Greenhouse gas levels highest in 3 million years

[swag]

http://www.watoday.com.au/environment/climate-change/greenhouse-gas-levels-highest-in-3m-years-20130428-2imrr.html

by Ben Cubby

Carbon dioxide concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere are on the cusp of reaching 400 parts per million for the first time in 3 million years.

The daily CO2 level, measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, was 399.72 parts per million last Thursday, and a few hourly readings had risen to more than 400 parts per million.

''I wish it weren't true but it looks like the world is going to blow through the 400 ppm level without losing a beat,'' said Ralph Keeling, a geologist with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the US, which operates the Hawaiian observatory.

''At this pace we'll hit 450 ppm within a few decades.''

The 450 ppm level is considered to be the point at which the world has a 50 per cent chance of avoiding dangerous climate change. Any higher and the odds of avoiding searing temperature rises of 4 or 5 degrees by the end of the century become prohibitively risky.


Read more: http://www.watoday.com.au/environment/climate-change/greenhouse-gas-levels-highest-in-3m-years-20130428-2imrr.html#ixzz2RrQVOa8X

[Uncle Joe]

1. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, swag.

[AverageJoe90]

2. This was far from unprecedented, though.

And also, we aren't at all likely to see a 4-5*C temperature rise, not within this century, anyhow.

[Moostache]

3. There's a reason the right is politicizing science like the madmen they are...

The empirical evidence is overwhelmingly in support of anthropomorphic-accelerated climate change.

Our willingness as a society to accept the least common denominator as a benchmark for news, science and education is why humanity is doomed. We have allowed a group of people gifted in one small aspect of life - the ability to command large amounts of financial wealth, resources and power - to set a destructive agenda for the human race.

No money for people or programs to feed the poor or help children of disadvantaged homes to get a meal at school.
No money for social security; to repay the trust fund the money that was stolen to fund non-taxed wars to secure resources and access to said resources for the right political donors.
No money for enforcing OHSA and Texas state regulations in West...much easier to just sweep the deaths of 14 people and the destruction of an entire town under the rug....move along, move along,...nothing to see here!

I want to survive long enough to find one of Jamie Dimon's idiot offspring or Lloyd Blankfein's overly entitled meatsacks and tell them that it was men like their fathers who caused the pain and suffering those children will suffer daily.

350ppm was the last safe sign post...
400ppm normally would enduce a massive reexamination of Keystone XL policy and fossil fuel plans...
450ppm coming soon (and really its too late at that point and beyond..)

Godspeed human race...soon, those of you who can find this epistle will need all the luck you can muster.

[ffr]

4. Yep. What he said.

Our only hope is to reduce the human population. Unfortunately, that's too hard to accomplish and nobody wants to even hear a hint about why we cannot breed uncontrollably. Recipe set. Bake.

7 billion and adding another billion in 12 years. <link>