Aa
This Is Life in a 400 PPM World
I dunno. I think the dogs and I are just old and out of shape, but we all seem to be panting (a sign the body is trying to rid itself of excess CO2) a lot more lately.
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/a-400-ppm-world
"It already ranks as one of the grimmest measurements ever taken. Climate scientists found that for the first time in approximately three million years, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached 400 parts per million. The reason that figure was splashed across the front page of the New York Times—and why top White House advisors find it "truly frightening"—should be well understood by now. Carbon dioxide is a powerful greenhouse gas, and the more that accumulates in the atmosphere, the more sunlight it traps—and the more the globe warms.
We've now added enough CO2 to the atmosphere to change the lives of every human on the planet. This isn't an exaggeration. An increasingly large portion of the CO2 clogging our atmosphere comes from human activity—from our coal-fired power plants, our petroleum burning cars, our factories. Before we had any of those, carbon dioxide accounted for just 280 ppm. That means we've already turned up the dial on the planet's central heating by some 42 percent.
As with most heating units, it will take a little time for the temperatures to catch up with the new setting. But many of those changes are already under way. Life in a world where carbon accounts for 400 ppm is going to be quite different from the old 280 ppm world. The climate is now fundamentally different than it was 40, 30, even 20 years ago.
When I was born, in the mid-1980s, the amount of CO2 that had accumulated in the atmosphere was just enough to account for 350 ppm—the amount climatologists like NASA's Dr. James Hansen have identified as the threshold between a stable climate and an unpredictable, potentially volatile one. Between the 1800s and then, humans—mostly the United States and Europe—had built enough carbon-belching power plants and factories to add 70 ppm to the atmosphere.
Yet in my short life alone, human activity has pumped enough carbon pollution into our skies to raise the bar a full 50 ppm more. That's a huge change—out of the 120 ppm humans have added in total, nearly half of it has occurred in just under 30 years. That's the rest of the world following suit, building fossil fueled power plants and industrializing; the same way the U.S. did.
And that's enough carbon to transform our climate to the point that it better resembles another geologic era entirely: The Pliocene. That era, which took place from 5.8 to 2.6 million years ago, was the last time there was so much CO2 was blanketing the planet. According to the geological record, the CO2 levels of 360-400 ppm that marked the Pliocene made the world a drastically different place than the one that you and I grew up in.
Here are some characteristics of the 400 ppm world then—and those that are likely to be reprised in coming years:
-Sea levels were, on average, between 50 and 82 feet higher.
-Temperatures were 2-3˚C higher, or about 4-6 ˚F, than they are today.
-Arctic temperatures were between 10-20 ˚C hotter.
-Many species of both plants and animals existed several hundred kilometers north of where their nearest relatives exist today.
-Vast swaths of land turned into swamps.
This is our 400 ppm world. Hotter, nastier, even less predictable than the one you got comfortable with. This is the world that your kids are going to be growing up in. And some of the irrevocable damage has already been done.
"We've taken one of the largest physical features on earth--the Arctic--and we've broken it; new data shows 80 percent of the ice that was there 40 years ago is gone. So now we'll find out what disappears between here and 450," Bill McKibben, the environmentalist and author of Eaarth: Life on a Strange New Planet, told me in an email.
What seems like pessimism is actually gloomy pragmatism. McKibben knows that if we keep our factories humming, our cars guzzling, and coal plants firing, we'll hit 450 ppm in less time than we hit 400.
"Sadly, we're shooting right past 400 ppm and likely to commit to at least 450 ppm within a matter of years if we don't begin ramping down our greenhouse gas emissions," the preeminent climatologist Michael E. Mann told me.
And if there's one thing that's worse than a 400 ppm world, it's a 450 ppm world.
"If we cross 450 ppm we likely commit to just under 4˚ F warming of the globe relative to preindustrial," Mann continued. "That's a world where the most extreme summers we've ever seen, like last summer, with its record heat and drought, decimated crops, unprecedented wildfires, and devastating Superstorm Sandy, will be the typical summer. And the extreme summers? There is no analog in our past for what that would look like."
That world is just decades, even years away. I won't recite a full list of dangers a world like this holds—the one that includes displaced climate refugees, tensions over diminishing resources, increased reach of tropical diseases, battered coastal populations—but suffice to say that the 400 ppm world and its successors can be ugly places.
The Arctic is already melted. Sea levels are rapidly rising. We've seen a full 1˚ F of temperature rise since mid-century. Scientists are predicting that climate change is indeed going to devastate plant and animal habitats worldwide, much as it did in the Pliocene. This is the 400 ppm world, and it's upon us. The only question now is if we're going to keep cranking the central heat—are we going to turn this sauna into an inferno? We'd have to embrace a whiplash transition away from fossil fuels and towards clean energy—otherwise we can say hello to planet hotbox.
