First of all, if every single country stopped emitting any greenhouse gases today, would that be in time to reverse climate change? According to a new study by the University of Washington, no it would not. Researchers there created a climate model of the earth and predicted that if all greenhouse gas emissions stop right now, the earth would still warm between 1.5 and 3.5 degrees farenheit in the next several decades. This is enough to create significant environmental damage, according to the climatologists cited in the news article.
However, the chances of all greenhouse gas emissions stopping tomorrow are impossible. Cars, planes, power plants, even cattle farms are all embedded in the world economy, and for that to change would require huge leaps in technology and the way we all live our lives. According to another study by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), carbon dioxide levels are currently at 385 parts per million. The article looks at what would happen if we stop emitting carbon dioxide at different "peak" levels. If CO2 is allowed to increase to between 450 and 600 parts per million, which will most likely happen in the near future, the article predicts drought conditions similar to the Dust Bowl in the 1930s that would devastate Northern Africa, Southern Europe, and southwestern North America. More than 600 parts per million could cause the sea level to rise over six feet.
These articles were disheartening, but I think it is even more disheartening that this is not a more prominent issue right now. Climate change is a hot topic right now on a whole, but I think that it is not common knowledge just how dire of a situation we are in.
The study you quote is a few years old. The latest measurements show that we are now above 400ppm. http://climate.nasa.gov/400ppmquotes/
ReplyDeleteI too find this disheartening: we have already changed the world and probably can't change it back. What I find more disheartening though, is that, even on a campus full of young people who mostly realize that the climate is changing, people still couldn't be bothered to move their hand 6 inches to put a plastic water bottle in the recycling. How can you convince people to pay $8 a gallon for gas when they won't even recycle?
ReplyDeleteBasically we're all hypocrites: we say we believe in climate change and then we keep on doing what we were doing before. But as your article shows, the climate will keep changing even after we adjust to limit carbon emissions. I hope we can do that before the momentum of accumulated greenhouse gases brings us to extinction.