“The fear is real”. Drawing by Jenny Hershey, on Instagram at deeofo.
Greetings from New York City. For those of you who wonder what happened to me and Jenny Hershey along the GAP Trail as we left Pittsburgh last October, you can find a short blog post about that ride in the Archived Cycling Tours for 2019 in the drop down menu. And please look forward to following our next ride beginning in New Orleans and heading across southern Texas in early February, 2020. It’s an interesting time in the U.S. for blue state urban northerners to mix with red state rural southerners. We are certainly curious as to what our fellow Americans are thinking about climate change (and many other subjects), and we hope to see and learn some things worth sharing.
But let's attend to a present concern. Previous readers of these blog posts may have wondered about the CO2 icon in the upper left hand corner of this page above the carbonstories.org logo. That is a widget from the CO2.earth website, and is a reference to the latest annual average of parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as measured at the Scripps CO2 research project at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.
This is the famous Keeling curve, which demonstrates a 25 percent rise in carbon levels in our atmosphere since 1960.
This research project was initiated in 1956 by Charles Keeling, and operated under his direction until he died in 2005, when his son Ralph took direction of the project. The iconic “Keeling Curve” chart shown above is a result of their work, and is a well known and accurate record of the rise in CO2 levels since the 1950’s.
As of this writing, the most recently reported measurements of carbon dioxide at the Manua Loa Observatory are:
It is a widely understood, and easily verifiable physics experiment to demonstrate how increasing CO2 levels causes air temperature to rise; in fact this was proven well over 100 years ago by both the Irish physicist John Tyndall and Swedish physicist Svente Arrhenius. Tyndall is widely credited with discovering the greenhouse effect that underpins the science of climate change by publishing a series of studies on the way greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere.
Following their leads, other scientists established a clear link at least 30 years ago between the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and increases in surface air temperatures. Scientists have established that temperatures increase 1.8 degrees C for each 3.7 trillion metric tons of additional CO2 in the atmosphere. (Emissions are expressed in metric tons, each of which is equal to about 2,205 pounds). Today's CO2 concentrations and global average temperatures are typically measured against levels that prevailed before the Industrial Revolution, when humans began to have a meaningful impact on the planet's natural chemistry.
That influence has been extraordinary. As you can see in the graph below, current parts per million (PPM’s) are above 400, even though CO2 levels have consistently hovered around 280 ppm for the last 800,000 years until quite recently. The upward explosion in the line graph below begins in the late nineteenth century, corresponding to a rapid rise in the production and use of oil and natural gas in addition to coal. Where the graph ends in real time is anyone’s guess; it depends entirely on what we humans decide to do.
Sourced here from NASA. Note that although current parts per million (PPM’s) are currently over 400, CO2 levels have hovered around 280 ppm for the last 800,000 years until the late 1800’s.
Over the past few decades, scientists have come to understand that carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to hold human caused global warming below levels that may cause dangerous changes in our climate. As a result, carbon budgets have become a staple of climate change analysis. One excellent source for immediate ongoing tracking is the Global Carbon Project.
Sourced from Climate Central, this chart shows the increasing impact CO2 levels are having on global average temperatures.
Clearly, we are running out of time. Here’s a simple countdown clock from the Guardian that has been in use since the Paris Accord goals were established. It is as specific (and accurate) as the current science will allow. When it comes to global CO2 emissions and greenhouse gases in general, well …it’s time to get real.
Continuing our steady rise in fossil fuel use without capturing emissions is essentially a march toward oblivion. Not only will we experience life-threatening escalating temperatures, sea level rise, increasing diseases, and widespread crop failures, we’ll most likely experience a breakdown of civilization as we know it. For a current and quite sober assessment, see the most recent report by the World Economic Forum, Global Risk Report for 2020.
“Sure, they’re rebuilding in Ocracoke because of Hurricane Dorian. So what? It’s always been like that here”. Drawing from the Outer Banks, North Carolina, by Jenny Hershey. On Instagram at deeofo.
So what do we do? Talking to others is a start, especially policy makers. As you may know, I am active with the Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL), a global organization of over 100,000 volunteer citizen lobbyists who advocate for specific legislation (HR 763) to establish a price on carbon in the form of a fee that returns dividends directly to citizens to mitigate increases in energy costs. This group works hard to convince conservatives that climate change can still be addressed through aggressive market mechanisms. However, the need to act is a nonstarter for those who historically deny climate change science. CCL has been active for over 11 years, and while this ambitious and hardworking citizen lobbying organization has changed many minds in Congress, their legislative agenda remains unmet. If we are lucky enough to get a Democrat in the White House in 2020, CCL’s legislation will most likely prevail, and a decade of effort will finally pay off.
However, the current science tells us that global carbon emissions MUST be cut in half over the next ten years for us to maintain a climate anywhere close to what we humans have enjoyed in our comparatively short time on earth. If we end up with four more years of Trump plus a Republican Senate, we will lose 40% of the time we have to create aggressive changes in national (and global) policies to effectuate change. Considering the stakes, avoiding that outcome is essential.
Anyone who understands climate science agrees that Trump's policies are dangerous, and that his willfully ignorant characterization of those faniliar with the science as “prophets of doom” is patently ridiculous and beyond pernicious. As a result, many environmentalists argue that trying to convince his Republican supporters (especially in Congress) to think effectively about climate change is a complete waste of time and energy. Among them are activists in the interesting and global new group “Extinction Rebellion”. I think this group deserves credit for articulating an approach to the climate emergency that might push policy makers toward meaningful action. They focus on mobilizing people who are already passionate about climate change, and then work to consolidate progressive support for drastic action. Their approach is explained more fully in the following PBS article.
Their philosophy is summed up as follows: “We have finite energy, and spending energy trying to win over the people who are absolutely not going to be won over to your side is peanuts compared to mobilizing the people who would be active or passive supporters,” said Leah Francis, an organizer with the Extinction Rebellion U.S. national team. “We really want to shift people’s perspective on what constitutes normal, socially acceptable behavior around responding to climate change.”
Maybe that's exactly what we need. Maybe, just maybe, those of us who are alarmed by the existential issues of climate change are being just too damn nice.
I’m curious to know what you think…
Thanks for reading! More to come…
All photos, unless credited or otherwise noted, are copyrighted property of the blog post author.