The Guardian has a petition on its web site which I would urge you to sign. They say:
Join us in urging the world's two biggest charitable funds to move their money out of fossil fuels
To Bill and Melinda Gates, founders of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Jeremy Farrar and Sir William Castell, director and chair of the Wellcome Trust:
Your organisations have made a huge contribution to human progress and equality by supporting scientific research and development projects. Yet your investments in fossil fuels are putting this progress at great risk, by undermining your long term ambitions.
Climate change poses a real threat to all of us, and it is morally and financially misguided to invest in companies dedicated to finding and burning more oil, gas and coal. Many philanthropic organisations are divesting their endowments from fossil fuels. We ask you to do the same: to commit now to divesting from the top 200 fossil fuel companies within five years and to immediately freeze any new investments in those companies.
There is, I have to say, an even more important reason for their disinvesting from these companies, and that is that fossil fuel companies are the next major global financial crash in the making.
Fossil fuel companies are not just valued on what they make; they are also valued on the basis of the reserves that they hold. This is why they keep trying to find more reserves of oil, coal, and so on. But, in practice, we now know that the vast majority of the existing identified reserves of carbon fuels in the world will have to stay in the ground if we are to have any hope of keeping climate change below 2°, at which point it becomes potentially fundamentally dangerous to the future of human well-being. So, there is a very strong likelihood that the reserves of these companies are dramatically overstated, in practical terms, and as a result that their valuations are also massively too high.
After banks and finance companies fossil fuel companies are the biggest companies by value on the London stock exchange. But, that valuation may be wholly inappropriate for the reasons I note.
Disinvestment is not just about telling these companies to keep fossil fuels in the ground; it is also about a phased, and gentle, programme of these companies seeing their valuations reduced so that a major collapse in the financial markets can be avoided, maybe.
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Look at this and tell me you want fossil fuels in the ground:
http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk
If you do, I assume you are willing to have your power disconnected now. (Wind currently generating 0.19GW of >11GW installed).
No one said overnight
Why resort to crass argument if you are so confident of your case?
No one said overnight. I don’t think anyone has said it can ever be done.
100% renewables? Only if you want intermittent power. Or more nuclear.
We will have to differ
Scotland generated 46% of its electricity demand from renewables in 2013. It now beats every other power e.g. coal and nuclear and moreover is growing so fast it is well on track for the Scottish Government target of 100% by 2020.
Now look at that together with the little matter of climate change and tell me (with a straight face) you want fossil fuels OUT the ground!
But Richard, that argument is predicated on the assumption that whoever is in charge actually believes in such a thing as climate change and that they believe that there is a need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels. I see no evidence of that yet, in fact the opposite seems to be true – I seem to recall our amazing leader describing that as ‘green crap’.
And there is also a body of opinion which says that stocks are overvalued to the tune of 50%, so this seems the more likely cause of the next financial crisis.
@Tom Richardson. The maintenance of the Earth system in a resistant and sustainable state is scientifically researched and shows major uncertainties (high risks) for planetary changes, see [1] published in the high-status journal Science, 15th February 2015. **Climate change** is in the zone of uncertainty (increasing risk). If does not matter if the “whoever is in charge believes” it or not, as you quote. Remember Copernicus and Galileo – they stated the sun was at the centre of the solar system; Galileo was tried and found “vehemently suspect of heresy”, was it more “green crap” where the sun sits. That is the fun of science in describing our natural world, and its underlying [disputed] processes – trying to work it out. Over the long term science cannot be made to factor in what you want it to be!
[1] http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/1259855.abstract
Thanks Tony
Sadly Tom, you’re correct. The free market fundamentalists and libertarian fanatics that make up most of the right these days are trying everything they can to stop our transition to a low or no carbon economy. Apart from the obvious technique of endlessly repeating the same denialist myths however often they’re debunked, you see the far more serious strategies of trying to stop state employees even using the words ‘climate change’ (in Florida under a Republican governor), or, as in Australia, the denialist PM, Abbott, withdrawing funding from scientific institutions studying climate change, and repealing a law designed to mitigate climate change.