"Fortunately, there is still time to avoid that future," Mann says. "But not a whole lot of time. Breaching the sobering milestone of 400 ppm simply puts an exclamation mark on that."
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/a-400-ppm-world
"It already ranks as one of the grimmest measurements ever taken. Climate scientists found that for the first time in approximately three million years, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached 400 parts per million. The reason that figure was splashed across the front page of the New York Times—and why top White House advisors find it "truly frightening"—should be well understood by now. Carbon dioxide is a powerful greenhouse gas, and the more that accumulates in the atmosphere, the more sunlight it traps—and the more the globe warms.
We've now added enough CO2 to the atmosphere to change the lives of every human on the planet. This isn't an exaggeration. An increasingly large portion of the CO2 clogging our atmosphere comes from human activity—from our coal-fired power plants, our petroleum burning cars, our factories. Before we had any of those, carbon dioxide accounted for just 280 ppm. That means we've already turned up the dial on the planet's central heating by some 42 percent.
As with most heating units, it will take a little time for the temperatures to catch up with the new setting. But many of those changes are already under way. Life in a world where carbon accounts for 400 ppm is going to be quite different from the old 280 ppm world. The climate is now fundamentally different than it was 40, 30, even 20 years ago.
When I was born, in the mid-1980s, the amount of CO2 that had accumulated in the atmosphere was just enough to account for 350 ppm—the amount climatologists like NASA's Dr. James Hansen have identified as the threshold between a stable climate and an unpredictable, potentially volatile one. Between the 1800s and then, humans—mostly the United States and Europe—had built enough carbon-belching power plants and factories to add 70 ppm to the atmosphere.
Yet in my short life alone, human activity has pumped enough carbon pollution into our skies to raise the bar a full 50 ppm more. That's a huge change—out of the 120 ppm humans have added in total, nearly half of it has occurred in just under 30 years. That's the rest of the world following suit, building fossil fueled power plants and industrializing; the same way the U.S. did.
And that's enough carbon to transform our climate to the point that it better resembles another geologic era entirely: The Pliocene. That era, which took place from 5.8 to 2.6 million years ago, was the last time there was so much CO2 was blanketing the planet. According to the geological record, the CO2 levels of 360-400 ppm that marked the Pliocene made the world a drastically different place than the one that you and I grew up in.
Here are some characteristics of the 400 ppm world then—and those that are likely to be reprised in coming years:
-Sea levels were, on average, between 50 and 82 feet higher.
-Temperatures were 2-3˚C higher, or about 4-6 ˚F, than they are today.
-Arctic temperatures were between 10-20 ˚C hotter.
-Many species of both plants and animals existed several hundred kilometers north of where their nearest relatives exist today.
-Vast swaths of land turned into swamps.
This is our 400 ppm world. Hotter, nastier, even less predictable than the one you got comfortable with. This is the world that your kids are going to be growing up in. And some of the irrevocable damage has already been done.
"We've taken one of the largest physical features on earth--the Arctic--and we've broken it; new data shows 80 percent of the ice that was there 40 years ago is gone. So now we'll find out what disappears between here and 450," Bill McKibben, the environmentalist and author of Eaarth: Life on a Strange New Planet, told me in an email.
What seems like pessimism is actually gloomy pragmatism. McKibben knows that if we keep our factories humming, our cars guzzling, and coal plants firing, we'll hit 450 ppm in less time than we hit 400.
"Sadly, we're shooting right past 400 ppm and likely to commit to at least 450 ppm within a matter of years if we don't begin ramping down our greenhouse gas emissions," the preeminent climatologist Michael E. Mann told me.
And if there's one thing that's worse than a 400 ppm world, it's a 450 ppm world.
"If we cross 450 ppm we likely commit to just under 4˚ F warming of the globe relative to preindustrial," Mann continued. "That's a world where the most extreme summers we've ever seen, like last summer, with its record heat and drought, decimated crops, unprecedented wildfires, and devastating Superstorm Sandy, will be the typical summer. And the extreme summers? There is no analog in our past for what that would look like."
That world is just decades, even years away. I won't recite a full list of dangers a world like this holds—the one that includes displaced climate refugees, tensions over diminishing resources, increased reach of tropical diseases, battered coastal populations—but suffice to say that the 400 ppm world and its successors can be ugly places.
The Arctic is already melted. Sea levels are rapidly rising. We've seen a full 1˚ F of temperature rise since mid-century. Scientists are predicting that climate change is indeed going to devastate plant and animal habitats worldwide, much as it did in the Pliocene. This is the 400 ppm world, and it's upon us. The only question now is if we're going to keep cranking the central heat—are we going to turn this sauna into an inferno? We'd have to embrace a whiplash transition away from fossil fuels and towards clean energy—otherwise we can say hello to planet hotbox.
