Joe Romm Looks A Little Stressed Out

Here's the latest weekly measurement at Mauna Loa, Hawaii of CO₂ in the atmosphere.

Week of May 6, 2012:   397.17 ppm (parts-per-million)
Weekly value from 1 year ago:   393.05 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago:   375.12 ppm

You can see large seasonal fluctuation in this graph, which goes back one year. Here's the total record, which starts in the late 1950s.

400 Or Bust!

Christiana Figueres, who is in charge of United Nations climate negotiations, may have the world's toughest job according to New Scientist interviewer Michael Marshall. I agree. It's gotta' be damn near impossible to constantly put out hopeful nonsense like this.

Marshall — You are in charge of the United Nations climate negotiations,  a notoriously tricky process. What would be considered a successful outcome?

Figueres — The governments need to put in place regulations and incentives to reach the point of emission reduction at which we can stabilise the temperature below 2°C  [of warming above pre-industrial temperatures].

Marshall — To keep below this 2°C target, the science says we have to peak our greenhouse gas emissions before 2020. But we won't have an agreement until 2015, or global binding targets until 2020. Doesn't that make keeping below the 2°C target impossible?

Figueres — That very much depends on what effort is made now by governments.

?????

They must move forward with their negotiations for legal agreement by 2015. But they mustn't wait until 2015 to start their mitigation efforts, but rather accelerate mitigation efforts right now. They must also adopt the policies that give the right signals and incentives for the private sector to come on board.

This demands a question. When will some prominent person—Ms Figueres perhaps?—stand up publicly and say something like this?

Screw this hopeless bullshit. I'm not going to stand here like some damn fool and urge these humans to do something about global warming when I know damn well they have no intention of doing so.

I think that might have a galvanizing effect. Well, for 5 minutes it would.

Meanwhile, climate activist Joe Romm is still swinging away at his website Climate Progress. I think Joe is looking a little stressed out here. What do you think? He looks a little crazy to me.

Joe on Keith Olbermann back in February

I'm sure it's not helping Joe's blood pressure that NOAA says the United States just experienced the hottest 12 months since instrumental readings started being recorded in 1895. I found a helpful tool which I recommend Joe start using right now.

If you're unconscious, and Joe most certainly is, stop banging your head against the wall. That's excellent advice which I hope Joe and millions of other people on this planet will take to heart.

Bonus Video — Where is the hope? Wait for the orange and black butterfly

 

Comments

[Mister Roboto]

So is 400 the critical number said by climate-scientists to represent the "tipping-point", or is it a higher number than that?

[Dave Cohen]

@Mister Roboto

400 is mostly symbolic. It's the first round number in the count.

-- Dave

[Wanooski]

Well, I guess I won't be having children, seeing as the future is fucked.

[Paul]

The last time a comparable amount of CO2 was dumped into the atmosphere (by volcanic activity) it was done over many tens of thousands of years and resulted in a temperature increase, of much more than 2 degrees celsius, occurring in a matter of a few years.

We've managed to do what took thousands of years in just 200 years.

Who knows what that will lead to, except that it will not be good for life as we now know it.

It's far too late for talking about now.

[Dave Cohen]

@Paul

Re: the last time a comparable amount of CO2 was dumped into the atmosphere (by volcanic activity) it was done over many tens of thousands of years...

And what event in the paleoclimate record are you referring to?

-- Dave

[chris in chicago]

So. The question is how do you get people to change??

[Ben]

@Wanooski

This is something I've decided this past year. I wish I could convince others to do the same, but it's impossible.

[Dave Cohen]

Re: how do you get people to change?

You don't. People must change themselves, undergo a process of personal evolution. Change always comes from within.

They must want to change. First, then, they must realize something about them is not right, that there is a necessity for change. About 0.001 percent of all the human beings who have ever lived have met or currently meet these criteria.

That's the only true answer, and every wisdom tradition on Earth since time immemorial has come up with that same answer.

-- Dave

[chris in chicago]

Quo Vadimus?

[Dave Cohen]

Re: Quo Vadimus?

Well, now that I've posted the Remedy du Jour, I was thinking I might walk to the grocery store, and then hit the local bar later.

Alternatively, I could back to Rome to be crucified for a second time :-)

-- Dave

[chris in chicago]

I think you may be just slightly underestimating how quickly and easily Americans can be swayed (or duped) into something. There like a heard of cattle,get one to go toward the cliff and they will all follow. They just need to think it is cool and trendy. Facebook,SUV's?

[john]

Human nature plus entropy is not sufficient to explain why history is so full of events. Things do change even if people essentially don't.

I don't like the Great Men theory of history but there it is and it can be used to explain a lot. Then there is the concept of a Revolutionary Moment. Please don't ask how we arrive at one. Though they occur from time to time whether we have any good understanding of their genesis or not.

As regards climate change the dominoes are lined up and have started to fall. Any tiny change that might be made to one vector or another will not change the result. Leadership and policy and all that is now irrelevant.

[RobM]

As per Timothy Garrett, Mauna Loa is the world's most accurate GDP measurement tool.

Over the last year we saw a 1% = (397.17-393.05)/393.05 increase in real wealth.

Average interest on all debt is much higher than 1%.

No wonder everything is creaking and groaning.

Got to burn more shit soon.

[Joy]

It is a lead pipe cinch that humans will burn all the fossil fuels they can, and the cumulative CO2 release will easily exceed the lower bound of the estimate range for CO2 released during the notorious Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum. Mass extinctions guaranteed but not the end of all complex life on Earth by any means. Possibly enough of a population bottleneck to allow a hominid successor species to emerge to replace the epically failed Homo "sapiens". Fukushima type events should help raise the mutation rate. BTW, neither myself nor my brother had children, as we had formed DOTE type views 40 years ago. Best decisions we ever made. Pass the popcorn!