Quelle surprise: a new study finds that economic growth causes global warming.

The study, Climate change and the world economy: short-run determinants of atmospheric CO2, is published in the on-line journal Environmental Science & Policy. Unfortunately, it’s behind a paywall. The conclusion, excepted below, describes the study’s major finding:

The major conclusion of our study is that the annual growth of atmospheric CO2 levels is strongly dependent on the absolute growth of the world economy, so that the annual absolute increase of WGDP is a key variable to capture the annual increase in atmospheric CO2. * * * Our study provides substantive evidence that in the short run, world economic activity is a major determinant of rising CO₂ concentrations (we also show that estimated CO₂ emissions closely follow the oscillations of the world economy). For each trillion that WGDP deviates from trend, CO₂ atmospheric levels deviate from trend, in the same direction, about half a part per million. These findings are important because they reduce the uncertainty in the links of the causal chain implied in climate changing, and allow for quantitative estimates of the required levels of “human activity” that would reduce CO₂ concentrations if business-as-usual conditions are maintained.

Co-author Tapia Granados, researcher at the University of Michigan, says (with a scientist’s usual hedging) what nobody is willing to hear : economic contraction will be needed to reduce atmospheric levels of CO₂. If we want to save Earth’s climate, we’ll have to disavow economic growth and instead embrace la décroissance économique.

Environmentalists made a fatal miscalculation from the get-go in failing to challenge the ideology of growth. Rachel Carson kicked off the environmental movement 50 years ago in 1962, with the publishing of Silent Spring. Carson intimated that the project of progress and growth was fatally infected with hubris. Carson showed that the consequences might be unknowable and awful – awful not only in the sense of “filling with terror and dread” but also of “inspiring awe, filling with profound reverence” as Nature took her revenge. Silent Spring touched deep emotional chords, evoking an archaic world where transgressing inviolable boundaries evoked implacable retribution from forces beyond the control of humans.

But in their minds, environmentalists as well as politicians and economists had left the ancient world and old gods behind. Environmentalists joined in believing that Nature could be negotiated with and appeased if not conquered and subjugated. Scientist and environmentalist David Suzuki points to the movement’s fundamental miscalculation:

Environmentalism has failed. Over the past 50 years, environmentalists have succeeded in raising awareness, changing logging practices, stopping mega-dams and offshore drilling, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But we were so focused on battling opponents and seeking public support that we failed to realize these battles reflect fundamentally different ways of seeing our place in the world. And it is our deep underlying worldview that determines the way we treat our surroundings.

The big mistake was in seeing the environment as separate from and even subordinate to the economy.

[E]nvironmental protection came to be seen as an impediment to economic growth. * * *

Now the human economy has become a force that is altering the physical, chemical, and biological properties of the planet on a geological scale, destroying the very ground of our being.

In creating dedicated departments, we made the environment another special interest, like education, health, and agriculture. The environment subsumes every aspect of our activities, but we failed to make the point that our lives, health, and livelihoods absolutely depend on the biosphere—air, water, soil, sunlight, and biodiversity. Without them, we sicken and die. This perspective is reflected in spiritual practices that understand that everything is interconnected, as well as traditional societies that revere “Mother Earth” as the source of all that matters in life.

It was a mistake from the beginning in failing to advocate for and defend the land and the environment as a spiritual practice. It was a mistake to buy into the growth paradigm, thinking environmentalism would be easier to sell if it could be portrayed as accommodating and even enhancing economic growth. By failing to stand up for the fundamental reality that we are part of and dependent on the web of life that keeps the planet habitable, the battle was lost without ever being engaged.

Similarly in Oregon, land use advocates committed a fatal error at the very beginning. Upon taking office in 1967, Republican Governor Tom McCall had the state’s quarterly economic development publication renamed from “Growth” to “Quality” (and later, to “Progress). In 1971, in an interview by Terry Drinkwater before a national audience on the CBS Evening News, McCall pleaded for people not to move to Oregon:

Come visit us again and again. This is a state of excitement. But, for Heaven’s sake, don’t come here to live.

In selling and defending new land use regulations,  McCall railed against “grasping wastrels of the land” and and “local officials who cater to developers and exploiters”. But even McCall could not bring himself to reject the economic growth paradigm, attacking only “unlimited and unregulated” growth and calling for “healthy, imaginative, nonpolluting industry”. When Senate Bill 100 emerged from the sausage factory of the legislature, the most visionary piece – “areas of critical state concern” – had been dropped from the bill; environmentalists and a vision as the land as a value in itself just weren’t that important. The bill passed only because powerful economic interests – the agriculture industry and the timber industry – were bought off with a huge property tax break, farm and forest special assessment. Deals were made with other economic interests as well, including homebuilders and industry.

