Below is a re-post of an essential blog, Beyond the carbon price, a Faustian bargain, by David Spratt, Climate Code Red, Australia. Bold added for emphasis by ecoSanity.

* * * * *

The carbon tax (in Australia) starts on July 1 this year, so there’s some tidying up to do around the edges -- appointments, financing, regulations -- and then a big tick next to the climate policy box on the cabinet whiteboard. Minister Greg Combet has already taken on the additional portfolios of industry and innovation.

If only. A barely reported new study on Earth’s energy imbalance from NASA climate chief James Hansen and his research team contends that, far from answering the climate challenge, we have constructed "a Faustian bargain".

"Exploitation of tar sands would make it implausible to stabilize climate and avoid disastrous global climate impacts" ... "Phase out of emissions from coal is itself an enormous challenge. However, if the tar sands are thrown into the mix, it is essentially game over."

~ Dr. James Hansen (Big deal climate guy)

Below is a re-post of an essential blog, Re-thinking a "Safe Climate": Have We Already Gone Too Far?, by David Spratt, Co-Author of Climate Code Red: The Case for Emergency Action, (website: ClimateActionCentre.org).  Additional bolding added for emphasis by ecoSanity.

* * * * *

It is hard to argue that anything above the Holocene maximum (of around 0.5 degrees above the pre-industrial temperature) can preserve a safe climate, and that we have already gone too far.  The notion that 1.5C is a safe target is out the window, and even 1 degree looks like an unacceptably high risk.

NASA climate chief James Hansen says:

• At current temperatures, no "cushion" left to avoid dangerous climate change
• "... even small global warming above the level of the Holocene begins to generate a disproportionate warming on the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets."

As global temperatures rise to be 0.8 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial level, is the planet already entering a zone of dangerous climate change?