Blowing Past Four Hundred

Look at the little widget on the right side of the page, it measures atmospheric carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa in Hawaii where they have been monitoring the level continuously since the 1950's. It is now poised to go over 400 parts per million(ppm), a level not seen on earth in three million years. This should be front page news but because of the well funded merchants of doubt the general public still think there is a debate among scientists about what is the major forcing that is driving climate change.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That is simple physics and can be demonstrated by a smart sixth-grader. We have now gone from about 250ppm to 400 in only a hundred and fifty years, but some still think this has no affect on global temperatures. I've got some news for you deniers - nothing else fits the already observed warming EXCEPT forcing by carbon dioxide. If you can prove otherwise I'd love to see it because believe it or not - I WANT TO BE WRONG! I would love nothing better than to see some peer-reviewed science showing that we are not totally screwed as a civilization but right now the vast majority of papers I see point to ecological disaster right around the corner.

Shit, might as well drink a toast. To humanity! We had a good run but we are still just apes with guns.