In the early 2000s, Oregon’s planning program faced a moral challenge as being unfair to property owners, depriving them of their economic rights. The program’s supporters early reliance on economics as its justification left them disarmed in the face of a moral challenge. Their response to the proponents’ “fairness” argument was a feeble, “it’s too expensive”. Their response, when Measure 37 passed, was to save the program by destroying it. Land use “advocates” promulgated and spend millions to pass Measure 49, which enshrined “property rights” as the heart and soul of land use in Oregon. “Fairness” supplanted the admittedly limited goal of “preservation of a maximum amount of the limited supply of agricultural land . . . necessary to the conservation of the state’s economic resources” – a goal that itself embodied the fatal flaw that would eventually lead to the planning program’s demise. Any regulation that hits a property owner in the pocketbook is now and forever anathema.

In saving its land use planning program, Oregon land use proponents betrayed and sacrificed the very land the program was supposed to nurture and protect, too timid to even engage in its defense. As with environmentalism generally, the battle was surrendered without being fought.

Europe is in recession. The U.S. is still struggling economically. Yet oil prices remain stubbornly high:  Brent crude hit a six-month high above $119 a barrel on Wednesday (February 15), while U.S. crude rose to above $102, as the pot continues to bubble in oil-producing nations in the Middle East and Africa.

Both the U.S. Energy Information Agency and the International Energy Agency have terrible track records when it comes to forecasting future oil prices. Shane Lofgren at Seeking Alpha reports he has searched in vain for any explanation of their forecasting methodologies. Given their lousy track record and lack of any transparency, Lofgren looks to the IMF for a more satisfactory approach. Lofgren describes the model used by the IMF as a “straight from undergrad economics”, “business as usual” model – about as far from a “peak oil” model as you can get.

With what results? What does the model have to say about the direction of future prices? Lofgren sums up the results of his calculations:

If we are looking at the Brent, which tends to be more reflective of global supply and demand conditions, then that would be $136 at year end 2012 and then $158 at year end 2013.

That sounds like a great deal, but it is not unthinkable, as prices grew at a faster rate than that from ’03 to ’08. Now, many assumptions from the model could prove wrong. GDP might come in below that, and again and there will likely be stronger price responses at higher prices. Still, this gives an impression of a much more serious potential increase in prices than the IEA has suggested.

Remember, Lofgren isn’t talking about any peak oil impacts here – he’s assuming a supply response to price increases.

Even at current prices, petroleum consumption in the U.S. is falling off a cliff. Mish Shedlock posts this chart showing rolling three-month averages.

Historically, economic growth has been highly correlated to the growth in energy supplies.

With petroleum consumption plummeting, can the “economy” be far behind?

It’s not just oil. Electricity consumption in the U.S. is down, too. Charles Hugh Smith posts these charts at Of Two Minds.

Electricity usage in the U.S. is no longer growing, but rather is now in a downtrend with no historical precedent.

Hopes that debt crises in the U.S. and Europe can be kicked down the road, eventually to be bailed out by a return to business as usual – robust economic growth – are likely to prove to be nothing more than wishful thinking. Maybe it’s time to get over our love affair with oil? As Paul Simon sang, the problem is all in our heads.

You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free

The beginning of 2012 has seen petroleum and gasoline usage in the U.S. fall off a cliff. In two of the last three weeks of January, gasoline usage has dropped below 8,000,000 barrels per day. The last time usage fell that low was the week of September 21, 2001.

This chart by Tim Wallace showing petroleum and gasoline usage, based on Energy Information Agency data with added polynomial trend lines, is posted by Mish Shedlock.

The weekly data in the above chart are from the Energy Information Agency. This chart from the EIA shows the four-week average, which removes much of the week-to-week “noise” and better shows the seasonal pattern and overall trend. The downward trend in gasoline consumption since 2007 and the January 2012 collapse are clearly evident.

Since 2005, global crude oil production has been bumping up against a ceiling around 74 million barrels a day.

