
Environmental scientist Joseph Romm, on his Climate Progress blog, tells us that...
...all our dawdling on climate action this decade is having real impact on the atmosphere:
- Concentrations of CO2 jumped 2.4 ppm in 2007, taking us to 385 ppm (preindustrial levels hovered around 280 through 1850).
- That is an increase of 0.6% (or 19 billion tons). If we stay at that growth rate, we’ll be at 465 ppm by 2050 — and that assumes (improbably) that the various carbon sinks don’t keep saturating (see here and here).
- Levels of methane (a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) rose last year for the first time since 1998, perhaps an early indication of thawing permafrost.
In Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald describes the unwelcome news with this headline:
Carbon output goes off the chart
In its annual index of greenhouse gas emissions, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found atmospheric carbon dioxide, the primary driver of global climate change, rose 0.6 per cent, or 19 billion tonnes, last year.
What do they mean by "off the chart"?
First, we can look at this graph (below) from the NOAA, which shows the continuing rise in global carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations. The red line shows the trend together with seasonal variations. The black line indicates the trend that emerges when the seasonal cycle has been removed.

[Click image to enlarge]
But an even more striking way to look at the evidence is to compare today's atmospheric CO2 levels with levels from the last 420,000 years:
Note that the chart above was produced in 1999, and shows modern CO2 levels at less than 300 parts per million (ppm). If you extended the red line to our current level of about 385 ppm, then it truly would be "off the chart."
The alarming correlation with global average temperatures (gold line) suggests that we likely will experience highly dangerous warming conditions over the next several decades -- indeed, unprecedented over the previous half-billion years -- leading to extreme climate chaos.
So, what can be done?
Is geoengineering part of the solution? Should we start making plans, for example, to inject massive amounts of sulphates into the atmosphere to simulate the effects of numerous volcanic eruptions, thereby creating a cooling effect?
No, probably not...
Pumping tiny sulphate particles into the atmosphere to create a sunshield that would keep the planet cool was first suggested as a solution to global warming by Edward Teller, a physicist was best known for his involvement in the development of the hydrogen bomb.
Simone Tilmes of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, US, used computer models to see how a sulphate sunshade would affect the ozone layer, which protects us from harmful UV rays. She says it could have "a drastic impact".
An article from Cosmos magazine reports it this way:
A plan to inject sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere, as a quick fix to counteract global warming, may drastically increase Arctic ozone depletion and slow the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, researchers warn. . .
One scheme proposes that the sulphate aerosols could be used to whiten clouds and cool the planet. The idea is based around a cooling effect detected after the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, a Filipino volcano that pumped sulphates into the atmosphere.
To probe the idea further, researchers in Germany and the U.S., led by Simone Tilmes at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, analysed atmospheric data following the eruption. But what they found suggested that the sulphates would also react with chlorine in the cold conditions of the Arctic and Antarctic to deplete atmospheric ozone.
The Cosmos article also says:
A number of 'geoengineering' schemes have been proposed in recent years as possible ways for us to deflect the Sun's heat or reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Examples include positioning giant mirrors in orbit around the Earth in order to deflect sunlight, seeding clouds with seawater to increase their whiteness and therefore reflectivity, and 'ocean fertilisation', whereby algal blooms are stimulated to encourage the capture of CO2 from the atmosphere.
None of these plans have been proven on a large scale, and most are infeasible due to high costs or potentially dangerous side effects.
As we have stated before, CRN believes that some geoengineering approaches may have merit, but that they should be studied in great detail before being attempted, and that they should be modeled extensively and, if possible, trial tested. The risk of unanticipated consequences is just too great for us to act precipitously.
Jamais Cascio, CRN's Global Futures Strategist, puts it this way:
Should geoengineering be required, it should be done as carefully and as reversibly as possible. More research into geoengineering is especially important in order to know what not to do.
If climate disaster hits faster and harder than anticipated, desperate people will try desperate measures, including geoengineering. We need to be able to identify the choices that won't just make things worse.
Is all this gloomy enough for you?
We have a serious problem on our hands, and the cure might turn out worse than the disease.
But just to pile things on even more, check this recent news about a stunning climate feedback: Beetle tree kills release more carbon than fires. From Joe Romm:
New reseach published in the journal Nature, “Mountain pine beetle and forest carbon feedback to climate change,” quantifies the current and future impact just from the beetle’s warming-driven devastation in British Columbia:
...the cumulative impact of the beetle outbreak in the affected region during 2000–2020 will be 270 megatonnes carbon... This impact converted the forest from a small net carbon sink to a large net carbon source.

[Picture shows forests turned red by beetle.]
No wonder the carbon sinks are saturating faster than we thought (see here) — unmodeled impacts of climate change are destroying them:
Insect outbreaks such as this represent an important mechanism by which climate change may undermine the ability of northern forests to take up and store atmospheric carbon, and such impacts should be accounted for in large-scale modelling analyses.
This sounds like something from the plot of an apocalyptic eco-disaster novel. Unfortunately, it's not fiction, but fact.
What can we do instead?
If it wasn't before, it should be abundantly clear by now that we need to mount an aggressive, Apollo-like program to convert as much energy production as possible from fossil fuels to clean, renewable sources.
CRN favors deep investments in wind, solar, tidal, wave, and geothermal energy infrastructures. One often overlooked part of the solution is concentrated solar thermal power, and new generations of nuclear energy production should be considered as well.
What we must not do is sit around and wait and debate and delay while CO2 levels grow past the 400 ppm mark over the next eight years. They are going to grow to that level and beyond no matter what we do, of course, but our best hope to stop the increase and keep them below 450 ppm is to get working immediately.
We -- and by that I mean the whole world, but especially the United States -- should have started in earnest long ago. But now, we can't afford to wait any longer.
Mike Treder
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