What you’re missing, Roger, is what actually happened in Copenhagen.

The theme was 5 gigatonnes, as I’m sure you know. When oil-producing nations heard the atmosphere could take 5 more gigatonnes before Climate Change became irreversible, they said to themselves, “by golly, that had better be my five gigatonnes.”

So what was supposed be a dire warning was instead a starter’s pistol in a race to catastrophe. And along with damage to the climate, it’s going to do economic damage: if we slam on the brakes at the finish line, billions of dollars in investment will never be recouped.

You’ve got a funny way of measuring zero.

2012: 350.org launches the ‘Go Fossil Free: Divest from Fossil Fuels!’ campaign across the country, calling for institutions to disinvest from fossil fuel companies.

December 2012: The city of Seattle commits to divest its daily operational budget, followed in 2013 by the cities of Berkeley, Calif., Boulder, Colo., Ithaca, N.Y., Truro and Provincetown, Mass., Providence, R.I. and Portland, Or.

Stanford University has divested from coal, and the British Medical Association from all fossil fuels. Bank of America announced this week it will no longer finance coal mining.

The Rockefeller Foundation committed to divest its $4.2 billion in assets away from fossil fuel companies. A few days later, the Church of Sweden announced its complete divestment. There have been over 180 commitments by cities and institutions to divest, more than double the commitments as of January this year.

But you write this off as inconsequential. I don’t follow your math.

Sounds like Greenpeace, right? In Canada, maybe the Pembina Institute? Rocky Mountain Institute or the NRDC, in the US?

But when we find out it was Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi, we might want to take a clue that the world is changing.

Jan. 30, 2012 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/01/ali_al_naimi_speech/

Three months after that speech, he announced a $109 billion investment in solar PV, in order to create 41, 000 MW of solar in 20 years.
http://blog.rmi.org/blog_saudis_wont_settle_for_energy_status_quo

Dear Roger;

Thanks for your comment. The problem with your argument is that it doesn’t hold water. A new industry survey I reported on several weeks ago demonstrates that the divestment movement has had no impact whatsoever on real oil and gas investors. None. Zippo. Nada. You can read it here:
http://theamericanenergynews.com/energy-financial/divestment-movement-doesnt-affect-actual-investment-decisions

And if you read more of my columns instead of slagging this one, you’d understand that I also report extensively on renewable energy and have what I think is a pretty reasonable analytical framework that explains how and at what pace we’ll transition from the Age of Fossil Fuels to the Age of Renewable Energy.

I always encourage smart, fact-based debate. But if you’re just going to troll our comments section, perhaps you’d be better off reading Greenpeace press releases.

Markham

You know that HSBC Bank recently advised their investors to get out of fossil fuels, right? You know that Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has affirmed the risk of fossil fuel assets becoming stranded and worthless, right? You know that the serious risks of climate change, already addressed by the US Navy, the OECD, and the International Energy Agency, is now being highlighted from a moral perspective by the Pope, right?

Nice article. Too bad about the 1990s perspective, however.