Urgent climate action is required

April 23, 2007
From Freepress.org


We don’t have the luxury of time on this issue. Scientists like James Hansen have said we have less than 10 years to fundamentally alter our energy policies, and that was a year and a half ago. A small number of scientists think we may have already reached the point of no return. Other scientists think that we are fast approaching it.

What is that “point of no return?” Climate scientists say that it’s when there is so much carbon and heat in the atmosphere that the world’s forests, oceans and soil—currently carbon “sinks,” absorbers and storers of carbon—are so saturated with it that they cannot absorb any more and become actual sources of carbon. There is a chance that this point will be reached when we get to 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We’re currently at 382, and each year brings an additional two and a half parts per million (ppm).

According to the Potsdam Institute, as reported in George Monbiot’s Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning, with the “equivalent of 440 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, there is a 67% chance of holding the temperature rise” to a point which will avoid catastrophic climate change. And as Monbiot explains, when you add in the other greenhouse gases—methane, nitrous oxide, several fluorocarbons—we are right around that “equivalent of 440 ppm” right now.

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