Gregor Macdonald points out that since 2005, European oil consumption has fallen by 1.5 mbd and U.S. oil consumption by 2 mbd. Macdonald mocks any further attempt to deny the reality of peak oil:

Today, in 2012, I observe that many analysts of global oil production—and the interaction between oil prices and the global economy—continue to engage in a guessing game about the future. But, frankly, the future has already arrived. And it is not a random future, but a future that was held to be improbable, if not impossible. For each extra barrel of oil produced over the past seven years from Russia, and Canada, there has been a loss of production from the North Sea, from Mexico, from Indonesia and elsewhere. And in the case of OPEC, there has been a stubborn flatlining of production growth, which, in the true spirit of argumentum ad ignorantium, has been taken as proof of OPEC’s hidden and secret supply. Thus, we are led to the newest and strangest meme of all: the failure of global oil production to grow over seven years, in the face of a phase transition in oil prices, is not even suggestive of peak oil. But rather, proof of oil’s imminent supply resurrection.

Macdonald oblique phrase -  “a phase transition in oil prices” – refers to the fact that global crude oil supplies are proving inelastic as they no longer increase in response to price signals. Higher prices do not result in increased production, as seen in this chart posted by Gail Tverberg at Our Finite World.

With global crude oil production flat and consumption by “developing” countries such as China and India increasing, something has to give. The “give” is proving to be consumption by developed countries, including the U.S. and European countries.

Historically, economic growth has been closely correlated with oil consumption. To believe that economic growth in the U.S. can resume even while oil consumption is falling would require that the historic connection between oil consumption and growth has been broken. That’s quite a presumption.

In Europe, the most current “rescue” drama involving Greece continues. But the success of any bailout is predicated on a resumption of growth. Is anyone predicting that the downward trend in oil consumption in the EU will reverse? Tverberg points out:

[W]hen limited oil supply is rationed by high oil prices, economic growth slows down, and eventually decreases. When this happens, it becomes much less advantageous to borrow from the future, because the future is no longer better than today. If an economic contraction occurs for very long, the whole debt system can be expected to undergo a major “unwind”.

If no one can rationally expect oil supplies available to Europe and the U.S. to reverse their downward trend and once again begin increasing, what’s the basis for hope for future economic growth? For the faith that today’s debts will be repaid out of tomorrow’s growth?

One would expect that the January plunge in U.S. gasoline consumption would be reflected by a similar plunge in vehicle miles traveled. We’ll see in late March, when the Federal Highway Administration releases its Traffic Volume Trends for January 2012.

The Federal Highway Administration’s Traffic Volume Trends reports travel on U.S. roads and streets was down 0.9% for November 2011 as compared with November 2010. Cumulative travel for 2011 was down 1.4% from 2010 through November.

In the early ’80s, VMT (moving 12 months total) stayed below the previous peak for 39 months. Currently VMT (moving 12 months total) has been below the previous peak for 48 months – a full 4 years – and the trend shows no sign of reversing any time soon.

Could it be that the all-time peak in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the U.S. – August 2007 – is now securely behind us?

In Oregon, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) was down 0.4% in November 2011 compared to November 2010. Cumulative VMT for 2011 is down 2.0% from 2010. VMT in Oregon has been down every month in 2011 compared to 2010.

With VMT down, it’s not surprising that Americans continue to consume less gasoline. Total petroleum deliveries fell 1.1% in November compared with November a year ago, pulled down by a 1.8 percent decline in motor gasoline demand.  It was the lowest level of November consumption for gasoline since 2000.

Total petroleum deliveries fell 1.2% to an average of 18.9 million barrels a day in 2011 compared with 2010. Except for 2008, this was the largest drop in annual domestic deliveries over the past decade.

If petroleum deliveries are any indicator, VMT will prove to continue to drop in December 2011 – and substantially. December 2011 petroleum deliveries were down 5.9% from December 2010, declining to an average of 18.6 million barrels per day, the lowest level in 15 years. The Federal Highway Administration’s report for December can be expected confirm that VMT for 2011 as a whole is down over 2010.

AP reports the typical American household will have spent a record $4,155 on automobile fuel this year – 8.4% of what the median family takes in, the highest share since 1981.

Don’t expect 2012 to be any better. More likely, fuel will be getting even more expensive.

Brent crude will average near $111/barrel for 2011, even more than in 2008 when oil prices hit a peak of $147.50/barrel. Some analysts think oil prices will average a bit less in 2012, perhaps averaging $105/barrel. Others analysts predict that oil prices will be even higher than in 2011, projecting WTI (which have consistently been significantly lower than Brent this year) to average $100 per barrel next year, eclipsing 2011′s average of about $95/barrel. Oil-price.net projects WTI prices to be at $112 a year from now.

