When Did We First Know?

....of the anthropogenic nature and dangers of "excess carbon in the atmosphere:

1965:

President’s Science Advisory Committee Report on Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide...

...reported to Lyndon Johnson that "By the year 2000 the increase in atmospheric CO2 will be close to 25%. This may be sufficient to produce measurable and perhaps marked changes in climate, and will almost certainly cause significant changes in the temperature and other properties of the stratosphere.”  The report was entitled:

"Restoring the Quality of Our Environment”

"Restoring!"  This term was used 53 years ago; indicating that the level of excessive atmospheric carbon was already past safe levels more than 50 years ago.  It had increased by 7% between 1860 and 1960 (1.3% from 1958 to 1963). The report predicts melting ice caps, rising sea levels, acidification of water sources, and more.  The report links that increase directly to humanity’s behavior:, the Committee reports:

“Carbon dioxide is being added to the earth’s atmosphere by the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas at the rate of 6 billion tons a year.”

The report recommended: 

“economic incentives to discourage pollution” in which “special taxes would be levied against polluters.”  Think CarboTax Click on the report title above to read the report; or click here.

What Do We Do Now?

It's about "us" not "them"

It always has been,  The largest culprits of excessive are cars and trucks and manufacturing of products we consume.   Besides generating carbon is reducing excess carbon in the atmosphere; a process called "carbon sequestering"  This breaks down to the following action items. 

• Drive less
• Bike
• Public transportation
• Purchase less products in single use packaging that requires manufacturing which in turn generates carbon
• Eat less meat.  The manufacturing of meat generates carbon (Not to mention waste of water which generates more carbon)
• Plant more
• Plants pull carbon out of the air (carbon sequestering) and replace it with fresh oxygenated air
• Leafy plants such as philodendrons and spider plants are good examples.  There are a lot of people on the planet.  If everyone in the U.S. planted the effect would be multiplied by 200 million plus.  It would truly be a "grass roots" solution 

The solution like the problem has always been our responsibility. 

Things Have Changed, Yet Not

Different, Yet Same

Back in 1990 when I first wrote The Council to Save the Planet and the Earth Chronicles (The subtitle was dropped by the publisher), the term Global Warming had been coined, but had not made into the public lexicon and the Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change was first convening to study greenhouse gas effects.  It's not like the problem didn't exist. The problem was just viewed differently and other environment threats to the ecological balance of the planet held just as much gravity for the public attention.

Global Warming

At least since the sixties it was common knowledge that if carbon emissions were greater than the planet's ability to exchange carbon for oxygen (the carbon cycle), the whole of the plant would warm to the point of some of the issues we are currently seeing:

• Rising sea levels
• Unpredictable and virulent weather (increase in tornadoes and hurricanes) 
• Droughts
• Increase in Earthquakes

However, the problem was not really seen from the perspective of how much carbon people and industry releases (carbon footprint), but from a perspective of depleting the Earths ability to perform carbon exchange.  Much focus was on depletion of forests, particularly tropical forests.  Solution points appeared to be:

• Lumbering (ironically leading to a movement of fake wood made of plastic)
• Slash and Burn Farming (e.g. Amazon Rain Forest)

Hence the beginnings of the terms Save the Trees --> Save the Planet  Somewhere along the line, after the first few report of the IPCC it became evident that no matter how much of the Earth's jungles and forests were saved, humans were going to overrun the carbon cycle, by the sheer volume of carbon humans release.  

PFCs

Of huge concern in the public media driven attention was fluorocarbons, gasses used to create pressure in aerosol cans and refrigeration.  These gasses attributed to the hole in the ozone layer, which in turn allowed too much ultraviolet light through the hole, contributing to

• Skin Cancer
• Global Warming

The whole cosmetic, home cleaning and refrigeration industry changed drastically as a result of this discovery. People like singular problems requiring single solutions so fluorocarbons got lumped into the category of greenhouse gases under the umbrella of Global Warming

Nuclear Waste

Of huge concern at the time was what to do with radioactive, carcinogenic nuclear waste. People were terrified about meltdowns and hazardous spills of nuclear wast creating mass evacuations and death.  Since then, nuclear has come to be Green or the lesser evil.  However, it is an increasing problem which currently effects people in horrid ways, though they may not know it.  Populations living near nuclear waste dumps suffer cancer rates up to 30% more than people who don't live near nuclear dumps.  People just don't necessarily know that their leukemia or testicular cancer may be related to nearby nuclear waste or a nuclear power plant.  They may not even know a dump is nearby.  In the U.S. there is over 176,000 tons of nuclear waste without any plan for permanent story.  Nuclear waste impact is far more deadly and imminent danger to humans than global warming, but it is off the radar screen. Out of site (oops), out of mind.

Pollution

Awareness and focus on pollution over the years has ebbed and flowed, though it has more ebbed than clean water has flowed. (Sorry, just a bit of eco-humor, there).  Seriously though, when I wrote The Council to Save The Planet I wouldn't think twice about drinking tap water, now I wouldn't think of drinking any water that has not been filtered.  Again, the irony of acquiring fresh water often requires plastic bottles and plastic is one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions and pollution. Evidently, a patch of plastic 5,000 sq kilometers in size floats in the Pacific Ocean.  Actually there are two patches (Eastern and Western) called the Great Pacific Garden Patch. By now you have heard about the trillions of microbeads of plastic polluting the Great Lakes and other inland bodies of water.  It's enough to make you want to stop brushing your teeth or washing your face. No?

