Record 400ppm CO2 milestone 'feels like we're moving into another era'{ralph keeling}

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/may/14/record-400ppm-co2-carbon-emissions


Hawaii's Mauna Loa observatory, where record CO2 increases are beibng documented. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel) Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP


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Keeling's son, Ralph, is now the director of the California-based Scripps CO2 Program, which was founded by his father and which recently launched a Web site designed to let the public follow the unsettling rise in carbon dioxide emissions. In an interview with Yale Environment 360 senior editor Fen Montaigne, Ralph Keeling discusses his father's work, reflects on the meaning of CO2 levels climbing higher than they've been in at least 800,000 years, and expresses hope that crossing the 400 ppm mark may play a role in awakening the public to the dangers of runaway climate change. "Bringing about change requires people to be aware of what's going on," said Keeling.

Yale Environment 360: Given your father's work and your continuing work, what do you see as the significance of this milestone of exceeding 400 parts per million of CO2?

Ralph Keeling: Well, people like round numbers, and they remember round numbers. So this is really a moment for human awareness, just like passing a 50th birthday. This is a point to think about where we are in the course of the rise of carbon dioxide. It feels a little bit like we're moving into another era, in that somehow between 350 and 400 parts per million feels like a certain kind of range of CO2, and now we're moving into a different range. It feels like we're moving into the future. Of course, we're doing that all the time, but this is a moment to realize that that's happening and some of the profound implications it might have.

[FirstLight]

1. K&R

This threshold is significant, but even as we see drastic changes and weather systems...nothing changes. The next era will be narly and there's not much that's we can do about it. Meanwhile our 'leaders' continue to look for ways to extract MORE oil from wherever they can find it... stupid.stupid.stupid.

this planet will surely shake us off sooner or later...