Suborn 1. To induce (a person) to commit an unlawful or evil act.

Hey EnergyTomorrow, API and the entire fossil fuel industry - we have to speak out.   You suborn murder by heavily promoting carbon fuel usage.  You actively encourage species suicide.

You have known for decades that CO2 causes global warming.  And you know that fossil fuels are the major human source of CO2 greenhouse gasses that cause catastrophic heating.

You hide it from consumers, you deny the science and you secretly fund skeptics, and now you seek political support for your carbon fueled campaign of mass suicide.

Science pretty much knows now that we are a doomed species.   It will be a tough life for all our grandchildren, and we cannot expect many humans after that.

And you continue lying when you could have been educating and researching and deploying non-polluting energy.   Now your momentum traps us all.

Your most evil act is to discount the danger and continue promoting ignorance and doubt.   You have pushed the world into total adoption of carbon based fuels, and like big tobacco you covered up science and distracted your market, and now you are groveling for political support to keep your industry going through the chaos ahead.

More than any other industrial segment, yours - oil, gas, coal, all the CO2 carbon fuels - are the most directly responsible for the end of our species.  You continue to worsen the struggle and cause an early death for our progeny.

It is no comfort that your grandchildren are just as doomed as mine.   Eventually we will all be dying for your sins.   But now we know, and we will neither forgive nor forget this mass murder for money.

Richard Pauli   July 4th 2009

Contrary to that Other Web Site

Presenting contrary arguments to Petroleum Industry propaganda site.

A study guide for interpreting that other web site

That other web site: energytomorrow.org - seems to have one purpose: to promote and secure the use of fossil fuels far into the future.   This is a time when we are about to decide to stop further carbon dioxide emission.   Our future depends on minimizing CO2 emmisions immediately.

For decades now, energy companies have funded PR campaigns that try to deny global warming, deny the science and actively inject confusion into the discussion.   Now that the science is well settled - their tactic is changing.   They accept that global warming exists, then dodge the question of whether it is clearly human caused or can be mitigated. Then they move directly to a message that might be re-stated as:  “While we look for a solution, lets keep using oil and coal.”   They ask us to ignore the more aproper action which is to immediately lower all usage, and halt all fossil fuel usage as soon as possible.

They craft a deceitful message saying they want to be part of the solution.   Their strategy is to prolong the widespread use of carbon fuels.  Right now all climate science and engineering dictates the only real solution is to halt all the CO2 emissions - and carbon fuel is the biggest source.   Since the flow of carbon fuels is so highly profitable, their quandary is how to continue the heavy flow and heavy profits.

The way they choose to de-demonize their carbon commodity by connecting carbon fuels as the main way to save the economy - hence our future.   And following classic propaganda principles, they will discuss alternative energy - but never permit the difficult discussion of the most daunting solution: the immediate halt to all carbon fuel combustion.

The Amercian Petroleum Institute is killing our future - just to extend theirs.

ExxonMobil alone delivered $40 Billion to stockholders last year.   The API industry group spends millions on PR and marketing campaigns to keep the world burning carbon fuels and avoid facing the stark science of how CO2 damages our future.   That is so wrong, so unethical, shameful and such horrible corporate behavior - but that’s probably just business - stockholders expect a full effort to keep profits flowing.   Despite the science, they show little concern for dangerously increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere.   That’s not right.

As public policy better synchronizes with climate science, we can expect the petroleum industry to use new tactics to mold public opinion, forstall taxation and keep their trade moving.   We might anticipate their messages such as “extending dialog”, “exploring all the solutions”, “energy for our future”, etc.   All this as a way to deflect and delay anything that constrains their business.

“CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual.  In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.”  - Dr James Hansen to Congress 6-23-08

This is Planetary Treason. And they know it. They try to deny it.  Deflect it. Global Warming is here. Made worse by humans burning carbon fuels. Stop it. CO2 levels are out of control. They know they should turn around. Shame Change now.

Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming and climate change.  Like no other number, the monthly CO2 reading is an objective and current indicator of how we are doing. The number speaks for itself.