Nobody is expecting oil prices to drop, or at least not much. Here’s a big reason why: Saudi Arabia, the world’s lowest-cost producer, requires a price of $91/barrel just to break even.

The glory days of cheap gas are over for good. Our memories aren’t playing tricks: remember gas wars, gas at 19.9 cents a gallon? In my Fiat 850 Spyder – $2000 new, right off the lot, and 50 mpg – driving seemed virtually free. We were young and immortal, oil was infinite, and the world was empty and ours for the taking. There were no bounds, no limits. Vietnam and then the first gas crisis in 1973 were the first intimations that the imperial project – to stride over not just the nations of the world, but over Nature herself – was destined to go awry.

A few were prescient. Limits to Growth was published in 1972, foreseeing humanity bumping up against constraints to both sources and sinks by the first decades of this century. Way back in ’56, Shell geologist M. King Hubbard predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in 1970 – a prediction that proved spot on.

Porter Stansbury at The Daily Reckoning posts this chart showing “real wealth” per capita in the U.S. since the mid-’50s.

Note that “real wealth” in the U.S. peaked about the same time as U.S. oil production. Coincidence?

Stansbury measures “real wealth” using a standard commodity index (the CRB) up to 1975 and gold post-1975 (when gold began to trade freely). When peak oil arrived in the U.S., Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard. With the U.S. kissy-face with the Saudis, the dollar became the petrodollar.

I’m not sure I would put a lot of faith into this measure of “real wealth” – but the correlation of peak wealth with peak oil is provocative. There’s no question that the U.S., indeed the entirety of Earth, has become a poorer, more degraded home for humans since 1970, despite decades of “growth” and “progress”. That degradation doesn’t even begin to show up in our accounts.

Around 1970, reality arose and smacked us across the face.  Humanity has been working through the range of responses – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, not yet acceptance – ever since.

2011 will see the annual average price of crude oil the highest in history. Brent is expected to average about $111 for the year at the end of 2011, well above its previous high of about $97 in 2008. Despite record high oil prices, global oil supplies are defying standard economic theory and stubbornly refusing to grow.

The chart above, posted by Stuart Staniford at Early Warning, shows production of crude plus condensate has been basically flat since 2005. The meager increase over the last seven years in total liquids is largely coming from increases in NGPLs (hydrocarbons larger than methane removed from the natural gas stream), “other liquids” (biofuels, coal-to-liquids, gas-to-liquids, etc), and “refinery processing gains” (volume gains which occur in the refinery as heavier oils are cracked to lighter fuel products).

One economic consequence of stubbornly high oil prices in the U.S. is that people are driving less and less. Petroleum (gasoline and diesel fuel) consumption is well off peak 2007 levels, as seen in this chart posted by Mish Shedlock.

Vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the U.S. has been in a down trend now for almost four years – an unprecedented occurrence.

Mish offers an explanation of what’s happening:

The best explanation for declining gasoline usage is that millions have dropped out of the labor force.

* * *

People have given up looking for work, entered forced retirement collecting social security, ran out of unemployment benefits, do more shopping online, or are simply too broke (or have less desire) to travel than before.

Don’t expect the economic exhaustion that is a consequence of peak oil to end any time soon. John Michael Greer this week warns that already, the future can’t pay its bills.

Over the last decade . . . crude oil prices have more than tripled; over the last decade, behind a froth of speculative booms and busts, the world’s industrial economies have lurched deeper into depression. Peak oil researchers have pointed out for years that the former trend would bring about the latter, but long after events proved them right, the connection still remains unnoticed by most people.

Given the reality of a collapsing economic superstructure, a quite rational response is to begin to ease your way out and re-engage in the household economy, where wealth is unreported and untaxed and cannot be siphoned off.

The hyping of “Black Friday” retail sales cannot dispel the reality that the U.S. economy remains becalmed in the doldrums. Despite record corporate profits, jobs and personal incomes are refusing to bounce back. Calculated Risk posts the charts.

It’s going to get worse. The U.S. economy is destined for another recession in 2012. The American dream has turned into a nightmare – and we can’t wake up.

The Eurozone has already fallen back into recession. Which is bad news for anyone hoping for a tidy resolution of the sovereign debt crisis. The arithmetic doesn’t work without strong and sustained economic growth.  The European project looks set to implode.

