Watch The Earth Breathe: A History of Atmospheric CO2 (Video)
File this one in the interestingly geeky diversion category: Coming to TreeHugger via The Cost of Energy is what they are calling the "coolest looking graph in climate science"--which helps visualize why global average temperatures are rising, oceans are becoming more acidic, the weather's getting weirder, and the whole shebang of other climate change effects we're currently experiencing and will continue to experience.There's a whole lot crammed onto that small YouTube video size, so here's what you're be looking at:
That moving line on the left represents atmospheric CO2 as measured at various places around the globe--the red dot is at Mauna Loa in Hawaii; the blue one is at the South Pole; the grey ones are at various locations that pop up on the map in the upper right. The spinning clock at middle right represents time in years and months. The trend should be clear.
After a while the video starts showing how modern CO2 levels compare to historic ones, eventually going back several hundred thousand years. You'll quickly notice that while it is true that historic CO2 levels did fluctuate quite widely and in regular intervals, modern conditions since the Industrial Revolution go far, far beyond anything produced by this natural cycle--and very quickly.
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More on Carbon Emissions:
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