Earth System Dynamics Discussions www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net 2190-4995 2 1 2011 10.5194/esdd-2-315-2011 http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/2/315/2011/ http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/2/315/2011/esdd-2-315-2011.html http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/2/315/2011/esdd-2-315-2011.pdf 315 354 2011-04-06 No way out? The double-bind in seeking global prosperity along with mitigated climate change T. J. Garrett tim.garrett@utah.edu Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA In a prior study (Garrett, 2011), I introduced a simple thermodynamics-based economic growth model. By treating civilization as a whole, it was found that the global economy's current rate of energy consumption can be tied through a constant to its current accumulation of wealth. The value of the constant is λ = 9.7 ± 0.3 milliwatts per 1990 US dollar. Here, this model is coupled to a linear formulation for the evolution of atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. Despite the model's extreme simplicity, multi-decadal hindcasts of trajectories in gross world product (GWP) and CO₂ agree closely with recent observations. Extending the model to the future, the model implies that the well-known IPCC SRES scenarios substantially underestimate how much CO₂ levels will rise for a given level of future economic prosperity. Instead, what is shown is that, like a long-term natural disaster, future greenhouse warming should be expected to retard the real growth of wealth through inflationary pressures. Because wealth is tied to rates of energy consumption through the constant λ, it follows that dangerous climate change should be a negative feedback on CO₂ emission rates, and therefore the ultimate extent of greenhouse warming. 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