450 PPM will mean something to you one day.
HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU TURNED ON A LIGHT TODAY?
If your answer is even once, then you are responsible for the consumption of electrical energy. Our energy today is mass produced at increasingly higher levels to meet the needs of our global population—a modest 6,802,000,000 and rising. The majority of our energy is generated by burning petroleum and coal. Within the last 150 years the invention of the combustion engine and other inventions born in the Industrial Revolution have made our technology dependant upon them. All energy comes from the sun. For example petroleum and coal are products of decayed and pressurized once living organisms. This fossilization process has created massive but finite quantities of these fuels over centuries. Our once abundant resource, petroleum has reached a point where many people speculate about a world in which it has disappeared all together. When either of these substances is burned, the by-products include a number of gases, one of which is carbon dioxide. This may not be news to you but perhaps you are wondering how a process like this could attract the attention of our world leaders at the 2009 Climate Conference in Copenhagen. A lot of the concern has to do with the environment and how a gradual shift in the concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere is warming our planet. 100 years ago the atmosphere was void of any human manipulation but today our hand is readily apparent.
FREQUENT & MORE DAMAGING HURRICANES HURRICANE SEASON 1900–2005 GALVESTON 1900 ATLANTIC-GULF 1919 MIAMI 1926 SAN FELIPE-OKEECHOBEE 1928 FLORIDA KEYS LABOR DAY 1935 NEW ENGLAND 1938 GREAT ATLANTIC 1944 CAROL AND EDNA 1954 HAZEL 1954 CONNIE AND DIANE 1955 AUDREY 1957 DONNA 1960 CAMILLE 1969 AGNES 1972 TROPICAL STORM CLAUDETTE 1979 ALICIA 1983 GILBERT 1988 HUGO 1989
ANDREW 1992 TROPICAL STORM ALBERTO 1994 OPAL 1995 MITCH 1998 FLOYD 1999 KEITH 2000 TROPICAL STORM ALLISON 2001 IRIS 2001 ISABEL 2003 CHARLEY 2004 FRANCES 2004 IVAN 2004 JEANNE 2004 DENNIS 2005 KATRINA 2005 RITA 2005 WILMA 2005
We are talking about greenhouse gases. This topic has been the subject of much political, scientific and general debate. Everyone is wondering the extent to which global climate change will effect our lives. How dire has our situation become and what have we committed to? The paleoclimatologist Lonnie Thompson
Whatever your belief, you cannot refute the science behind
investigated the relationship between
450 PPM. What does that mean you ask? Envision a cube
CO2 and it’s impact on the earth’s
of air that is made up of 1,000,000 particles. In this case 450
temperature by drilling through high altitude glaciers. He studied the air
of those particles are CO2 molecules. The parts per million
bubbles that were inside of the ice and
(PPM) is how many of these particles that are made up of
was able to extract information about
CO2. The CO2 parts are reflective so the greater their quantity,
atmospheric conditions from thousands
the more heat our atmosphere will be trapping.
of years ago. One of the more recent ice specimens
Paleoclimatology is the historic study of the earth’s climate. It was
was removed from Antarctica. At a
sparked by the 19th century investigation of ice ages and their cyclical
depth of 3.2 kilometers, the ice fell as
nature. People like the physicist John Tyndell noticed the recurrence
the snow had 800,000 years ago.
of ice ages over millennia but had not properly understood the science.
Ice cores draw a clear correlation
Many factors that appear to be connected to this cycle including
between the concentration of CO2
solar variation and the movement of the earth’s axis in the presence
and the earths temperature.
of C02 but essentially:
MORE CO2 = HOTTER LESS CO2 = COOLER
SPREAD OF HARMFUL DISEASES In countries north of the equator, the warmer the climate the more species of disease-carrying insects will begin to emerge as a threat to their inhabitants. Some believe that global warming is why malaria cases are increasing in new regions of the Tropic of Cancer. Sea levels will rise as the increase in atmospheric CO2 melts the glaciers mass quantities of ice at the poles. The oceans will expand as they become warmer. This will affect the flow of oceanic currents, the life inhabiting them and the world’s coastal populations. If climate change were to happen at the rate our current global circulation models have determined, it will have distant effects on the locations of these diseases. The major ones include those transmitted by poikilothermic arthropods such as mosquitoes and ticks. Although many scientists agree that global climate change will influence infectious disease transmission dynamics, the extent of the influence is not yet known.
However we can predict‌
IT USED TO BE 275 THEN 390 & NOW‌ Up until 200 years ago our atmosphere contained 275 PPM of CO2. That was a useful amount because without some CO2 and other greenhouse gases our planet would be too cold to sustain human life. The 18th century marks a point where coal and oil were burned to produce energy and goods. The amount of carbon in the atmosphere began to increase exponentially. Many of our everyday activities like turning on the lights, cooking food, or heating or cooling our homes rely on energy sources like coal and oil that emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. The current concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 387 PPM and this number is rising by about 2 parts per million every year. The next important figure is 450. There is no sure way to know how our environment would adapt but it is difficult to foresee that our way of life could continue under such uncontrollable climate conditions. We may reach that level within the next 50 to 100 years.
In order for the atmosphere to stabilize, we must revert to a level like 350 PPM . To accomplish this we need to lower the amount of globally
emitted CO2 by 90% in the next 40 years.
LOOK AT THE PERSON NEXT TO YOU, CHANCES ARE Y WILL BE COMPETING FO VALUABLE RESOURCES THE NEAR FUTURE.
YOU OR S IN
Temperamental weather conditions mean that land surfaces will be warmer and the sea will evaporate quicker. This will cause both droughts at the equator and more rainfall at higher latitudes. These events will lead to a falling water supply in arid regions and higher stress for indigenous and agricultural plant species, animal migrations and human refugees.
Species will be lost as the temperature increases faster than they can adapt. The effects of extinction will impact the entire food chain. Every single study conducted on animal species over the last one hundred years has indicated stress and or loss in numbers. The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC ) report has stated that we are committed to 2–4 feet of sea level rise and 8–10 degrees Fahrenheit increase by the end of the century. The IPCC report also emphasizes that these events will displace around 70,000,000 refugees. Think about that in the context of less land.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
1 2 &
Before we start pointing fingers, we should consider the other side of climate change—your role. Educate yourself: know your enemy and be an example in these dire times. Be considerate: have you ever stepped back and evaluated the way you live your life? It is often surprising how often we disregard something until it posses an immediate threat.
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