“It’s all about questioning the science to gum up the works. The companies pose as if they are defending open debate and inquiry and are trying to make scientific data available to everyone. In reality, once they get the raw data, they spend the vast resources at their disposal to discredit independent research”

It was only a few years ago that scientists shifted their language about global warming.   Saying that it is too late to fix or solve global warming, that henceforth all we can do is mitigate future warming and adapt to the situation.   Adaptation and mitigation will soon be seen as squabbling twins, like oil and water - neither really gets along with the other - but both are needed for our future.

We can face our fate of human-induced climate change in only two directions - toward adaptation (the present) and toward mitigation (the future).  These act as agents to ourselves and our posterity; the present and the future. We will learn a new daily sustainability, but if we want future survivability then we must eradicate carbon.   We will have to reverse our greatest contribution to the problem - CO2 emissions.  Despite calls for cooperation between both approaches - the schism between them widens as resources dwindle.

Adaptation: process whereby an organism becomes better suited to its habitat.

Humans will be adapting to a warming and changing climate through new agricultural practices, making sea walls, moving populations from lowlands and drought areas, and generally trying to make ourselves comfortable as we face the increasing stresses of warming.   For over 8 billion people, adaptation will mean spending tremendous energy in order to reach relative safety, get fresh water, maintain health and agriculture.  The comfort of the past will be impossible to reclaim.  But there is a valid role for business and industry in the ongoing task of adapting to climate destabilization.

Mitigation : to lessen in force or intensity, as wrath, grief, harshness, or pain; to moderate.

There is no chance we can return to the Garden of Eden.  But mitigation - doing all we can to minimize the problem and not make it worse - is scientifically possible.  It must include a radical reduction in greenhouse gases derived from carbon fuels like oil and coal.   The mitigation requirement that we remove carbon from the atmosphere is anathema to coal, gas and oil energy companies who’s businesses all have a carbon waste-product.   Avoiding a harsh future of warming requires painful sacrifices and systemic changes that we must make today.

Curtailing carbon based energy is so contrary to oil and coal interests that they will do anything, join any movement, just to secure a place in a globally warmed future.  Indeed, stockholders demand revenue for this quarter and for all future fiscal years - no matter what the climate.   So these carbon fuel industries, automotive industries, and other watermelon-green campaigns (green on the outside only) become hearty supporters of adaptation as a way for their industry to counter any call to end carbon emissions..   Why not?

Today climate change denialists begrudgingly accept global warming as fact, and even join the adaptation campaign - yet will stridently refuse to accept that man-made CO2 worsens warming.   This works to define adaptationists as an exclusionary group that refuses to co-operate with mitigation by curtailing CO2.   To help cement this notion, Exxon alone spent over $400 million in the last decade fighting the public perception of global warming.   All the major oil, gas and coal energy companies fund a strong information consortium: the American Petroleum Institute.  Theirs, along with other media blitzkrieg campaigns have rained relentless salvos of advertisements, political campaigns and funding professional skeptics, denialist and consultants.  They can boast victory in their battle for their business future, public resources and a political power base.  Their support of adaptation and consistent funding of television and newspaper ads makes news organizations financially gun-shy about challenging the wisdom of carbon sourced energy.  Watch for their ads on ‘Meet the Press’.

The economic horror is that Adapters will be annoyed and discomforted by Mitigators, and mitigation can only happen by sacrifice of adaptation interests.

Growing polarization will see each side fanatically championing its cause: adaptationists will align against the funding of mitigation - thus keeping finite resources on the adaptation side.   Oil companies, anti-government politicos will join emerging Third World industrial nations to deny co-operation with the mitigation cause - despite the predicted hardship scenarios for their baseline survival.

The mitigation cause has only science on its side - the economic interests are not part of any company or bank.  Without the challenge, we can expect stronger promotion of adaptation strategies devoid of any suggestion of constraining carbon fuel.   It will be business as usual.  So we see industry-funded sites like energytomorrow.org - which may appear positive and helpful - but which act to polarize opinion by offering everything but the one best solution - cutting CO2.   This makes the situation worse, makes contentious and divisive conflict inevitable.

