Posted on 05/14/2013 5:15:51 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot
According to data being gathered at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, which has been monitoring atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1958, the CO2 concentration in the Earths atmosphere officially exceeded the 400 parts per million mark last week, a value not attained on Earth since humans were first human.
This ominous milestone comes at a time when the evidence that human activity is resulting in unprecedented climate change is now overwhelming. More important, perhaps, even if all greenhouse gas production ceased immediately, this elevated carbon dioxide level would persist in the atmosphere for thousands of years.
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So in addition to undertaking dramatic global efforts to reduce present and future CO2 emissions, we need a strategy for addressing the carbon already up there. Recently, a broad group of geologists, planetary scientists, climatologists, social scientists, and physicists convened at the Origins Project at Arizona State University, which I direct, to explore such strategies. ......
Extracting CO2 from the atmosphere, even with its current level of 400 ppm, is very differentand in some ways more difficultthan extracting it from flue gas, where the CO2 concentration is much greater. .... First, one removes CO2 from the air by using a sorbent, which is a material that can absorb gasses. Next, the CO2 has to be extracted from the sorbent and sequestered, presumably by pumping it deep underground at relatively high concentration or by binding it to mineralsa bit like how we handle nuclear waste. ...... At present, it is difficult to determine the cost of direct extraction.
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Given the risks of increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere, and the difficulty of slowing current production, at the very least some modest government R&D support of this important possible alternative seems appropriate right now to help safeguard our future.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
I agree. We don’t have any models that come close to working so we aren’t ready to start mucking with things. In the future people will laugh at the primitive climate models and the left’s attempt to use them to hijack everything. The story of tulip bulb mania will be replaced with global warming mania, and everyone will snicker at the vanity and stupidity of Al Gore and his followers.
Just plant some more trees, dumbass. Some governments already do so as mitigation measures for such things as highway projects.
Big Greens anti-fracking operatic chorus hits false notes
Global Warming on Free Republic
That graph must be somewhat dated. It says that present CO2 is about 380 ppm. Last I heard, it was something like 392 ppm, the present 400 ppm measurement notwithstanding.
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