The world’s leaders are adrift, with neither direction nor oars.

At least since the end of World War II, the western world has come to embrace growth as the primary objective of public policy. Growth is not only good, it’s the natural order of things: a world without growth is literally unthinkable. What has gone wrong? Why have the winds of growth faltered?

Think oil. The Oil Price Information Service says Americans are on track to spend $488 billion on gasoline this year, up $40 billion from the record high of 2008. Recall what followed the oil price spike in 2008: the worst economic crisis since the Depression. Money spent on oil is less money spent on everything else.

Given the lethargy in the world’s economic powerhouses, how is it that oil prices at the New York exchange have once again breached the $100/barrel mark? How is it that Brent prices are climbing towards $110/barrel and are expected to hit $115 by the end of the year?

The answer is found in charts posted by Jeffrey Brown at The Energy Bulletin. In the post, Brown indicts Daniel Yergin for his consistently rosy forecasts of global oil production. For our purposes, what is most revealing is the underlying global all liquids production . . .

. . . global crude and condensate production . . .

and, most importantly, global net exports.

Since 2005, global all liquids and crude production has been essentially flat while net exports have been falling. Meanwhile, oil consumption by developing countries including China and India have been soaring. Consequently, western economies are being increasingly squeezed.

Around the globe, nations are being squeezed as the energy supplies that lubricate the wheels of the economy are becoming increasingly scarce. Within the U.S., not only is the economy being squeezed; people are being squeezed as a corrupt political and economic system enable the rich and powerful to seize an ever-increasing share of the national wealth.

One thing is for certain: this isn’t going to end well. Let go of any expectation of a return to a world of economic growth as we have come to know it.

The last post commented on the stark climate warnings contained in the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2011:  if we fail to implement new policies by 2017, we are on a dangerous track for a temperature increase of 6°C (11°F) or more.  The IEA’s energy supply and demand assumptions are also worth a look.

The Executive Summary presents the following demand and supply projection for 2035:

Oil demand (excluding biofuels) rises from 87 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2010 to 99 mb/d in 2035. * * *

The cost of bringing oil to market rises as oil companies are forced to turn to more difficult and costly sources to replace lost capacity and meet rising demand. Production of conventional crude oil – the largest single component of oil supply – remains at current levels before declining slightly to around 68 mb/d by 2035. To compensate for declining crude oil production at existing fields, 47 mb/d of gross capacity additions are required, twice the current total oil production of all OPEC countries in the Middle East. A growing share of output comes from natural gas liquids (over 18 mb/d in 2035) and unconventional sources (10 mb/d). The largest increase in oil production comes from Iraq, followed by Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Kazakhstan and Canada. Biofuels supply triples to the equivalent of more than 4 mb/d, bolstered by $1.4 trillion in subsidies over the projection period.

The “supply” numbers total 100 mbd rather than 99 mbd – let’s presume the 1 mbd discrepancy is due to rounding errors. The IEA projects oil demand will hit 99 mbd in 2035, but the world will be producing only 68 mbd of conventional oil . . . leaving a 31 mbd gap to be filled. NGLs and unconventional oil are projected to cover 28 mbd of that, leaving 3 mbd to be covered by – biofuels? Didn’t the 99 mbd figure for demand exclude biofuels?

That aside, the IEA thinks that the next 24 years will see 31 mbd of “oil” from:

• Natural gas liquids – 18 mbd
• Unconventional sources – 10 mbd
• Biofuels – 4 mbd

This implies three things:

1. That natural gas liquid production will more than double by 2035, from about 8 mbd today.
2. That unconventional oil production doubles by 2035, from about 5 mbd today.
3. That biofuel production will triple by 2035.

Nick Hodge observes the big problem with this is that it’s never been done:

It took us 40 years to add 31 million barrels per day of conventional oil production — the easy stuff.

The IEA is saying we can add the same capacity in half the time using much harder-to-get resources.

Out of the 68 mbd of conventional oil that the IEA projects to be available, 47 mbd – twice the current production of OPEC countries in the Middle East – are from sources yet to be developed, just to offset depletion from existing sources. Really? The world is going to discover and/or develop two more Middle Easts worth of conventional oil, in just 24 years? Where, exactly?

