"Dramatic Decline" Warning For Plants and Animals 696
An anonymous reader writes "Worldwide levels of the chief greenhouse gas that causes global warming have hit a milestone, reaching an amount never before encountered by humans, federal scientists said. Carbon dioxide was measured at 400 parts per million at the oldest monitoring station in Hawaii, which sets the global benchmark. More than half of plants and a third of animal species are likely to see their living space halved by 2080 if current trends continue."
neverending FUDery (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems that the 'talking point' of the eco-marxists today "unprecedented" levels of CO2...was actually disproven in 2008:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/08_Beck-2.pdf [icecap.us] (from 2008)
"The record clearly demonstrates that [CO2 levels were] significantly higher than usually reported for the Last [Glacial] Termination, with levels of up to ~425 ppm about 12,750 years ago, which exceeds the present CO2 concentration of 395 ppm."
This explains thoroughly that
a) it's fundamentally a fallacy to compare Vostok data with Mauna Loa CO2 results (from 3000+ m altitude), and
b) that CO2 values frequently exceeded 400 in both this and the last centuries (as high as 480 depending on how you look at it).
Here's the evidence you're looking for (Score:5, Interesting)
Allan Savory [wikipedia.org] gave a really good Ted Talk [ted.com] a few months ago backing up that claim with a substantial amount of science and experience. I hope you're not too lazy to watch all twenty-two minutes of it, but if you are, let me give you a quick synopsis. Dr. Savory states that the majority of our global warming issues are due to desertification (the destruction of grasslands and their transformation into desert areas), and he claims that 50% of the CO2 in the atmosphere can be removed simply by ceasing unsustainable agriculture practices and converting these lands into grasslands for grazing.
Re:Timeframes (Score:4, Interesting)
Seems we're suffering from a bit of Climate Change Fatigue... which suggests that the less than 1% of credible scientists who doubt AGW have managed to sow enough seeds of dramatic dissent for the rest of us to lose interest.
...and the media, seeing their advertising revenue flagging from the loss of interest in the continued "death, doom, and destruction from global warming due to rise in CO2 levels" news 'reporting' in the face of a 17-year stall in global temperature change (can't jack up the price of commercials if people yawn and change the channel when your newscasters announce another 'global warming' crisis), are starting to flock to a new crisis -- pollution causes global cooling [washingtontimes.com].
Re: 350ppm (Score:5, Interesting)
"The US probably has to annex Canada."
Speaking as a Canadian, on behalf of Canadians, you can go fuck yourself.