[audio:http://wamcradio.org/EarthWise/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/EW-07-24-12-Climate-Change.mp3|titles=EW 07-24-12 Climate Change]
A recent report published in journal Nature has closed the door on one of the last remaining arguments of climate change skeptics. We now have firm evidence that rising concentrations of carbon dioxide preceded and drove the warming at the end of the last continental glaciation, some 18,000 years ago.
Over a span of about 1,000 years, carbon dioxide concentrations increased by about 40%, from 200 parts per million to 280 parts per million. Considering our atmosphere’s carbon dioxide concentration now tops 400 parts per million, we should be worried.
Global warming is a certainty. Indeed, it is fair to say that the community of climate scientists shares an evidence-based consensus about global warming that is stronger than the science that drove the medical community to suggest that cigarettes cause lung cancer, back in the mid-1960s.
Time is short to act. On the average, each molecule of carbon dioxide we add to the atmosphere is destined to stay there and cause global warming for the next several centuries.
Yet, last year, we allowed carbon dioxide emissions from human activities to increase to their highest levels ever—31.6 billion tons. U.S. emissions declined by 1.7%, while those from China increased by 9.3%.
By obfuscating the issue, climate change skeptics have motivated a lot of good science. But, that science is now done and the jury is in.
We must quickly move forth with a global plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, mitigate climate change, and save our society from devastating impacts on agriculture, the coastal zones and human health.
Photo, taken on January 15, 2006, courtesy of Bruce Irving via Flickr.