Stuart Staniford at Early Warning suggests that the source of new supply is not likely to be Saudi Arabia. He points out that Saudi production has been fluctuating between 8 mbd and 9.5 mbd since 2003. In response to the interruption in Libyan production early this year, Saudi briefly boosted output to a peak of around 9.7 mbd or 9.8 mbd – not quite achieving a promised 10 mbd – but have since eased back to about 9.5 mbd.

Bottom line: is Saudi Arabia going to save the global economy’s bacon? Here’s Staniford’s assessment:

So are we any the wiser as to the great question of whether Saudi Arabia has significant spare capacity and could increase production to 12mbd or more if only they chose?  Only slightly I fear.  I interpret the fact that the Saudis couldn’t quite meet the 10 mbd promise and almost immediately backed off that, despite amply high prices, as consistent with the story that the recent Saudi production expansions have only gone to offset declines elsewhere (perhaps especially in north Ghawar).  The increasing rig count also suggests a lack of comfort with the amount of spare capacity presently available.

However, I can see that someone who thought the Saudis were able to produce more but are profit maximizers who intend to keep prices as high as possible consistent with not actually throwing the world economy into recession might also be able to tell a story about how the Saudis did the bare minimum to moderate prices after it became clear that the Libya price spike was causing global economic harm but then began gradually lowering production as prices slowly began to fall following the price spike, keeping the world in a state of slow growth, but some growth, while maximizing the Saudi take for its oil.  The one weak point in this story is that it offers no explanation for the rising rig count.

Of course – at this point maybe the difference between the two views doesn’t actually matter that much – either the Saudis can’t produce more or they won’t, but either way the effect is to keep oil prices high enough to be a significant constraint on a world economy that is already struggling.

Continued economic growth is dependent on continued expansion of energy supplies.

The EIA is schizophrenic in thinking there’s a way to square the circle. There’s only one way to head off catastrophic climate change: shrink the economy, by a lot, and quickly. Gail Tverberg at Our Finite World explores the implications:

If GDP growth and energy use are closely tied, it will be even more difficult to meet CO2 emission goals than most have expected. Without huge efficiency savings, a reduction in emissions (say, 80% by 2050) is likely to require a similar percentage reduction in world GDP. Because of the huge disparity in real GDP between the developed nations and the developing nations, the majority of this GDP reduction would likely need to come from developed nations. It is difficult to see this happening without economic collapse.

The reality is, we don’t have a choice. Other limits to growth aside, the energy resources necessary to keep the globe on the economic growth path simply aren’t there; growth will come to an end whether we like it or not. The choice we do have is whether to destroy Earth as a host for human life first.

If we don’t change direction soon, we’ll end up where we’re heading.

So begins the Executive Summary of the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2011.

And where is it we are heading?

We cannot afford to delay further action to tackle climate change if the long-term target of limiting the global average temperature increase to 2°C, as analysed in the 450 Scenario, is to be achieved at reasonable cost. In the New Policies Scenario, the world is on a trajectory that results in a level of emissions consistent with a long-term average temperature increase of more than 3.5°C. Without these new policies, we are on an even more dangerous track, for a temperature increase of 6°C or more.

Four-fifths of the total energy-related CO2 emissions permissible by 2035 in the 450 Scenario are already “locked-in” by our existing capital stock (power plants, buildings, factories, etc.). If stringent new action is not forthcoming by 2017, the energy-related infrastructure then in place will generate all the CO2 emissions allowed in the 450 Scenario up to 2035, leaving no room for additional power plants, factories and other infrastructure unless they are zero-carbon, which would be extremely costly.

Unfortunately, we’ve come to learn 450 ppm CO2 is much too high to avoid catastrophic climate consequences.

The conclusion that limiting CO2-equivalent to 450 ppm will succeed in limiting temperature increase to 2°C is based on the assumption that no feedback loops will kick in, an assumption that is already proving unfounded – for example, Arctic amplification is already kicking in and thawing permafrost will further accelerate global warming.

If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO₂ will need to be reduced from its current ~390 ppm to at most 350 ppm. To be safe, we’ll likely have to get back to pre-industrial levels of 280 ppm, and rather quickly.

And how are we doing? The European Environment Agency keeps track.

Even under the most optimistic (more accurately, unrealistic) scenarios, it’s looking like the IEA’s outlook is unjustifiably rosy. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is now about 390 ppm, however, the concentration of CO2e has already hit 450 ppm.

A 2011 paper by Dr. Minqi Li of the University of Utah lays out the horrible and inexorable consequences of continuing to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere:

It is now widely understood that human economic activities have led to emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels consumption, which contribute to long-term global warming and threaten to bring about global ecological catastrophes.

