CO2 in the Arctic tops 400 ppm

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WetEV

Well-known member
Joined
May 4, 2012
Messages
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Location
Near Seattle, WA
http://researchmatters.noaa.gov/news/Pages/arcticCO2.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.adn.com/2012/05/31/2487198/warming-levels-hit-troubling-milestone.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Preindustrial level was about 260 ppm.

And why is well known:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/05/30/co2-iea-idUKL5E8GO6B520120530" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Major expansion of coal burning in China, and also rising use of other carbon fuels. The pause in nuclear power in Japan doesn't help.

Fraking and warm winter in the USA lead to natural gas displacing coal, and the economic slowdown in Europe both provide a minor reduction.

Our children's children's children will hate us.
 
China's the largest producer of CO2 today, but they've only recently taken the number one slot - the USA has been the largest greenhouse gas producer for many, many years.

2008 data:
Top-20-CO2-emitters.gif


Source: UCS
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/graph-showing-each-countrys.html
 
Raw emissions by country are mostly meaningless, since small countries will always look the best. I think the per capita chart is much more important, and there the US is still four times as bad an actor as China. It sure looks like Australia, as well as the US, has some work to do.

Ray
 
planet4ever said:
Raw emissions by country are mostly meaningless, since small countries will always look the best. I think the per capita chart is much more important, and there the US is still four times as bad an actor as China. It sure looks like Australia, as well as the US, has some work to do.
You can include Saudi Arabia and Canada in the list of "bad actors" too.
 
more here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0607-global-tipping-20120607,0,4125302.story" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

By Bettina Boxall, Los Angeles Times

June 7, 2012, 7:46 p.m.
A group of international scientists is sounding a global alarm, warning that population growth, climate change and environmental destruction are pushing Earth toward calamitous — and irreversible — biological changes.

In a paper published in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature, 22 researchers from a variety of fields liken the human impact to global events eons ago that caused mass extinctions, permanently altering Earth's biosphere.

"Humans are now forcing another such transition, with the potential to transform Earth rapidly and irreversibly into a state unknown in human experience," wrote the authors, who are from the U.S., Europe, Canada and South America.

If current trends continue — exploding global population, rapidly rising temperatures and the clearance of more than 40% of Earth's surface for urban development or agriculture — the planet could reach a tipping point, they say.

"The net effects of what we're causing could actually be equivalent to an asteroid striking the Earth in a worst-case scenario," the paper's lead author, Anthony Barnosky, a professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley, said in an interview. "I don't want to sound like Armageddon. I think the point to be made is that if we just ignore all the warning signs of how we're changing the Earth, the scenario of losses of biodiversity — 75% or more — is not an outlandish scenario at all."
 
Herm said:
WetEV said:
Our children's children's children will hate us.

Good, there are too many kids in the world.. do your part and dont have any more.
There are exactly enough kids in the world. After all, it's those collective brains that will have to find fixes for damage done by 'us' grey-heads - most of which are in denial. :(

Thankfully, they are.
 
You'd think that by now, people would no longer believe that having more children, and counting on them to be the Smart Ones who solve our problems, is no solution at all. We apparently still think with our reproductive organs...
 
mbender said:
I may post this elsewhere or start a new one, but felt it somehow belongs here (first). Is February 2015 the month the world average hits 400 ppm?

Er... it looks like we're already there:

MLO is not only there, but was there last year.

mlo_two_years.png


However, the global average lags MLO by a couple of years as most of the CO2 is released in the Northern Hemisphere, and MLO is in the Northern Hemisphere.

co2_trend_gl.png


http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/global.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
LeftieBiker said:
You'd think that by now, people would no longer believe that having more children, and counting on them to be the Smart Ones who solve our problems, is no solution at all. We apparently still think with our reproductive organs...
Was that pointed at me, Leftie? Just in case...I haven't seen anyone here advocating for having 'more' kids - I'm simply recognizing that the 'old farts' have missed the boat and that we've dumped most of the work on our kid's shoulders by default.
 
