Climate Change: Why the Guardian Is Putting Threat to Earth Front and Center

As global warming argument moves on to politics and business, Alan Rusbridger explains the thinking behind the Guardian’s major series on the climate crisis

This summer I am stepping down after 20 years of editing the Guardian.
...
Very few regrets, I thought, except this one:  that we had not done justice to this huge, overshadowing, overwhelming issue of how climate change will probably, within the lifetime of our children, cause untold havoc and stress to our species.

So, in the time left to me as editor, I thought I would try to harness the Guardian’s best resources to describe what is happening and what – if we do nothing – is almost certain to occur, a future that one distinguished scientist has termed as “incompatible with any reasonable characterization of an organised, equitable and civilized global community”.
...
The coming debate is about two things:  what governments can do to attempt to regulate, or otherwise stave off, the now predictably terrifying consequences of global warming beyond 2C by the end of the century.  And how we can prevent the states and corporations which own the planet’s remaining reserves of coal, gas and oil from ever being allowed to dig most of it up.  We need to keep them in the ground.

There are three really simple numbers which explain this (and if you have even more appetite for the subject, read the excellent July 2012 Rolling Stone piece by the author and campaigner Bill McKibben, which – building on the work of the Carbon Tracker Initiative – first spelled them out).

1. 2C:  There is overwhelming agreement – from governments, corporations, NGOs, banks, scientists, you name it – that a rise in temperatures of more than 2C by the end of the century would lead to disastrous consequences for any kind of recognised global order.
2. 565 gigatons:  “Scientists estimate that humans can pour roughly 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by mid-century and still have some reasonable hope of staying below 2C,” is how McKibben crisply puts it.  Few dispute that this idea of a global “carbon budget” is broadly right.
3.  2,795 gigatons:  This is the amount of carbon dioxide that if they were burned would be released from the proven reserves of fossil fuel – ie the fuel we are planning to extract and use.

You do not need much of a grasp of maths to work out the implications.  There are trillions of dollars worth of fossil fuels currently underground which, for our safety, simply cannot be extracted and burned.  All else is up for debate:  that much is not.
...
We begin on Friday and on Monday with two extracts from the introduction to Naomi Klein’s recent book, This Changes Everything.  This has been chosen because it combines sweep, science, politics, economics, urgency and humanity.  Antony Gormley, who has taken a deep interest in the climate threat, has contributed two artworks from his collection that have not been exhibited before – the first of many artists with whom we hope to collaborate over coming weeks.

Read more at Climate Change:  Why the Guardian Is Putting Threat to Earth Front and Center