There was a cold wind-driven rain on May 11, but, like a football game, the nature hike we had planned (in Door Co. Wis) went on as scheduled. Participants showed up in rain coats and wore layers, but as rain turned to sleet a couple of the folks left early rather than get chilled. By the time we got back to the parking area, the sleet had turned to snow, driven by an even stronger wind. I told the group, “Happy Mothers’ Day!!!” Nobody could quite remember such unforgettable May weather.
The weather is getting downright weird. Snow this year hung around well into April. The wildflowers we would expect to encounter were, for the most part, still waiting to brandish their blossoms. It looked more like late March than mid May. What a contrast to last year when we had such a tropical March, flowers and trees bloomed extremely early, and many were damaged when April cooled down.
Some of the strange weather is related to a monumental atmospheric milestone made in May. Carbon dioxide surpassed 400 parts per million for the first time in human history. There hasn’t been this much CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere in the past 2 to 3 million years. ‘400 parts per million’ is the number of molecules of carbon dioxide (CO2) for every million molecules of air. “Only” 400… but just two centuries ago, that number was down around 280 parts per million. If we continue to add carbon to the atmosphere at current rates, we’ll reach a doubling of the pre-industrial levels of CO2 within a couple decades.
Where is all this carbon coming from? The answer is complicated but it’s clear that human generated CO2 is pushing the total up very rapidly. The main source is our coal-fired power plants, followed closely by transportation (cars, trucks, airplanes… etc.). We are burning up immense amounts of coal and oil, releasing reservoirs of ancient carbon and dumping it into Earth’s atmosphere. Humans aren’t the only source of greenhouse gasses, but we currently put out 130 times more CO2 than all volcanos put together.
Politics is muddying the waters as well as polluting the air and the airwaves. Al Gore was attacked for daring to point out the “Inconvenient Truth,” that our reckless use of oil and gas, with it’s subsequent release of billions of tons of greenhouse gasses, is gradually damaging the entire planet by trapping heat. He was belittled, ridiculed, and denigrated… precisely because the facts he was revealing were so… inconvenient.
Gore points out “— we have been recklessly polluting the protective sheath of atmosphere that surrounds the Earth and protects the conditions that have fostered the flourishing of our civilization. We are altering the composition of our atmosphere at an unprecedented rate. Indeed, every single day we pour an additional 90 million tons of global warming pollution into the sky as if it were an open sewer. As the distinguished climate scientist Jim Hansen has calculated, the accumulated man-made global warming pollution in the atmosphere now traps enough extra heat energy each day to equal the energy that would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima-scale atomic bombs exploding every single day. It’s a big planet — but that is a LOT of energy. And it is having a destructive effect.”
Surveys now show that perhaps as many as 70 percent of Americans finally believe climate change is happening. From Rocky Mountain wildfires to eastern heat waves to severe storms, climate change has at last been getting media attention. But unlike the rest of the world, where there has been an awareness of this, most Americans still don’t believe scientists… that it’s human-caused. This is due to a well established and funded “denial industry” backed by big energy. The sad truth is that those making billions by burning fossils, are enthusiastically willing to sacrifice our future on the alter of Mammon.
We’ve been subjected to media-based disinformation regarding the connection between our release of greenhouse gasses and subsequent warming of Earth’s atmosphere. To reverse this trend, according to some, will require dismantling of the “denial industry.” Rather than more pipelines, we need to build a foundation for our future, an infrastructure of clean renewable energy.
We can reduce our collective carbon footprint. By weaning ourselves off of oil, by using efficient and small vehicles, by walking and biking more, by using mass transit, by planting trees, shrubs, perennials, and annuals in place of lawn, by using reel mowers in place of gas powered, by keeping homes cooler in winter/ warmer in summer… but this is only a start.
Unfortunately it isn’t enough to simply stop burning up coal and oil. If we were to stop today, the current level of atmospheric carbon would persist for thousands of years. It will be necessary to remove carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it back under ground (from whence it came). This requires a major technological investment. But not only are we not reducing atmospheric carbon, 2012 was another record year for release of greenhouse gasses. Current world annual dumping of CO2 into the atmosphere is somewhere well north of 30 billion of tons.
Some are advocating a more active approach. Civil disobedience. From lying down in front of coal trains to demonstrating against the Keystone Pipeline, people are beginning to protest against what they see as materialistic insanity. Sierra Club President Allison Chin was arrested while leading club members in a protest against the Keystone Pipeline outside the White House. This represents a break with 120 years of club tradition.
Some of the people “chilling out” during our hike asked a good question…“why, if the globe is warming, would there be such unseasonably cold weather in May?” The answer is that climate change resulting from global warming can impact weather in complex and seemingly counter intuitive ways. One thing is chillingly obvious. Changing our ways is not an option, it is a necessity.