For right now, without a compelling climate catastrophe, the mitigationists must rely on intangible models, predictions and scenarios.  Without a current, widespread, palpable crisis, the case for mitigation is more like a dystopian sci-fi docu-drama.   Further, as humans lose the comfort of cheap carbon, we will find it increasingly harder to pull resources away from forces of reactionary adaptation.

Our vital struggle must link efforts of both adaptation and mitigation as crucial to a future civilization.   It is the essential role of government to calm this conflict and to join and co-ordinate human endeavor.   Too soon, the inexorable increasing pain will shift the sides and equalize the conflict.

Although few climate scenarios go beyond the year 2100, the political roots of distant struggles are being set down now.   Our struggle will eventually be unified.  Today we decide whether it will be a radically reduced population that prevails.

Richard Pauli

  June 2009

======= resource links ==========

http://www.globalchange.gov/index.php

UPDATE:

On October 15, 2009, U.S. District Court Judge Saundra B. Armstrong dismissed the lawsuit. On November 5, 2009, the City of Kivalina appealed Judge Armstrong’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On March 11, 2010, Kivalina’s team of lawyers filed the community’s opening brief. On September 15, 2010, we filed our response to the arguments of the oil, energy, and coal company defendants’ arguments. We expect oral argument in the summer of 2011.

This is a real David and Goliath story — the Alaskan village of Kivalina vs. ExxonMobil, et al,   A tiny Native American village against some of the biggest energy companies in the world.

You probably have not heard of this case.   Yet some law firms think it is the most dangerous case in America today.  You may not have heard of this case because the major news media is charged with being an un-named co-defendant.  So news organizations might not want to call attention to themselves for having helped Exxon in a conspiracy to suppress global warming news and science.  So it is possible that mainstream news coverage of this story would be lacking.

“I see disaster.   I see catastrophe.   Worse, I see lawyers.” - Woody Allen

It started in Alaska.  The small Native Village of Kivalina, situated on a small spit of land only a few feet above sea level was damaged by rising waters storm surges.   Storm surges have reached the edge of the village because the ice was gone; normally a thick boundary of ice prevented the sea from doing damage.   With global warming, the greatest amount of heating increase is up in the polar regions.   Already they have more than 6 degrees C of increase - enough to melt ice, and destabilize the climate in ways that make storms more severe.   About to be swallowed by the sea, so Kivalina decided to sue 24 carbon fuel energy companies that heavily contributed to global warming.  

Their lawsuit is starting to get plenty of attention. DemocracyNow interviews the plaintiff Attorney Stephen Susman.   The case is now before the Federal Courts - the oil companies call this the “The Most Dangerous Litigation in America”

The Kivalina suit asks for $400 million in monetary damages.  Kivalina lawyers are filing a public nuisance action for “defendant’s contributions to global warming through emissions of large quantities of greenhouse gases”

Perhaps just as important, the Kivalina suit charges fossil fuel companies with civil conspiracy “intended to suppress the knowledge of the link between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, thereby furthering the defendants’ abilities to contribute to global warming.”  And they are asking for damages from un-named co-conspirators - that could be PR agencies, think-tanks or media outlets  —  any media with a big coal/oil relationship -  possibly even those who made and delivered advertising.

This case is most interesting because the science is pretty clear, it is mostly CO2 that caused and still causes increased global warming.   And that CO2 comes almost entirely from burning carbon fuels - oil, gas and coal.   So Kivalina has named the correct defendants.   And furthermore, there was an Exxon conspiracy to suppress the science and influence public opinion.   Even today, the Sunday morning news shows are all sponsored by ExxonMobil  While this does not mean bias, it does mean news media might be carefully selective about handling global warming news stories.  Futher, numerous think tanks and web sites are heavily subsidized by Exxon and other carbon fuel companies.