The One Constant

The one thing remains constant is too much carbon, pollution, energy demand for the Earth to recycle into useful resource, too many people in pursuit of convenience. Often people glibly respond to my "save the planet" messages with retorts that the "planet will take care of itself."  That's true. However, in that humans are dependent upon the planet for survival, saving the planet is tantamount with saving humans. 

Respectfully,
Conrad    

Yes. The Planet Does NOT Need Saving

The Human Race Does.

I know this is feeding into quibbling between proponents of the anthropogenic aspect of climate change and deniers.  Also, I am aware that  I am once again, preaching to the choir.  Those who believe that the whole plethora of potential and sometimes currently realized danger to the human race grouped under the umbrella of Global Warming will nod their heads in agreement, while Climate Change Deniers will sputter at this in mock.  Nobody's opinion will be changed.

What brings me here to post after a long hiatus from posting¹ (Tired of trying to teach pigs to sing) was several discussions in which I participated where people rather flippantly indicated that "the planet" has been taking care of itself for more than 4.5 billion years without needing saving by humans.  One person in such a discussion quoted comedian George Carlin² as a source, missing the double entendre of his joke.  If you have read any of my previous posts, you would realize that by this point in a post, I would have already quoted statistics like scripture, but have since learned that facts are ineffectual to  changing opinions.  I need to find a muscle-bound man and bikini clad woman in yoga poses to convey my message,  So, here's my rant³...er appeal to sensibilities:

Does this really need explaining?

Evidently, people don't get that "saving the planet" used in the vernacular is a colloquialism for keeping Earth habitable for humans; "saving the planet" means saving the human race.  Even when I titled my book "The Council to Save The Planet"  it had a bit of a tongue-in-cheek double meaning.  The tagline for the book read: "Take care of the Earth before the Earth takes care of you"

The Fatalistic Solipsism of Deniers.

The flippancy of the logic that Earth is on it's own agenda is the first indication of the solipsistic avoidance of personal inconvenience required to reduce carbon footprints, waste that won't decompose, conservational use of water and other resources, etc...  The harsh reality of selfishness of epidemic proportions practiced by climate change deniers come from the projections from the International Panel on Climate Control⁴ (IPCC) which show that real problems with the current carbon acceleration⁵ won't become cataclysmic until 2100.  It's not our problem, it won't happen until we are gone.

I don't know about you, I find this lack of compassion for future generations to be appalling selfish to the point of being pathological.  I would have used the term sociopathic, but I'm sure someone would argue that we can't be in society with future generations.  However, we can be compassionate and empathetical to those who will pay the price for our actions. Worse is the fact that those who will be the first to be harmed the most are poor from Third World countries. Now the term sociopath can be invoked to individuals who defer care about those less fortunate than privileged U.S. citizens⁶.

It's Not Someone Else's Problem

If you think about things blamed for green house emissions (cars, power plants, and manufacturing) there is no way to point the finger at someone else.  These are things that us ordinary individuals (AKA "consumers") leverage for our convenient lifestyles.    We are in control.  We can reduce our use of cars, reducing gas consumption. We can reduce our power consumption⁸.  We can reduce how much and what we purchase, reducing more power consumption and our output of non-degradable pollution,  We can conserve water⁹.  Sounds small scale, but multiply what you can do by 300 million and you have massive impact.  Most know how to do this, Global Warming ethicists and activists have pounded this at you for decades.  If not Google each, or look below where I have done it for you.

Rather than demanding that manufacturers give us more sustainable products and technology and that the government regulate those manufacturers to ensure sustainable products, we can change our habits to drive these changes. That is the one beautiful thing about Capitalism. It's really driven from the bottom up. It just means getting past The Cult of Convenience.

A New Zeitgeist

I have discovered that railing about specific practices needed to ensure a sustainable planet for our descendants is not productive.  We all know what we can do.  What's really required is a whole new way of thinking; one that is more mindful of others, alive or yet to be born.  This is tough for most U.S. citizens indoctrinated in the paradigm of rugged individualism (selfishness) .  The Cult of Convenience is rife with entitlement and status by gain, but lacking in empathy

Try this:  As often as you can, before you do something, buy something, throw something away, ask yourself how will this impact others, now or in the future?  A good time might be while you are in yoga class trying to ignore the pain of the Upside Down Flying Dog position.  Trust me, an overall new paradigm of concern for others will do a world of good


Footnotes
(Not only required to make this post look official, but informational also)

1. Actually I opted for action, by giving money to the strongest pro-ecology lobby in the US The Nature Conservancy
2. Carlin's opinion as a comedian of course outweighs the opinion of the 800 scientists of the International Panel on Climate Change and NASA
3. Rant's play better nowadays.
4. For those of you who are capable of reading more that short paragraphs Click here for the IPCC projections
5. "Carbon acceleration" refers to the fact that the rate of emissions gases released into the atmosphere is greater than the rate the Earth can turn it back into Oxygen and that rate is accelerating
6. The US has 3% of the planet's population, yet contributes to 25% of the green house emissions. Only China is higher, but that is only because they have so many more people.  On a person by person basis the Carbon Footprint⁷ of each Chinese person is 1/4th of each U.S. citizen contributes
7. Carbon footprint describes all green house emissions released by a particular entity (person, vehicle, factory, power plant) being assessed.  
8. Reducing your power / electric consumption <--Click
9. Conserving water <--- Click

You are responsible for the future.