Fiddling while Earth burns
June 19th, 2009 by Jim JustScientists have unearthed striking evidence that an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels 200 million years ago led to a sudden collapse in plant biodiversity. At 900 parts per million, ancient biodiversity crashed.
Until this research, the pace of the extinctions was thought to have been gradual, taking place over millions of years.
Carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere has now risen to about 387 ppm – its highest level in at least 2.1 million years and probably 20 million years. If current rates of emissions continue, carbon dioxide levels could reach as high as two and a half times today’s level by the year 2100 – leading not only to hell and high water, but to global ecosystem collapse.
We’re truly playing with fire. And the best we can manage is the disastrous Waxman-Markey? Our political efforts, measured against the enormity of the challenge before us and the consequences of failing to act responsibly and decisively, are so feeble as to be laughable.
What else to do but laugh, faced with a catastrophe that is all but inevitable? Lucky for humanity that there will be no day of judgment.