Funny how the right always like to present themselves as champion of ‘freedom’ when in fact they are resorting to attempts to control language and suppress scientific investigation.
Freedom is defined as freedom for market fundamentalism on the right
I respect that freedom
But not that it has any exclusive rights of any sort
Especially as all that is fundamental about it is its error
Richard,
I whole heartedly agree with the sentiments of the blog. I also urge others to sign the petition.
Additionally, we nee to think what we, as society, can do from a practical perspective. I suggest, and put forth, that we also lower our own household consumption of energy. I have long thought that all of the energy needs one can ask for is that which can be produced sustainably. As such, and in complete line with Green QE, I think that each home should be fitted with solar panels and this should represent the bulk (90%?) of the energy needs of a household. The remaining 10% can come through other means such as wind.
As you say Richard, this will not come overnight, but it should. Prudent savings around the house (energy efficient bulbs, switching that light off, etc) will help us all live within our own personal sustainable means.
A truly “courageous state” (to borrow our host’s phrase) would ration its citizens overall consumption of energy and educate to assist them to live within their means.
Unfortunately, industry (in whatever form) cannot live from current renewable generation. No *dispatchable* power equals no productive industry. Until a form of high-energy storage is available, capable of high-energy-output, wind/solar will not power the country. Further, when all houses have solar, the subsidy that it “enjoys” will end (it has gone down consistently anyway) and the free solar installation will also end.
We have what some have described as a ludicrous situation at the moment, where new generation is not being built and the gap between what we need and what we generate is close to equal. If we need “a little bit more” we have the “strategic operating reserve”, which is banks of large diesel generating plant on standby (and they get paid even if the generators are NOT generating)….
So if we have, say, 50GW of wind generation, we will also need 50GW of storage plant (the current favourite is large flow batteries…batteries which store electricity in a liquid electrolyte which is then stored in large tanks)….we are talking BIG here. But, of course, we need more than the calculated maximum use….and more storage, because the storage may have to power the country in a prolonged wind drought…
What neither party is saying, is that neither party is going to go for 100% renewable. Renewable isn’t dispatchable. It isn’t reliable.
And energy efficiency only goes so far, the side effects of same are pretty well know….like current energy efficient lamps (CFLs’) which contain mercury (and have to be disposed of properly…not in the bin)….LED lamps are very nice, but China has stinking pits on the outskirts of many industrial towns as evidence that one countries meat is anothers poison.
Of course, if everyone bought an electric car the effect of having several million batteries available at once would be a game changer. They haven’t. What we are doing is using less of one resource, but more of various others. And as far as electronics is concerned, we are using much more of many rare resources. The newer wind generators use permanent magnets (the older ones used gearboxes….design life 25 years, broke in 7 years), the magnets use a boatload of neodymium….the price of which has risen steeply in the last ten years.
Swings and roundabouts. What we need is less people.
Feel free to maintain your prejudices
There is no doubt we need use less energy
But your other claims just don’t stack in my opinion
And this is not the place to discuss that in detail. I am entirely happy with scientific opinion on this issue which suggests change is vital and possible
Crumbs, the last blog was so 1984 ish. Surely the way is to better the technology on the burning of fossil fuels? Natural events will change world temperatures anyway.
I’m sorry to say, but that is so ostrichish
Fairly recently, scientific opinion regarded the world as flat.
Correlation does not imply causation.
But prorgrsdssive scietntists got it right
As they have now
0.8 degrees centigrade in 150 years. No rise in 18 years.
Progressive scientists got it right, that would be the scientific skeptics of that age.
Establishment scientists didn’t go near the edge in case they fell off.
I don’t mind “keeping it in the ground”, I tend to agree with it.
I don’t mind “doing the same with less”, it’s more efficient.
I mind being lied to, I mind science being turned into a performing monkey to amuse or scare people. Especially when those doing the scaring live the life of Reilly on the proceeds.
