What on earth are we all doing!
I started writing this early morning last Friday, 10th May. It was prompted by a post then just in from Christine’s blog 350 or bust. I didn’t have the heart to republish it for a few days.
Then as the news of the atmospheric CO2 concentration passing 400 parts per million (ppm) moved more and more into mainstream news, I found myself morphing from sadness and puzzlement into anger and then into some form of determination to ‘do something‘, however insignificant that might be.
Because if humanity does not turn back from our carbon-based lifestyle pretty damn soon then those who are, say, 20 years or more younger than me (I’m 68), are in for some very tough, very rough times indeed.
So over the next two or three days, I shall focus on this topic simply from the motivation of wanting to join the numerous others around the world who are also recognising this moment in the history of man.
Ergo, for today that post from Christine. But I make no apologies for staying with the theme for much of this week.
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Rolling The Dice: CO2 Concentration Hits Record High Amid Global Inaction On Climate Change
2013/05/10
Via The Guardian:
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached 399.72 parts per million (ppm) and is likely to pass the symbolically important 400ppm level for the first time in the next few days.
Readings at the US government’s Earth Systems Research laboratory in Hawaii, are not expected to reach their 2013 peak until mid May, but were recorded at a daily average of 399.72ppm on 25 April. The weekly average stood at 398.5 on Monday.
Hourly readings above 400ppm have been recorded six times in the last week, and on occasion, at observatories in the high Arctic. But the Mauna Loa station, sited at 3,400m and far away from major pollution sources in the Pacific Ocean, has been monitoring levels for more than 50 years and is considered the gold standard.
“I wish it weren’t true but it looks like the world is going to blow through the 400ppm level without losing a beat. At this pace we’ll hit 450ppm within a few decades,” said Ralph Keeling, a geologist with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography which operates the Hawaiian observatory.
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For more on the awful implications of this milestone in human history, check out the links below (hint: it isn’t good news for humans or animals or the ocean).
More links:
As CO2 Concentrations Reach Ominous Benchmark, Daily Updates Begin
Greenhouse Gas Levels Near Milestone: Highest in Millions of Years
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Learning from Dogs 
Paul, I have noticed a general melancholy descend on those who give a damn. 400ppm is symbolic [it is more if you include all GHG 460ppm!] but a sense of defeat is not un-natural, and it will demotivate and make us angry.
But hopefully we all know that we are not impotent – the interested powers in the status quo are not all powerful and it ‘they’ which have the most to lose.
chin-up
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If you mean our mostly-myopic politicians, what do they have to lose apart from an election?
If you mean the foolish fossil fuel executives, is it too much to hope they will lose their liberty?
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Jules, your comment is incredibly valuable. I can’t’ recall the saying that speaks of first being sad, then mad and so on (it is 5:30am!) but you’ll know what I’m trying to say.
I don’t want to share the suffering of young ones in 20 years time if we don’t pull back. But I do want to be alive when the passion of millions of those young ones rocks this beautiful world out of the present insanity.
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Paul, having been alerted by Jules to the latest piece in the Guardian newspaper (i.e. last Friday), I hope you will not mind me reproducing part of my emailed response (into which you were copied):
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Of course not! Will be catching up on emails later.
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