 One legal analysis from an Oil Industry viewpoint summarizes the potential business exposure of this case:

“Every industry trade group, business association, and public policy organization that expresses any opinion, cites any scientific evidence, or dares to question the assumptions of the Al Gore-driven global warming model is part of the conspiracy.  As such, the company-defendants and the organizations are potentially liable.   Legally liable.  Subject to damage awards. Subject to court-ordered cease-and-desist orders. Subject to court-enforced silence.” - from http://www.legalreforminthenews.com

However this case resolves, it will set a huge precedent.   If sustained, then more cases will be filed leading to huge damage awards and substantially halted CO2 output.   If it fails, then there will be no constraining CO2 output and the heat is on full blast.  Kivalina is just one of many new court cases addressing global warming directly.   Exxon might prefer to settle the case and avoid prescedent - but certainly this could be a very common litigation.

Some climate science and politics blogs have been discussing global warming denialism and skepticism.   They note the well funded and coordinated attacks and strident denials of global warming science.  The Kivalina suit may legally force the revelation of the full extent of global warming denial. It is clearly a well-funded business tactic. And like the conspiracy to delay tobacco legislation, the energy industry conspiracy against science has been similarly effective.

By comparison, if we look to England, Mexico, Canada, Australia, even Japan - all are way ahead of the US in the public discussion and scientific acceptance of climate change.  The Kivalina suit may air the dirty secret: cultivating ignorance is just business.   Energy companies were working to avoid any constraints to their business.  Something they can do, unless the courts rule it a public nuissance.

Taken from the Kivalina v. ExxonMobil filing

Kivalina v. ExxonMobil filed complaint

p.69
The Conspiracy Defendants have engaged in agreements to participate in the intentional creation, contribution to and/or maintenance of a public nuisance, global warming. 

The Conspiracy Defendants participated and/or continue to participate in an agreement with each other to mislead the public with respect to the science of global warming and to delay public awareness of the issue so that they could continue contributing to, maintaining and/or creating the nuisance without demands from the public that they change their behavior as a condition of further buying their products.  At all times the Conspiracy Defendants were concerned that the public would become concerned by global warming and that the growing concern would force a change in the Conspiracy Defendants behavior which would be costly.  Delaying these costs was the major objective of the conspiracies described herein.

270. The Conspiracy Defendants have committed overt acts in furtherance of their agreements.  The Conspiracy Defendants have participated in an agreement with each other to mislead the public with respect to the science of global warming, either individually or through their various industry fronts or trade associations, and have included overt acts that furthered their intentional creation, contribution to and/or maintenance of a public nuisance, global warming…

RELIEF REQUESTED
Plaintiffs request that this Court:
1. Hold each defendant jointly and severally liable for creating, contributing to, and maintaining a public nuisance;
2. Hold the Conspiracy Defendants jointly and severally liable for civil conspiracy;
3. Hold each defendant jointly and severally liable for concert of action;
4. Award monetary damages on the basis of joint and several liability according to proof;
5. Enter a declaratory judgment for such future monetary expenses and damages as may be incurred by Plaintiffs in connection with the nuisance of global warming;
6. Award attorneys fees;
7. Award costs and expenses; and
8. Award such other relief as this Court deems just and proper.

DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL

The case was filed in Feb 2008.   I will try to update this page or link to news as it comes forth.

Some links for more information:

Readers Digest has a fine report on Kivalina, Alaska: A Melting Village
http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/kivalina-alaska-a-melting-village-/article98947.html

http://www.climatelaw.org/cases/country/us/kivalina/kivalina

Marten Law.com article on Kivalina

Kivalina v. ExxonMobil suit as filed

One legal analysis of Kivalina v Exxon

Recent updated links - thanks go to Turtletalk.wordpress.com:

A filed motion to dismiss

Opposition to motion to dismiss

An oil company reply brief

Shell Oil reply-brief

Science defines global warming so well, and science can tell us how to best mitigate the problem

What is the optimal global warming public policy?

Any sane and sober scientist can tell you what to do about global warming: immediately stop carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.   That’s the optimal choice.   Anything else is sub-optimal.  You may define optimal any way you like.

