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Page added on May 13, 2013
Requiem for 400
We take no relish nor revel in saying we told you so. We will be long dead before the really worst of our best predictions will unfold. Our brief remaining lifetime will be punctuated by shocking glimpses of the shadows our future throws, tinged with remorse because though we tried, we were unable to reverse or mitigate any of this.
And now we can only look into the eyes of our grandchild and inwardly weep. There is no going home for prophets.
This past Thursday the two observatories that measure atmospheric carbon dioxide both reached the same milestone. On a 24-hour average, last Thursday was the first time atmospheric concentrations had exceeded four hundred parts per million by volume (400 ppmv). As we pointed out in 1990, “A doubling of atmospheric carbon by the middle of the next century (from 300 parts per million to 600 parts per million) will likely raise global temperatures between 2° and 9°F (1° to 5°C).”
The New York Times this morning compared Thursday’s event to canning pickles: “[I]f a person had filled a million quart jars with air, about [400] quart jars of carbon dioxide would have been mixed in.”
Back in the mid-1980s, when we were writing Climate in Crisis, we took a more circumspect outlook:
The enormity of the crisis we have so recently discovered offers no reassurances. The scope and speed of the climate changes, our lack of information about coupled systems, and our limited ability to influence human behavior all make it probable that more large surprises lie ahead.
When Venus spun away from the sun almost 5 billion years ago, it was essentially the same size and composition as Earth. Today Earth is a blue water world with an oxygen atmosphere and abundant life. Venus is a lifeless, bone-dry rock shrouded in dense clouds of sulfuric acid. The surface of Venus is hot enough to melt lead.
Without its thick clouds, Venus would be approximately the same temperature as Earth. However, because its carbon dioxide atmosphere traps infrared radiation 100 times more efficiently than our atmosphere, Venus is 750°F hotter. Could Venus have once been like Earth, a blue planet covered by oceans? Could Venus’s atmosphere, eons ago, have begun a carbon dioxide exchange cycle that got away and changed that planet forever? Could a runaway greenhouse effect have consumed its oxygen, evaporated its oceans, and turned its surface into a hellish oven incapable of sustaining life in any form?
As we look around the worlds within our solar system, we see no other life-bearing planets. This is the only one. Many of the processes which brought us to our present circumstances are processes that are capable of being reversed or overcome by new processes. We are taking enormous risks by tampering with our spaceship.
And yet we neither fully understand nor appear to consider these risks serious enough to give us pause.
By and large, ignoring screaming environmentalists and only going by the paper of record, most people still do not consider the risk of a runaway climate serious enough to give them pause. After all, its only too many pickle jars.
Quoting again from the Times:
Climate-change contrarians, who have little scientific credibility but are politically influential in Washington, point out that carbon dioxide represents only a tiny fraction of the air — as of Thursday’s reading, exactly 0.04 percent. “The CO2 levels in the atmosphere are rather undramatic,” a Republican congressman from California, Dana Rohrabacher, said in a Congressional hearing several years ago.
The Times then compared our situation to having a bad day in the bar.
“If you start turning the Titanic long before you hit the iceberg, you can go clear without even spilling a drink of a passenger on deck,” said Richard B. Alley, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University. “If you wait until you’re really close, spilling a lot of drinks is the best you can hope for.”
And what, we might ask Professor Alley, might be the worst we can imagine?
We are descendants of creatures that lived in trees, swung from branch to branch, and addressed only those decisions immediately in front of us, like securing the next branch without missing our grasp, or ingesting enough fruit to quench our appetite. We sapien animals are linear thinkers, and solve problems in sequence, based on a narrow recognition of patterns, strongly influenced by our biological history. We do not see out-of-the-frame existentential threats, usually, or take them more seriously than children’s stories. We do not, as a broad population, recognize patterns that require understanding atmospheric chemistry or advanced mathematical modeling. We are more secure in attributing our personal hardships to the machinations of demons and gods; and our successes to our physical prowess and quick thinking.
And thus we drift, as Einstein said, “towards unparalleled catastrophes.”
11 Comments on "Requiem for 400"
J-Gav on Mon, 13th May 2013 1:48 pm
Hmmm, looks like within the next generation things are going to be getting downright uncomfortable for us humans as we’re bound to move past 2°C of warming. But “they” will no doubt find a way to geo-engineer us back to a healthy atmosphere, right? I remember reading elsewhere that a 4° warmer planet would make the surface uninhabitable so maybe we should start digging the tunnels now …
econ101 on Mon, 13th May 2013 3:22 pm
Actually the world is cooling. Political scientists say otherwise but real har dscience shows us facts. It’s cold up here, about 20 degrees below normal, and has been since spring started. Most lakes are still frozen and the fishing opener was last weekend. Most corn should be planted but the ground is too cold. This article is standard political science designed to get the believers in line with the message even though the message and reality are disconnected.