In 2010, the global average land and ocean surface temperature was 14.6°C, which was 0.9°C higher than in 1880 and 0.3°C higher than in 2000 (NASA 2011).

If global warming rises above 2°C (relative to the pre-industrial time), dangerous climate feedbacks may be triggered, leading to the release of more greenhouse gases from soil and ocean. For this reason, 2°C warming is generally considered by scientists as the “safe limit” beyond which global warming may be out of human control.

A 3°C warming would destroy the Amazon rainforest, leading to a further warming of 1.5°C. Southern Africa, Australia, Mediterranean Europe, and Western US would turn into deserts. Sea level could rise by 25 meters and billions of people could become environmental refugees.

With a 4°C warming, the melting of the Arctic permafrost could release massive amount of carbon dioxide and methane. Algae, the main carbon sinker in the ocean, would die out. The world is set for runaway global warming that could lead to additional temperature rises by several degrees.

If global warming rises to 5°C and above, much of the world would cease to be inhabitable and global human population could suffer a catastrophic decline. Table 4 summarizes the potential consequences of various degrees of global warming. It is not exaggerating to say that the very survival of the human civilization for centuries to come is at stake.

* * *

Without any further increase in greenhouse gases, the current level of greenhouse gases already implies a long-term warming of 2-4°C.

Note that Dr. Li, an economist, does not hesitate to point the finger at human economic activity as the cause of climate change.

Naomi Klein emphasizes this same point – that capitalism is the culprit – at The Nation: lowering global emissions as drastically and as rapidly as climate science demands can be done only by radically reordering our economic and political systems in ways antithetical to the “free market” belief system. Climate change is a consequence of unrestrained greed.

The fact that the earth’s atmosphere cannot safely absorb the amount of carbon we are pumping into it is a symptom of a much larger crisis, one born of the central fiction on which our economic model is based: that nature is limitless, that we will always be able to find more of what we need, and that if something runs out it can be seamlessly replaced by another resource that we can endlessly extract. But it is not just the atmosphere that we have exploited beyond its capacity to recover—we are doing the same to the oceans, to freshwater, to topsoil and to biodiversity. The expansionist, extractive mindset, which has so long governed our relationship to nature, is what the climate crisis calls into question so fundamentally. The abundance of scientific research showing we have pushed nature beyond its limits does not just demand green products and market-based solutions; it demands a new civilizational paradigm, one grounded not in dominance over nature but in respect for natural cycles of renewal—and acutely sensitive to natural limits, including the limits of human intelligence.

Climate change is a message, one that is telling us that many of our culture’s most cherished ideas are dangerous and destructive enough to not only imperil human civilization but to ravage the capacity of Earth to sustain life. Averting catastrophic climate change requires nothing less than a radical overhaul of our economy and society. Averting catastrophic climate change requires that the nations of the world abandon their obsession with economic growth and instead focus, above everything else, on slashing fossil fuel consumption.

Beginning like, now. Not next week, next year, next election, next congress, next climate conference. Now.

Fat chance of that happening.

Dr. Mamdouh Salameh’s address the 17th Annual Energy Conference of the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research warned of a coming severe oil crunch, probably by 2015 or thereabouts, with oil prices projected to exceed the level reached in July 2008:

[A] projected price ranging from $150 – $170 per barrel by 2015 may not be out of place. When the oil price hit $147 per barrel in July 2008, it precipitated the biggest economic crisis the world has ever witnessed since the 1930s. One can only imagine what damage to the global economy a price level of $150-$170 per barrel could cause.

Salameh is Consultant on Oil and Energy Affairs for the World Bank. He said OPEC will soon reach a crossroads: it must ramp up supplies very significantly to stem the projected steep rise in the oil price or risk becoming irrelevant. But OPEC’s last experience with soaring prices in 2008 doesn’t bode well. OPEC members couldn’t increase production in 2008 because it had hardly any spare production capacity. Salameh said the supply situation hasn’t improved:

Today, OPEC still has little spare capacity and therefore can no longer influence the global oil market and the oil price.

OPEC works more effectively when oil price are falling because it is within OPEC members’ power to cut production to shore up prices. But when oil prices are rising, OPEC can’t reign in price increases because its ability to increase production is constrained. Since oil prices are projected to remain high well into the future, OPEC could become irrelevant.