We need to minimize CO2 emissions - the lowest minimum is zero - or in a better world it is less than zero - where we actually remove CO2 from the atmosphere - to sequester it.  Our policy must act to move CO2 levels down fast.   The fact that it takes about 40 years to begin to see the climate effects from a change in CO2 emissions, gives the problem a special dimension.   So minimize CO2 today and see the levels begin to fall in 40 years.   And tragically, the last 40 years of CO2 emissions have been the heaviest ever.   Even with our best effort, things will be a mess until about 2050.

And the second parameter best describes when we should act: right now is the perfect time.   Any other time is less than perfect.  The further we drift from immediately, the further we move from good.  The longer we wait, the worse the consequences.   So right now is perfectly good, to act later is less so, and much later is catastrophically bad.   It is troubling that we don’t really know much about the interim choices in-between the best time of now and the worst time -of way-off or never.   Those in-between areas are the messy crap-shoot areas, the zones of confusion and bickering.  Delay and procrastination makes things worse.   Except for the doom of total inaction - no one can know the physical consequences of acting at any politically convenient time in the future.   If we spend a lot of time arguing about the best time between now and never to take action, then we are moving farther away from our goal.

“Avoiding dangerous climate change” is impossible - dangerous climate change is already here. The question is, can we avoid catastrophic climate change?    — David King, UK Chief Scientist, 2007

So atmospheric sciences calls upon us to act fast, act completely.   Now we just need a science-driven policy designed to respect these rules and optimize our actions.  Of course, because it will be difficult and painful, humans will not like to face the tasks ahead.   So after squirming uncomfortably for a while, you may realize what must happen.

We should immediately minimize, control, and stop carbon dioxide emissions and shut down CO2 sources.  Most CO2 comes from the combustion of hydrocarbon fuels.   That would be coal, oil, gas, alcohol and even the combusion from firewood, trash and wild fires. These are all carbon based fuels that release carbon dioxide.   Because it combusts with oxygen, every pound of carbon fuel will make more carbon dioxide than the beginning carbon fuel before combustion. For instance a pound of gasoline makes almost 3 pounds of CO2. Each fuel is figured differently, but for all the carbon fuels, expect more carbon dioxide - multiply the weight by 2 or 3.   So a trainload of coal, gives us 3 trainloads of carbon dioxide.

Only when we make a huge and complex effort can we stop emitting CO2.   Governments, as they move to protect citizens and secure our posterity, can act with force or with taxation.  They can use taxes to change behavior - like taxing alcohol or taxing tobacco heavily.   Rarely do governments tax so severely as to force a business out of existence.   Or governments can use force to smash and destroy bad things - like busting meth labs, moonshine stills or foreign poppy fields.

That’s one way to handle the CO2 emitters - just blow them all up.   The problem is just about everybody uses them and enjoys the cheap energy of hydrocarbon fuels.  Not just cars, much of our electricity for homes and industry is made from burning coal or oil. The energy is good, the carbon source is not.   We are getting skilled at translating one form of energy into another.   The usual process starts with heat to make steam which drives turbine generators that makes electricity.   Burning coal is a big source of heat for making electricity; nuclear energy makes steam for the same reason but without CO2.   But wind and solar make electricity directly from a solar panel or generator.   There are plenty of clean energy sources.

So we have to act quickly, very quickly - the optimal time is right now - to change rapidly to non-carbon fuel sources - called clean energy: wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, tidal, etc.   We need to make energy without making carbon dioxide.   Most important is that we have to do away with many of the carbon fuels that we use today - oil, gas and coal.   They should all go away - completely, and the sooner the better.

OK.   From a science prospective, public policy - defining what governments should do - all this is pretty straightforward.   If we want to design a process that drives change as soon as possible then governments can use force, or they can tax.   Later they can spend the money from the taxes in smart ways like health insurance and building railroads.

