Have we passed the point of ‘acceptable’ climate change, if there can be such a thing?  It’s a difficult question to answer, for climate is a complex system and our impact on it takes some time to realize.  More and more though, I’m hearing scientists speak up with concern about where we’re at now.  It would be easy to downplay that if our species was making significant progress towards reducing CO2 emissions to zero, but when you see those emissions increasing instead, you can’t help but be concerned.

The latest article I’ve found is in Scientific American, and basically talks about how the CURRENT levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are going to lead to really bad changes (‘catastrophic’ is the word used, but I like to remain at least a LITTLE optimistic…).  The scientifically agreed upon ‘goal’ for atmospheric CO2 concentration has been 350ppm (parts per million).  The problem is we’ve already passed that, currently sitting at about 390ppm with only increases in the forecast. (read more here)  The group 350.org is a great source to follow for more information about this goal, too.

The most frustrating part?  It doesn’t need to be like this.  We don’t need a revolution in technology to reduce our CO2 emissions dramatically (cutting CO2 to zero probably would require some radical new technology, but we can benefit a lot just by going after the low hanging fruit, so to speak).  The technologies already exist to provide most of our energy in clean forms…we just lack the political and social willpower to do anything about it.  Perhaps that can change…and it’s that hope that leads me to keep posting to this blog, in a perhaps futile attempt to influence others globally and enact change.

Finding a climate change scientist who does NOT believe that people are responsible for global warming is pretty hard (the commonly-reported estimate is that 98% of climate change scientists are in agreement that people are mostly responsible for climate change)…and it’s getting harder.  One of the more prominent skeptics, Richard Muller, has accepted the scientific evidence and is no longer a skeptic…he was part of a team of more than a dozen scientists at the University of California, Berkeley that have been studying global warming, specifically with respect to how global warming correlates to human and natural events, to try to determine the cause.  What they found was that the average land temperature has increased by 1.5C over the last 250 years, and that “”the most straightforward explanation for this warming is human greenhouse gas emissions.”  Most of that increase has been in the past 50 years, too.

I think former skeptic Muller put it best when he said, “While this doesn’t prove that global warming is caused by human greenhouse gases, it is currently the best explanation we have found, and sets the bar for alternative explanations.”  This is what science is all about.  Recognizing the facts, but also maintaining an open mind, for science is rarely 100% certain about anything.  Perhaps some new hypothesis will be put forth that shows that CO2 is NOT responsible for global warming, but until such a hypothesis is presented and proven, we need to stop this media debate over global warming and report the scientific facts.  The media needs to stop giving air time to climate change skeptics who don’t have the science to back up their claims…for doing so only works to legitimize their ideas in the mainstream public’s minds.

The project’s official website is here, where you can view full results of this study.  Or, read more about it over at The Guardian.

26 states have been declared natural disasters due to drought.  Crops are withering.  While it’s not possible to tie one year of weather to climate change, this is just another data point in a continuing trend, one that’s going pretty much as climate scientists have been predicting.  Another result has been the wildfires in Colorado.  Increased rainfall in the Pacific Northwest.  These are, most likely, not ‘abnormalities’, but rather the new norm…and we’re nowhere near predicted levels of global climate warming, that’s still decades away (or more, if we don’t find a way to drastically cut CO2 levels).  If we were to slash CO2 emissions to zero this year (great TED talk from Bill Gates here on that topic), much of this could be held at the levels we see now (except that sea level rise would continue for quite some time).  The chances of that happening are zilch, I’d say.  Expect weather extremes to get worse, and be ready to adapt the best you can.