It was directed at the comment "There are exactly enough kids in the world." There are in fact far too many kids in the world. Most of them by numbers are in the Third World, but by environmental impact they are mainly those privileged First World children who are expected to clean up after us, after being raised by us. This is somehow supposed to work now, having failed for all of human history up until now. I think we need to accept that until the parents act as well, the children won't either. Ever. Our primate instincts aren't going to allow much change, though, so it's better to just not have children than to keep hoping for a quantum leap that has no basis in reality, and using that hope to justify the same old short-term thinking.
 
LeftieBiker said:
It was directed at the comment "There are exactly enough kids in the world." There are in fact far too many kids in the world. Most of them by numbers are in the Third World, but by environmental impact they are mainly those privileged First World children who are expected to clean up after us, after being raised by us. This is somehow supposed to work now, having failed for all of human history up until now. I think we need to accept that until the parents act as well, the children won't either. Ever. Our primate instincts aren't going to allow much change, though, so it's better to just not have children than to keep hoping for a quantum leap that has no basis in reality, and using that hope to justify the same old short-term thinking.
Then this is your lucky day, Leftie. The 20 to 30 somethings in the world are fighting and working - in spite of us.

They were in the streets of NYC as part of the planet's largest climate march. They're working on campuses around the country convincing universities to divest from fossil fuels. They were in the trenches at Occupy all over the world (and Occupy is still alive and well and busting butt). They're working on food justice on many fronts - some are becoming the local farmers we so desperately need, others are fighting for worker's rights, and others are teaching kids how to shop for real food, others are reversing desertification. That's just a couple off the top of my head. **

There's a ginormous consciousness shift already in progress and it's a very, very good thing. The quantum leap is in progress - this is absolutely fact-based! It's not too late for us to help, but it's gonna take a lot more than switching light bulbs or buying a BEV. :?


** As I don't expect anyone to believe me, I'll provide some examples. Note that some of these folks are mature. ;)
http://www.forestag.com/index.html
http://powersource.post-gazette.com...-movement-gains-momentum/stories/201502130067
http://edibleschoolyard.org/
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idZ3R38-z3c[/youtube]
http://www.growingpower.org/
http://350.org/
http://www.thethirdindustrialrevolution.com/masterPlan.cfm
http://www.seashepherdglobal.org/
 
The quantum leap is in progress - this is absolutely fact-based! It's not too late for us to help, but it's gonna take a lot more than switching light bulbs or buying a BEV. :?

The climate protests aren't a leap of any sort: almost every generation has this period of activism, and while it sometimes speeds change, it rarely, rarely, changes the whole paradigm. What it's going to take is a combination of birth control and changing the whole culture to value the environment more than the immediate needs of the individual. In that order.
 
LeftieBiker said:
The quantum leap is in progress - this is absolutely fact-based! It's not too late for us to help, but it's gonna take a lot more than switching light bulbs or buying a BEV. :?

The climate protests aren't a leap of any sort: almost every generation has this period of activism, and while it sometimes speeds change, it rarely, rarely, changes the whole paradigm. What it's going to take is a combination of birth control and changing the whole culture to value the environment more than the immediate needs of the individual. In that order.
Well, then we'll have to agree to disagree. I used to think that only zero population growth could save us. But after twisting my head inside-out from tons of sources from a wide rang of disciplines, it's clear that this planet's in trouble even if we kill half the humans alive today.

No, protesters aren't a leap. Protesters in this post-9/11 age where anyone that speaks out ends up on a terrorist list and where police shoot first and ask questions later IS different. It takes a much larger set of...intestinal fortitude to march in the streets today than it did in the 1960s. This isn't Woodstock - it isn't even Selma. That our young folks are in the streets as they are in this environment is really significant. What's more significant is that they're also creating parallel systems that allow more humans than we have today to live comfortably with full bellies - even after western agriculture rots away under it's own bloated carcass.