"Fortunately, there is still time to avoid that future," Mann says. "But not a whole lot of time. Breaching the sobering milestone of 400 ppm simply puts an exclamation mark on that."
T. Boone Pickens is also investing a chunk of his money in alternative energy sources like solar and wind farms (more specifically). With that, petroleum products are very much a part of those philosophies as well.
The bottom line is you can't just jump from A to C. You have to get there via B and B stands for bridge fuel, ie. natural gas. Cleaner, abundant and reliable 24/7. Boone Pickens is one of the few visionaries that understands this.
Oh, please don't misunderstand me. I 100% agree we need to find more sustainable solutions that cause less harm. No question. I guess I just find it unrealistic that the oil dependancy is going to end anytime soon. I would like it to, just don't think it will. It will happen slowly and over time in my opinion. There needs to be alternatives that make sense, and the job creation issue is a big one too. An awful lot of people make their livelyhood working in oil and gas type jobs, so that needs to be thought through. As for the pipeline being the safest method of transport - well, no transport at all would be the safest. But it is the safest of the options, at least based on what I have read. I just don't feel there is a short term solution here. It's going to take time and education as well as a whole lot more research. Just my opinion, you know I love ya!
http://madocstudio.com/photographie/projets-personnels/sables-bitumineux-alberta/
PLEASE WATCH THIS!
It is not about political parties, liberal or conservative.
It is about our existence.
If anything in the world matters it has to be based on a sustainable planet.
PLEASE WATCH THIS!
It is not about political parties, liberal or conservative.
It is about our existence.
If anything in the world matters it has to be based on a sustainable planet.
It's going to take a very long time to wean ourselves - not going to happen in our lifetime for sure. And pipeline is still the safest mode of transporting it. So what is the solution? ---------------------------------------------------------------------
I agree but if the world really and truly sees that we will not have a sustainable planet very soon *unless* we wean ourselves from this dependency then hopefully we can make the sacrifices necessary so that our children and grandchildren will still have a home.
The pipeline is *not* the safest mode... we simply cannot destroy the communities near that proposed pipeline with poisoned earth and water as well as the emissions that will add to air pollution ten fold and accelerate global warming to the degree that your child will grow up in a world of water and food shortages unknown to our civilization.
Nothing is worth that..nothing.
I agree but if the world really and truly sees that we will not have a sustainable planet very soon *unless* we wean ourselves from this dependency then hopefully we can make the sacrifices necessary so that our children and grandchildren will still have a home.
The pipeline is *not* the safest mode... we simply cannot destroy the communities near that proposed pipeline with poisoned earth and water as well as the emissions that will add to air pollution ten fold and accelerate global warming to the degree that your child will grow up in a world of water and food shortages unknown to our civilization.
Nothing is worth that..nothing.
I know we are doing damage to our environment but I don’t buy into the extent of what is being proclaimed. This Earth is forever changing on it’s own. Here is just one reason that causes me to doubt-
WHALE FOSSILS HIGH IN ANDES SHOW HOW MOUNTAINS ROSE FROM SEA
Scientists have found fossils of whales and other marine animals in mountain sediments in the Andes, indicating that the South American mountain chain rose very rapidly from the sea.
The rare assemblage of fossils, recovered on an expedition by the American Museum of Natural History to a remote plateau in southern Chile, is expected not only to illuminate an obscure epoch of animal evolution but also to document the rise of the Andes mountains in the past 15 million years.
Among the fossils the scientists reported bringing back were the bones of whales and other marine animals found at altitudes of more than 5,000 feet. When these animals died from 15 million to 20 million years ago, their carcasses settled to the ocean floor and were embedded in submarine sediments. But since then, the violent upthrusting of the Andean chain has carried the sediments to the tops of mountains. In geological terms, the time the fossils took to rise from ocean floor to mountain top was relatively brief.
According to the leader of the expedition, Dr. Michael J. Novacek, the chairman of the museum's paleontology department, the presence of interesting fossils on the plateau was detected by an amateur Chilean paleontologist who had been the mayor of a local town.
''Thanks to him,'' Dr. Novacek said, ''we learned of the fossils and conducted a reconnaissance of the area one year ago. On the strength of what we found then, we returned this year prepared for a full-scale exploration. 'A Strange and Wild Place'
''The place is truly a lost plateau reminiscent of the settings of adventure novels, a strange and wild place that had entirely escaped the attention of scientists. There are no roads into the area, and the fierce mountain winds are too dangerous for helicopter operations.''
The plateau, some 850 miles south of Santiago near the border between Chile and Argentina, lies just to the south of Lake General Carrera. The lake is the second largest lake in South America after Lake Titicaca, which straddles the border between Bolivia and Peru.
