About six months ago, Bill McKibben reminded us that our atmosphere is like a big cup or bowl. It isn't infinite. It can be filled and once it's full, it overflows. It spills.
What he meant was that our climate was set according to our specifications and needs. Levels, ranges and parameters of oxygen, nitrogen, argon, carbon dioxide, water vapor, hydrogen and ozone are all perfect and precise, like a million other pieces in the machinery of Earth.
And as we mess with her, she reacts. Things break. They change. And like the parents of those murdered children in Connecticut, we discover some things can never be fixed. Death is forever. People can die.
And plants, animals and birds can go extinct. Polar bears, penguins and tigers may one day disappear from the stage along with golden toads, Passenger Pigeons and the Dodo. Entire ecosystems can collapse.
In fact, in the history of this fragile, hostile, merciless planet, extinction is the norm not the exception. "It is estimated that 99.9% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct." Nothing lasts. But why would we want to accelerate the process?
McKibben writes, "Scientists estimate that humans can pour roughly 565 more gigatons (billion tons) of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by midcentury and still have some reasonable hope of staying below two degrees. ('Reasonable,' in this case, means four chances in five, or somewhat worse odds than playing Russian roulette with a six-shooter.)"
And remember that two-degree goal may be double what is safe. One degree may the wiser line. And we are within a whisker of her now. Only 0.2˚C or 0.36˚F left before we crash into that ceiling.
McKibben writes, "This idea of a global 'carbon budget' emerged about a decade ago, as scientists began to calculate how much oil, coal and gas could still safely be burned. Since we've increased the Earth's temperature by 0.8 degrees so far, we're currently less than halfway to the target. But, in fact, computer models calculate that even if we stopped increasing CO2 now, the temperature would likely still rise another 0.8 degrees, as previously released carbon continues to overheat the atmosphere. That means we're already three-quarters of the way to the two-degree target."
When Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast and the rest of us watched the story unfold from the ease and comfort of our living rooms, how many of us connected the storm with our exhaust pipes? We know as Americans, each of us on average will annually spew about 20 tons of CO2 into the sky. And of course, that's the stuff triggering massive mega-storms like Sandy and Pablo.
The other night tens of thousands enjoyed the Rolling Stones, the Who and Springsteen at Madison Square Garden to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. But how many of us connect the dots with the reality that all those people on stage and in the audience injected more CO2 into the atmosphere as they traveled to the show? Why do we ignore these simple facts? We mourn the effects while we ignore the cause. And the effects just keep on coming. And we just keep on causing.