Here is a simple - two part proposal that nicely fits the science requirements:

Eliminate dirty energy sources
ALL other, ANY other carbon fuels usage should be taxed, heavily taxed, and taxed so heavily that it puts carbon fuel companies out of existence in the fastest way possible.   Eliminate CO2 emissions immediately and completely.

That’s it.   All done.

That’s the simple solution.  I know it is hard to enact.   People can do it themselves or can ask governments to help make it happen.

Other solutions such as allowing partial emissions or permitting gradual change over a few decades while gambling with carbon credits - all of those options are wild cards, hard to control, hard to evaluate, require too much time, are easily derailed and have poor chances of success.  We are stepping into areas with no historical precedent.   People will clamor for less-than-optimal change, but anything less is dangerously unknown, unproven and unaccepted by science.

As we wrangle with the colossal changes necessary to adapt and mitigate, the best way to boldly step into the future is armed with optimal solutions.

Governments can know this too.

Richard Pauli
Feb 2009

Stabilizing climate requires near-zero emissions
H. Damon Matthews
Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Ken Caldeira Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Stanford, California, USA

Current international climate mitigation efforts aim to stabilize levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. However, human-induced climate warming will continue for many centuries, even after atmospheric CO2 levels are stabilized. In this paper, we assess the CO2 emissions requirements for global temperature stabilization within the next several centuries, using an Earth system model of intermediate complexity. We show first that a single pulse of carbon released into the atmosphere increases globally averaged surface temperature by an amount that remains approximately constant for several centuries, even in the absence of additional emissions. We then show that to hold climate constant at a given global temperature requires near-zero future carbon emissions.

Our results suggest that future anthropogenic emissions would need to be eliminated in order to stabilize global-mean temperatures. As a consequence, any future anthropogenic emissions will commit the climate system to warming that is essentially irreversible on centennial timescales.   http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2007GL032388.shtml

  
...unabated CO2 emissions to the atmosphere would have climatic consequences that would persist for a thousand years, which they define operationally as "forever", as in the sense of "Irreversible".

It is not really news scientifically that atmospheric CO2 concentration stays higher than natural for thousands of years after emission of new CO2 to the carbon cycle from fossil fuels. The atmospheric CO2 concentration has a sharp peak toward the end of the fossil fuel era, then after humankind has gone carbon neutral (imagine!) the CO2 concentration starts to subside, quickly at first but after a few centuries settling in a "long tail" which persists for hundreds of thousands of years.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/02/irreversible-does-not-mean-unstoppable/langswitch_lang/in

Playing the Ultimatum Game in the Garden of Eden

Behavioral economists, seeking to understand just how humans will face global warming, turn to Game Theory and the Ultimatum Game.

A deceptively simple test, the Ultimatum Game is a measure of satisfaction, trust and fairness in a simple economic transaction.  Researchers run this test and others like it to learn about human cooperation in facing the changes of global warming.

It goes like this:   The experimenter tells two subjects that he will give one of them a sum of money that they may split.   One person will decide how much to give to the other.  The other person may accept or reject the offer.   If accepted then both keep whatever money they hold.   However, if the other person thinks it unfair - then by refusing money prevents both of them from getting any cash.   Session over.   The test is given once only.

The results for the Ultimate Game show that many groups will accept a small percentage.   If the experimenter gave 100 dollars, then $5 might be shared.   The data for Western subjects measured more - 30-40%… meaning they were willing to cut off all wealth until reaching a higher fairness level.  Some even insisted on 50%.

Economists prefer to think of humans as rational actors who would logically choose the best deal in any situation. Rational actions are easier to formulate and model.  The irrational choice of cutting off all money and ending play is harder to understand.   Was it the sense of fairness?   Shared suffering?   One can see how this game may apply to the economics of global warming.

Our civilization is in the midst of a real-world experimental play of the Ultimatum Game.   One player distributes the great carbon energy wealth pulled from the earth, and the other player receives the benefit of that offer.   Our incredibly cheap carbon fuel energy from coal, oil, and natural gas combustion all release CO2 into the atmosphere.  CO2 reacts slowly, but eventually triggers greenhouse heating in the atmosphere.  The effects of CO2, not obvious at first, is very real - a major greenhouse gas that slowly heats and destabilizes our climate .  It is directly caused by burning carbon fuels.   We are killing ourselves.

