And a Simple Molecule at That

I'm holding myself back here, deferring to Mr. Gore, who has a great Op-Ed at NYT today. You will not be surprised to hear it has to do with the state of the planet, and topics like carbon dioxide.

Sorry if you find the CO2 topic sleep-inducing. Theoretically the gas itself it is supposed to be key to stimulating intake of air (hence O2!). Now N2O might be a different story! But CO2 and other greenhouse gases are clearly contributing to unprecedented climate change here on the only planet our species has successfully inhabited. The reality of course is that climate change largely due to our exuberant exploitation of oil and coal (and of course zeal for doing so in the least-fettered, i.e. unregulated, way possible) has undoubtedly been whacking numerous critters less-adaptable than we are for quite some time now.

Anyway, this is mandatory reading - this is only the first half:

WE — the human species — have arrived at a moment of decision. It is unprecedented and even laughable for us to imagine that we could actually make a conscious choice as a species, but that is nevertheless the challenge that is before us.

Our home — Earth — is in danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the planet itself, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings.

Without realizing the consequences of our actions, we have begun to put so much carbon dioxide into the thin shell of air surrounding our world that we have literally changed the heat balance between Earth and the Sun. If we don’t stop doing this pretty quickly, the average temperature will increase to levels humans have never known and put an end to the favorable climate balance on which our civilization depends.

In the last 150 years, in an accelerating frenzy, we have been removing increasing quantities of carbon from the ground — mainly in the form of coal and oil — and burning it in ways that dump 70 million tons of CO2 every 24 hours into the Earth’s atmosphere.

The concentrations of CO2 — having never risen above 300 parts per million for at least a million years — have been driven from 280 parts per million at the beginning of the coal boom to 383 parts per million this year.

As a direct result, many scientists are now warning that we are moving closer to several “tipping points” that could — within 10 years — make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable damage to the planet’s habitability for human civilization.

Just in the last few months, new studies have shown that the north polar ice cap — which helps the planet cool itself — is melting nearly three times faster than the most pessimistic computer models predicted. Unless we take action, summer ice could be completely gone in as little as 35 years. Similarly, at the other end of the planet, near the South Pole, scientists have found new evidence of snow melting in West Antarctica across an area as large as California.

This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue, one that affects the survival of human civilization. It is not a question of left versus right; it is a question of right versus wrong. Put simply, it is wrong to destroy the habitability of our planet and ruin the prospects of every generation that follows ours.

-clip-