Plantagenet on Mon, 13th May 2013 3:56 pm
In 2008 Obama promised to sign a new post-Kyoto climate change treaty. In 2009 Obama went to Copenhagen and stopped the UN Treaty process dead in its tracks.
If you ever wonder why there isn’t a new UN climate change treaty to replace the Kyoto Treaty, then you can thank Obama.
GregT on Mon, 13th May 2013 4:23 pm
Back in the 70s, our scientific community warned us of the consequences of our continued spewing of pollutants into the Earth’s atmosphere. They called it the ‘Greenhouse Effect’. We did not listen to their warnings.
In the 80s the scientific community changed the name to ‘Global Warming’. We still refused to listen. People like Econ/ SOS, who clearly had no clue as to the implications of a global mean temperature increase on weather patterns, started spewing false information and untruths.
The scientific community responded by changing the name again to ‘Climate Change’, to better reflect the climatic conditions that we were to expect. Warmer than normal temperatures in some areas, cooler than normal in others, ever increasing extreme weather events, and stalling of weather systems.
The scientific community has studied ‘Climate Change’ for over 40 years, and has compiled a vast expanse of data. They have used the most advanced computer modelling systems available to man, and have embarked on the largest international scientific collaboration that mankind has ever undertaken. Projections from the computer models have fallen short of actual recorded events since the IPCC report of 2007. What was expected to happen later in this century is already occurring, and many scientists are now saying that 2050 is the new 2100.
It may be time for the scientific community to change the name again. Perhaps ‘Global Mass Extinction’ would get people’s attention. Sadly, there will still be people that refuse to listen, and concern themselves only with greed. And now we can only look into the eyes of our CHILDREN and inwardly weep.
dave thompson on Mon, 13th May 2013 4:25 pm
Last year 2012 was a bad harvest for the corn and bean crop. We had about 40% fail. This trend does not bode well in a year over year time frame. If we get another bad 2013 in the U.S. 2014 will really be the tipping point.
J-Gav on Mon, 13th May 2013 10:02 pm
Sorry to say GregT, ‘Global Mass Extinction’ wouldn’t even get their attention either … Whether it’s financial/economic collapse, resource depletion, climate change, biodiversity loss or (most likely) some combination of the preceding, people will never choose to contemplate NTE (Near-Term Extinction -google it or go to the Nature Bats Last site) and perhaps for hard-wired reasons … Near-term means what? 20 years? 40-50-60? Hell, I’ll be outta here by then etc …is what most will say. Thing is, we may well all be outta here within this century and we’re still pretending not to notice … Sad indeed!
J-Gav on Mon, 13th May 2013 10:07 pm
Econ – Are you really brain-dead or are you just pretending?
BillT on Tue, 14th May 2013 1:33 am
“…now we can only look into the eyes of our grandchild and inwardly weep…”
THAT is the really sad ending to this story. IF only we, who are causing this extinction, were held responsible, it would be a just punishment, but we are bringing innocent children into a dying world. They may not even get a full life, not to mention all of the horrors they will experience as it collapses around them.
J-Gav, I have decided to ignore both SOS and econ as they are either radically insane or just pretending gross stupidity and in either case should be ignored.
econ101 on Tue, 14th May 2013 1:40 am
If you dont understand what I am saying you may be ignorant, just sayin.
econ101 on Tue, 14th May 2013 1:43 am
Heralding the end of the world is always risky business. The Dec 21, 2012 business model failed. Y2K was better but it failed too. They all fail. Peak oil is failing, climate change is a schoolyard joke, at least at home schools and charter schools, and the economy is fine if you are industrious and willing to work.
Fulton J. Waterloo on Tue, 14th May 2013 3:01 pm
econ101: you are actually saying these things as a joke, right? As a Roman Catholic, I “smell” a so-called “born-again ‘Christian'” here…We’ll all just “edumucate our chillen’ at home skools, and teach them the earth is 6000 years old, climate change is a farce, and the Pope is the Antichrist!” I have to put up with this NONSENSE every Christmas when I visit the “rapture wing” of my family and get assulted by stupidity for several hours; the price of trying not to let religious differences interfere with family ties. Oh, by the way, with 5 or 6 qualified people for every job opening, does that mean 82% of unsuccessful job seekers are NOT industrious or willing to work? Or are you just a victim of “born again” math?