“The related fields of behavioral economics, game theory, and neuroscience have confirmed that human behavior is other regarding, and that people exhibit systematic patterns of decision-making that are “irrational” … the standard economic approach to climate change policy, with its almost exclusive emphasis on rational responses to monetary incentives, is seriously flawed. In fact, monetary incentives may actually be counter-productive. Humans are unique among animal species in their ability to cooperate across cultures, geographical space and generations. Tapping into this uniquely human attribute, and understanding how cooperation is enforced, holds the key to limiting the potentially calamitous effects of global climate change.”
            — John M. Gowdy   2007
              http://www.economics.rpi.edu/workingpapers/rpi0701.pdf

A related experiment is the Dictator Game where the player with cash keeps as much as they wish whether or not an offer to share is accepted.   Predictably, dictators make far less equal offers, keeping a larger share of the cash.   With really no choice, the second player always accepts unequal money.

In the commercial marketplace we can see a privileged holder of energy wealth, sharing or selling to a less privileged player.   The less privileged ones may constantly accept this marketplace deal, until the deal changes unacceptably; perhaps the privileged one goes too far in crossing a clearly defined line - perhaps deceit, manipulation, denial, ethical transgression or realizing the bad ramifications of the deal.  In the real world this might be like seeing billion dollar bailouts go to banks - and suddenly realizing it will raise taxes and condemn our future to horrible debt.

Both the Ultimatum and the Dictator games seem to mimic the market play of Big Coal and Big Oil in our economy.   Carbon fuel industries - with a monopolistic lock on the market - sell energy - and heavily promote and market to consumers to consume all they can deliver.   But carbon consumption kills our future.   As our understanding of the CO2 mechanism grows ever more grim, we re-evaluate the structure of the carbon fuel game as something that crosses the line.

Just like games played with economics researchers - always with real cash - one can imagine a great experimenter freely bestowing vast wealth to humans in the form of a lush planet, yielding forests, ocean harvests, mining mineral ores, oil and coal.  Humans are Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden - all has been essentially free, given like money in the Ultimate Game experiment.  And we get just one play.   The first line of carbon fuel recipients consistently redistribute a portion of the wealth to others: employees, clients, stock holders and directly to consumers.   In the Ultimate Game of carbon based fuels, what percentage of wealth is shared?   ExxonMobil brought in yearly profit stockholders nearly $40 billion, so the ratio of owner wealth to consumer benefit must be a very high ratio.   If we played this as a laboratory version of Ultimate Game, we would see a small fractional award, perhaps less than 1%.  We do not know.   Students in economics will write many papers defining the percentage of this carbon energy wealth that makes it to the consumer   Only then to ponder what percentage of this wealth is lost to a degrading future.

Whether the game is Ultimatum or Dictator - the carbon fuel privileged player derives vast wealth, vast power by giving the recipient player generations of cheap power, cheap electricity leading to cheap manufacturing and then to cheap mortgages, a rising value of real estate, easy credit, rising stocks, etc.  The Trickle Down wealth runoff to the recipient is a very small fraction of the vast wealth retained by the primary player.  And now with a crumbling economy and growing desperation, the satisfaction evaporates and the game becomes desperate or ruthless.

The implicit rule of a real-life Ultimatum Game is this must be a safe transaction, with an honest description of the terms and true costs of the deal.   Plentiful coal is dug and sold cheaply, and we get warm electricity.   But the value of the uncounted soot, CO2 and ash ponds poisoning life itself and then our 30% share (or whatever percentage we want) is now gone - ruining what we thought was a good deal.   We less than nothing with the promise of a damaged future.  What is the new value of any transaction that dooms our future?