The nine-member expedition, which included Dr. John J. Flynn of Rutgers University and Andre R. Wyss of Columbia University, studied both the geology and Miocene fossils of the area under a grant from the Eppley Foundation.
''We are in some haste to prepare a paper describing our discovery,'' Dr. Novacek said. ''In science, it is important sometimes to stake one's claim.''
Assemblages comparable to this are virtually unknown in the Andes, he said, since geological upthrusting generally destroys fossil beds. 'Remarkably Intact' Fossils
Nearly all of the fossils were embedded in surface rock and easy to pick up, he said. ''That was another great piece of luck, since we couldn't have brought in excavating equipment on horseback,'' he said. ''Best of all, despite weathering, many of the smallest fossils were remarkably intact and will be relatively easy to study.''
The collection represents both sea and land animals, and through the 1,000-foot thickness of the main butte the group explored, the transition from oceanic to terrestrial environments was preserved in a smooth gradient.
''For example,'' Dr. Novacek said, ''we found the oyster beds and sand dollars just beneath the lowest sediments containing land animals. At that point the water was shallow and receding rapidly - a time of transition from sea to land, as the land was thrust up by magma and the movement of tectonic plates.'' In more recent sediments, the group found species related to modern rodents, porcupines, rhinoceroses and camels. Among the many fossil curiosities they came across were ungulates (including a rabbit-like ungulate), marsupials and giant sloths. Clues on Joining of Continents
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/12/us/whale-fossils-high-in-andes-show-how-mountains-rose-from-sea.html
WHALE FOSSILS HIGH IN ANDES SHOW HOW MOUNTAINS ROSE FROM SEA
Scientists have found fossils of whales and other marine animals in mountain sediments in the Andes, indicating that the South American mountain chain rose very rapidly from the sea.
The rare assemblage of fossils, recovered on an expedition by the American Museum of Natural History to a remote plateau in southern Chile, is expected not only to illuminate an obscure epoch of animal evolution but also to document the rise of the Andes mountains in the past 15 million years.
Among the fossils the scientists reported bringing back were the bones of whales and other marine animals found at altitudes of more than 5,000 feet. When these animals died from 15 million to 20 million years ago, their carcasses settled to the ocean floor and were embedded in submarine sediments. But since then, the violent upthrusting of the Andean chain has carried the sediments to the tops of mountains. In geological terms, the time the fossils took to rise from ocean floor to mountain top was relatively brief.
According to the leader of the expedition, Dr. Michael J. Novacek, the chairman of the museum's paleontology department, the presence of interesting fossils on the plateau was detected by an amateur Chilean paleontologist who had been the mayor of a local town.
''Thanks to him,'' Dr. Novacek said, ''we learned of the fossils and conducted a reconnaissance of the area one year ago. On the strength of what we found then, we returned this year prepared for a full-scale exploration. 'A Strange and Wild Place'
''The place is truly a lost plateau reminiscent of the settings of adventure novels, a strange and wild place that had entirely escaped the attention of scientists. There are no roads into the area, and the fierce mountain winds are too dangerous for helicopter operations.''
The plateau, some 850 miles south of Santiago near the border between Chile and Argentina, lies just to the south of Lake General Carrera. The lake is the second largest lake in South America after Lake Titicaca, which straddles the border between Bolivia and Peru.
The nine-member expedition, which included Dr. John J. Flynn of Rutgers University and Andre R. Wyss of Columbia University, studied both the geology and Miocene fossils of the area under a grant from the Eppley Foundation.
''We are in some haste to prepare a paper describing our discovery,'' Dr. Novacek said. ''In science, it is important sometimes to stake one's claim.''
Assemblages comparable to this are virtually unknown in the Andes, he said, since geological upthrusting generally destroys fossil beds. 'Remarkably Intact' Fossils
Nearly all of the fossils were embedded in surface rock and easy to pick up, he said. ''That was another great piece of luck, since we couldn't have brought in excavating equipment on horseback,'' he said. ''Best of all, despite weathering, many of the smallest fossils were remarkably intact and will be relatively easy to study.''
The collection represents both sea and land animals, and through the 1,000-foot thickness of the main butte the group explored, the transition from oceanic to terrestrial environments was preserved in a smooth gradient.
''For example,'' Dr. Novacek said, ''we found the oyster beds and sand dollars just beneath the lowest sediments containing land animals. At that point the water was shallow and receding rapidly - a time of transition from sea to land, as the land was thrust up by magma and the movement of tectonic plates.'' In more recent sediments, the group found species related to modern rodents, porcupines, rhinoceroses and camels. Among the many fossil curiosities they came across were ungulates (including a rabbit-like ungulate), marsupials and giant sloths. Clues on Joining of Continents
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/12/us/whale-fossils-high-in-andes-show-how-mountains-rose-from-sea.html
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