The oil and coal interests behind “CO2 is Green” and the Competitive Enterprise Institute may think this is excellent news. But frankly, it makes me nervous.
Worldwide levels of the chief greenhouse gas that causes global warming have hit a milestone, reaching an amount never before encountered by humans, federal scientists said Friday.
Carbon dioxide was measured at 400 parts per million at the oldest monitoring station which is in Hawaii sets the global benchmark. The last time the worldwide carbon level was probably that high was about 2 million years ago, said Pieter Tans of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
That was during the Pleistocene Era. “It was much warmer than it is today,” Tans said. “There were forests in Greenland. Sea level was higher, between 10 and 20 meters (33 to 66 feet).”
So if the CO2 level had been measured at 800 parts per million, would that be twice as good?
When measurements of carbon dioxide were first taken in 1958, it measured 315 parts per million. Some scientists and environmental groups promote 350 parts per million as a safe level for CO2, but scientists acknowledge they don’t really know what levels would stop the effects of global warming.
The level of carbon dioxide in the air is rising faster than in the past decades, despite international efforts by developed nations to curb it. On average the amount is growing by about 2 parts per million per year. That’s 100 times faster than at the end of the Ice Age.
Back then, it took 7,000 years for carbon dioxide to reach 80 parts per million, Tans said. Because of the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, carbon dioxide levels have gone up by that amount in just 55 years.
To repeat what I hope is obvious: Yes, of course CO2 is essential for life on Earth. Nobody believes otherwise. But there are plenty of things that are healthy and essential in reasonable quantities but harmful in extremely large quantities. We need some carbon dioxide, but too much is endangering us and (even more) future generations.