So the largess of a Dictator or Ultimate player now goes to recipients that are now beginning to awaken and sense the trap.   Our carbon fuels are not cheap at any cost.   The bounteous carbon warmth today will only hasten CO2 greenhouse doom tomorrow.   Carbon fuel companies have reduced our cost of oil, coal and gas; all cheapened so as to increase the percentage of wealth delivered to the other game players.   As energy consumers, we blindly accept this; we keep driving and heating and carbon burning in order to stay engaged in the game.

The real life game player, whether a rational and/or irrational actor will doubt, delay and eventually call a halt to this play - demanding for a new agreement.

Change itself changes.  An increasing rate of climate destabilization multiplied by a sinking economy nurtures and defines a new, higher-stakes game - essentially a survival game.   The terms of this new survival game will constantly change as our environment and economy changes.   Except for behavioral economists, this does not bode well.

After more than a century of a high carbon industrial output we are accounting for the true cost to our economy and future.   In our precarious state, any further industrial CO2 output increases the problem and moves our demise closer.   The desperate tactic of setting an ultra-low cost to carbon energy now - as a player payoff - means nothing if no one survives.  

The argument now is whether we abandon our carbon game immediately or play it out any further.

Behavioral economics gives us a new way of looking at our situation. Those who adopt the dictator stance of economic transaction will be rudely shocked to discover that C02 and atmospheric science does not negotiate with economists.

Richard Pauli

More reading in behavioral economics and global warming:

Similar postings to http://theboywhodeniedwolf.com, http://climatedebatedaily.org

I am grateful to a dear acquaintance who requested a brief update on global warming. She wanted a current problem summary.   I rise to the task and offer this one page overview.

The following is a distillation of a year spent reading, studying and ranting. Statements footnoted with links.

Most all scientists will agree that:

1. Global warming is real; is made much worse by human civilization; and is accelerating.

2. We can no longer fix it.  We can only adapt, mitigate and suffer the consequences.

3. We have begun to act.  But over the next few decades - if we do little or nothing - humans will go the way of the dinosaurs.

4. Actions taken now require 30 to 50 years for effects to begin — and thousands of years to completely revert to a healthy atmosphere.

5. Model scenarios do not exclude a prediction of horrible calamity.   We do not know the time-line for anticipated changes.   Farther out in time is much harder to predict.

6. Climate change is dangerous because of “tipping points” - an important concept to know - where one event triggers another.  Like connected, amplified teeter-totters.   Science has a hard time with tipping points, because they lead to greater complexity and runaway impacts

7. Currently, scientists are disturbed to note the rate of change is picking up.

8. For decades the fossil fuel industry has funded huge PR campaigns to discount the science and restrict legislative reactions that would stifle their business.   These have been very effective.   The Executive branch has actively suppressed government studies on global warming.  Seemingly intelligent people will often deny brutal truths.

“…the problem is not that people aren’t hearing about climate change, but that they don’t want to know. The professional classes have the most freedom to lose and the least to gain from an attempt to restrain it.  Those who are most responsible for carbon pollution are - being insulated by their money - the least likely to suffer its effects. “
…we all have our self-justifying myths.  We tell ourselves a story of our lives in which we almost always appear as the heroes. These myths prevent us from engaging with climate change…
…The most powerful story of all, endlessly narrated by the hired hands of the fossil fuel industry, just as it was once told by the sugar slavers, is that we are both all-important and utterly insignificant.  We are too important to be denied any of the delights we crave, but too insignificant to exert any impact on planetary processes.  We fill the whole frame of the story when it suits us and shrink to a dot when that scale is more convenient. We are capable of occupying both niches simultaneously…
…It is not just because (the movie) The Great Global Warming Swindle is at odds with the entire body of scientific knowledge on this subject that I have bothered to contest it. It is also because it is consonant with the entire body of human self-deception. We want to be misled, we crave it; and we will bend our minds into whatever shape they need to take in order not to face our brutal truths.   - George Monbiot 7-22-08

9. Europe and other nations seem to better understand the problem than the US.  Most humans will not really get it until they feel the sea level rise and experience more storms, floods, heat waves, bio changes, crop losses, etc.

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