As for the rest - if the links I provided aren't enough to paint you a full picture, just yell. I can give you a couple of hundred references. That's a promise. ;)
 
I've been an activist all my adult life, and I'm familiar with the movements referenced. I have to disagree that the climate movement is especially brave, because they are one of the few large groupings that *isn't* considered especially Sinister by the establishment today. You want danger, look to the Civil Rights movement, or the Gay Rights movement. I spent a decade protesting our various wars, usually alone on a highway, and I'd much rather, from a perspective of personal safety, have been holding a sign that said "Stop Climate Change" than the one that said "War Is Not The Answer", especially during the initial popularity of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Also, please don't employ straw men, something I try to never do. You actually wrote that we have the right number of children in the world, while I never wrote anything that even half resembles a suggestion to kill half the world's population as an act of climate protection - or for any other reason, for that matter. Anybody can rebut something extreme that was never said.
 
LeftieBiker said:
I've been an activist all my adult life, and I'm familiar with the movements referenced. I have to disagree that the climate movement is especially brave, because they are one of the few large groupings that *isn't* considered especially Sinister by the establishment today. You want danger, look to the Civil Rights movement, or the Gay Rights movement. I spent a decade protesting our various wars, usually alone on a highway, and I'd much rather, from a perspective of personal safety, have been holding a sign that said "Stop Climate Change" than the one that said "War Is Not The Answer", especially during the initial popularity of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Also, please don't employ straw men, something I try to never do. You actually wrote that we have the right number of children in the world, while I never wrote anything that even half resembles a suggestion to kill half the world's population as an act of climate protection - or for any other reason, for that matter. Anybody can rebut something extreme that was never said.
First: chill. I'm not here to bust your chops - I'm responding to the rock you lobbed at me. ;) If you want a fight, you'll have to go elsewhere.
Second: I'm aware of the words I typed, thanks. Are you suggesting that you didn't intend an overpopulation message?

The climate movement is directly pushing back against the fossil fuel industry, not the government. It's very clear that the environmental movement has the carbon industry in fits. If you don't think that's so, come on down to Denton and look at the industry response to the city's fracking ban. Or visit a protest camp on the KXL route. During the protests against the srn leg of KXL, 70 year old land owners were slammed to the ground while standing on their own property and arrested by local cops working for Trans Canada on their days off. Protesters today are being tazed, shot with 12-gauge wooden or rubber slugs, gassed, and beaten. I've documented that on this site and will link them if you'd like.

Other parts of the 'climate movement' are reflected in folks working to expose big ag. Why? Because the total of agriculture - meat and industrial corn/soy - when put together, are the number one source of GHGs among plenty of other problems. When they're broken apart the way the EPA presents data, ag is number 2 between buildings and transportation. Activists and journalists are sued, threatened, shot at, arrested, and killed. They're not just holding signs.

My comment wasn't a straw man - what started our diversion was your suggestion that anyone that thinks we have enough kids is thinking with their reproductive organs.

The fact remains that while most of our current systems are not sustainable, and that clearly there's not enough of anything on the planet to support 10 billion people living and wasting as Americans do, there IS plenty of ability for 10 billion to eat and live if they make other choices. The young folks ARE making those choices in numbers that matter!

I didn't say that there are enough protesters today - there aren't. Especially in the US. Most Americans are on their ever-expanding butts updating Facebook and tracking the latest celebrity leak. Maybe that's why you were 'an army of one' on the side of the road?

The majority of the people protesting TODAY (not in the 1990s) and growing sustainable food, and teaching kids about food, and pushing universities to divest from fossil fuels, and developing collaborative systems that are completely replacing the unsustainable systems that have evolved till now, and that are foregoing car ownership, and fighting Japanese whaling, are NOT the 50-somethings - they're the kids.

If my data and observations are off, let's start a new thread where you can educate me. Thanks in advance.
 
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