Sentences with phrase «currently known fossil fuels»

«Our headline finding is that the combustion of currently known fossil fuels would increase global average temperatures by 10 degrees F to 15 degrees F,» the economists say.

There have been several studies of this strategy, and the ones I've seen show the world blowing well past 2 - or 3 - degree - C temperature increases, unless the major energy companies leave most of their currently known fossil fuel reserves in the ground along with any new discoveries.

Not exact matches

Burning known fossil fuel reserves would release nearly 3000 gigatonnes, and energy companies are currently spending $ 600 billion trying to find more.

Rather than finding ways to curtail fossil fuel production in line with the demands of climate science, the U.S. federal government, under President Obama's «All of the Above» energy strategy, is currently channeling more than $ 5 billion each year in exploration subsidies to actually expand proven reserves, leading to the discovery of fossil fuels that we know we should never burn.

RealClimate is wonderful, and an excellent source of reliable information.As I've said before, methane is an extremely dangerous component to global warming.Comment # 20 is correct.There is a sharp melting point to frozen methane.A huge increase in the release of methane could happen within the next 50 years.At what point in the Earth's temperature rise and the rise of co2 would a huge methane melt occur?No one has answered that definitive issue.If I ask you all at what point would huge amounts of extra methane start melting, i.e at what temperature rise of the ocean near the Artic methane ice deposits would the methane melt, or at what point in the rise of co2 concentrations in the atmosphere would the methane melt, I believe that no one could currently tell me the actual answer as to where the sharp melting point exists.Of course, once that tipping point has been reached, and billions of tons of methane outgass from what had been locked stores of methane, locked away for an eternity, it is exactly the same as the burning of stored fossil fuels which have been stored for an eternity as well.And even though methane does not have as long a life as co2, while it is around in the air it can cause other tipping points, i.e. permafrost melting, to arrive much sooner.I will reiterate what I've said before on this and other sites.Methane is a hugely underreported, underestimated risk.How about RealClimate attempts to model exactly what would happen to other tipping points, such as the melting permafrost, if indeed a huge increase in the melting of the methal hydrate ice WERE to occur within the next 50 years.My amateur guess is that the huge, albeit temporary, increase in methane over even three or four decades might push other relevent tipping points to arrive much, much, sooner than they normally would, thereby vastly incresing negative feedback mechanisms.We KNOW that quick, huge, changes occured in the Earth's climate in the past.See other relevent posts in the past from Realclimate.Climate often does not change slowly, but undergoes huge, quick, changes periodically, due to negative feedbacks accumulating, and tipping the climate to a quick change.Why should the danger from huge potential methane releases be vievwed with any less trepidation?

Currently, officials estimate national fossil fuel - related emissions by what is burned (known as production) within a nation, but this approach underestimates the emissions contributions from countries that extract oil and oil for export.