SAN DIEGO – Scientists believe the world is running out of breathable air.
Professor Ralph Keeling of Scripps Institute is extremely worried. According to data he has collected since eh 1989 the world is running out of breathable air at an alarming rate – a rate that is accelerating.
Keeling has been monitoring the earth’s oxygen levels and he says data confirms his hypothesis.
Less oxygen, means less life. Ergo, we’re all going to die. Well, we’re all going to die sooner or later, but humans are going to die off.
Now go out and enjoy the day!
Keeling created the famous “Keeling Curve” (boy, he loves the name) – which is a graph that extrapolates the current trend of oxygen depletion in the atmosphere. And, it doesn’t look good.
Thousands of years ago, the Earth was very rich in oxygen. The air contained such an abundance of the element—close to one-third of the atmosphere was oxygen—that animals and insects grew to gargantuan sizes. For instance, the ancestors of dragonflies once had four-foot wingspans. But now, due to overpopulation by humans, animals—even insect colonies—and deforestation, the oxygen in the air is become a diminishing resource.
“Pollution has had a significant impact and events like the BP Deepwater Horizon Gulf disaster pumping up to a million times more methane into the ocean water serves only to speed up the already accelerating process,” Keeling says.
“The first sign of oxygen depletion occurs in the oceans. Dead zones—regions where oxygen has been depleted and life can no longer exist—were first documented in the late 1970s. As time progressed, researchers discovered the dead zones were growing in size and number. New dead zones were discovered and life in those areas either moved or died,” Keeling says.
The Obama Administration is taking this new global threat seriously. President Obama has appointed an Air Czar, Professor Paul D’Alessandro, of Harvard University, to head the Air Task Force. “Paul is not only an expert on Oxygen and gases, he has been breathing his whole life,” said Valerie Jarrett, Senior Adviser to the President.
Vice President Joe Biden revealed the Administration’s solution to handling this coming global catastrophe. “We’re going to tax air. That’s the only way to ensure that people are not breathing more than their fair share. The rich have always breathed more than the poor. If we make them pay a higher tax, then they’ll stop breathing so much, hopefully stop breathing altogether, than the poor will be able to breathe more and live.”
The White House is planning a Save The Air benefit at the White House next week. Oxygen will be flowing freely for all distinguished guests, but the staff, and band, will have to wear oxygen tanks. “We are going to fundamentally transform the way Americans breathes,” said President Obama.
Take a deep breath, while you can….
Further reading here, in case you are a skeptic. Article written by a science writer for the New York Times.