By Richard Whiteford
In roughly the past 120 years, humans increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere by 117 parts-per-million by burning fossil fuels.
For more than 800,000 years before that CO2 levels hovered around 280 PPM. Now because we pump 90 million tons of CO2 up there every 24 hours, CO2 has risen to an average of 397 parts-per-million and has actually spiked into the 400 parts-per-million level twice in early 2013. It won’t be long until that will become the average as it continues upward.
Burning fossil fuels has already raised the global temperature from preindustrial levels by 0.8 degrees Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) and we are already experiencing sea level rise, extreme storms, droughts and wildfires around the planet. More alarming than that, 80 percent of the Arctic ice cap melted in the summer of 2012.
Scientist believe that we can’t allow the preindustrial global temperature to rise higher than another 2 degrees Celsius or human survival will be very challenging. We are almost half way there now.
The oil, gas and coal industries and their paid henchmen like the Heartland Institute and certain bought politicians distract the public with red herring issues like claiming that switching to clean energy will hurt the economy, kill jobs, and cause energy shortages.
What is mostly overlooked by them and the media is that if humans want to survive on this planet we have to stop burning fossil fuels as soon as possible.
Scientists say that we can’t put much more than another 565 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere without disastrous results. At this time, financial analysts calculate that there is already 2,795 gigatons of CO2 contained in readily available oil, gas and coal reserves. That’s five times more CO2 than we can afford to burn and expect to survive yet the plan remains to drill baby drill!
There is enough carbon in the Canadian Tar Sands oil deposits to send the global temperature above the 2 degree limit. That is the reason environmentalists are protesting the Keystone XL Pipe Line. We just can’t afford to burn that carbon and expect to survive.
Again, the critical issue that seems completely overlooked is carbon output. If we keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere jobs and the economy will be a moot point. What good will money be if we can’t survive? We must leave carbon in the ground or humans won’t be around!
Richard Whiteford writes from Downington, Pa.