B, of “Global Warming's Death. Fast.
It continues to
appear that what we have to accomplish is 6% decrease per year versus the
current trendline to stay below 1.5° C.
It appears that Hansen continues to have the humanity, continues to have
the balls to point us in the right direction.
But God bless him, and it isn't his job to know how to make the argument,
to win the argument.
It's been my entire
life doing such things. I see no one else doing it so I've got to leave you the
other information on which you can stand and know whether policy is giving you
that 6% decrease per year, how many tons of emissions, what's the maximum tonnage
of coal that can be burned and still stay below 1.5 degrees C. Oh, there are numbers out there for the
maximums to stay below 2° C. No. 2° C is Hell and High Water. Two degrees C is the oceans that the reefs
gone; a third to half the world's species gone; 6 foot sea level rise this
century. No. That's crazy and I don't know whether I’ll
have a breakthrough the next couple of days, or how long this is gonna take.
Watch for reports
that I'll try and post soon that are the what I consider to be the pieces that
we need to pull together, and help me, God dammit. This isn't rocket science. Its interpolation; it's good basic work; for
God sake help me.
Or tell me who's
already done it. But I need to know what
the treatment plan is to save our children; our next 200 billion children; and
I can't find it anywhere. I can't find anyone with enough humanity or
clumsiness to stand up with a clarity that the doctor and administrator did in
John Q, which means I got a try and fill that role for us.