I am sorry John
But that’s a pack of lies
@JohnM. Look up the scientific literature, refereed journals on educational science discuss this in depth and you will find this is largely myth. Since geometry was understood Aristotle, Euclid, Eratosthenes (he did the widely known definitive experiment, also estimating the circumference to within 2%), Pythagoras and others figured out it is a sphere e.g. the circular shadow of Earth on the Moon as a lunar eclipse forms etc; and of course the Copernican revolution added greatly to our understanding of the solar system and its parts. Newton figured out in 1687 Earth was not a perfect sphere but oblate.
We do however have many recent myth makers!
Ah the old denialist talking points – the zombie canards that never go away……
@ Stephen Griffiths – you’re alluding to Carbon Capture & Storage which is just another way for Big Fossil to kick the can down the road (or into the long grass never to be found again). We can start banking on CCS once it has been proven to work at large scale – i don’t see Big Coal in a great hurry though. And yes, climate does have natural variability – so what ? We’re not talking about natural variability, we’re talking about climate forcing within the last 100 years. Natural variability occurs over thousands or millions of years. The only events capable of changing the climate to such an extent (as is becoming apparent) in only 100 years or less are cataclysmic ones – meteor impact or enormous volcanic eruptions. Milankovich cycles and continental drift occur across geological time, not within 100 years.
@ JohnM – correlation ? Evidence. Science has lots of it. What do you have ?
The truth is we have to wean ourselves off burning carbon as quickly as is humanly possible without destroying society as we know it in the process. There are a number of lines of attack and Green QE should be at the heart of the process. Retro fitting housing and building new housing to passivhaus standard, massive investment in renewable schemes, both local and national level, and, where i diverge from Richard, massive investment in new nuclear for baseload power needs – we should not make the same mistake the Germans have by increasing renewables and coal at the same time as a result of Fukushima. Coal burning is a catastrophe, not only for its CO2, but also for its toxic and radioactive output which kills thousands of people every year (estimated 50000 in the US alone).
Not sure we could ever consume enough carbon to cause a global catastrophe on the level of a meteor impact, and coal may not be ideal but it has probably saved many more lives through keeping people warm and powering our electricity. Renewable energy is good but for now we still need fossil fuels
Wake up to reality, I suggest
@James: Here is an article from 1959 before climate change controversies began in ernest – and what was predicted.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carbon-dioxide-and-climate/
Back to 1861!
1861! Scientific American articles are easy to read for non-scientists and much more informative than the Daily’s. Nick Lane’s book “Oxygen” is a great read and will make you think about what the world would be like at higher CO2 levels (poisonous) and lower oxygen levels, if the oceans are spoilt.
Reality is to avoid the muddy arguments that surround the issue of fossil fuel burning and its link to global warming, it’s not proven, and concentrate on the economical benefits of generating our energy needs with use of renewables.
@James S: Sloppy arguments, try to critically think, I suggest you read and consider a more systematic approach to uncertain [increasing] risks facing society “The Precautionary Principle in Environmental Science”, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1240435/pdf/ehp0109-000871.pdf
All science is provisional, so in the scientific technical sense nothing can ever be ‘proven’. In the real world in which we have to live however climate change is effectively proven such is the overwhelming weight of evidence, and the confidence with which the vast majority of scientists view that evidence.
In that light its rather disingenuous to bring up the ‘muddying’ of arguments – that is happening due to the deniers themselves as you know full well. ‘Doubt’ is their quintessential product. It is no coincidence that the people who served big tobacco now bring you the industrial scale denial of climate change.
We have to act irrespective of economic arguments – climate change is an existential threat to humanity and the environment that stretches out ahead of us over the horizon and beyond a single lifetime. The indication that a Green New Deal would also provide short, medium and long term economic benefits is just another compelling reason to act whilst we can.
Ok, technically nothing in science can ever be proven. Without us being able to harness energy from fossil fuels we would not be able to have this discussion now. Let’s have some balance to this debate.
Then let’s also recall renewables play a valuable part in UK power generation too
They do and will generate a much larger proportion of our energy needs in the future, I just don’t think it’s fair attacking fossil fuels as I’ve seen on this blog, we have evolved to become who we are by being able to harness their energy, but for us developed nations, it probably is time for us to take the lead and go green. Allow developing nations time