Carbon: Is It Really a Big Deal?
By KG Farrell
Are you questioning whether or not we need to move away from fossil fuels? I mean are we really effecting the global weather that much? Well, I’ll tell you what the EPA says about it but I’ll do it quickly enough to avoid getting boring. Then I’ll tell you what it means to you.
Okay, world wide each human produces 4 tons of carbon per year. The average American produces 16 tons in that same period of time. Another quick set of statistics to get a better understanding where greenhouse emissions come from is below. Then on to the good stuff!
Total US Greenhouse Emissions break down per the EPA website.
10% Agriculture
13% Commercial and Residential
23% Industry
25 % Electric power production
28% transportation (More than half of greenhouse emissions are from passenger vehicles)
Aircraft 9%
Pipelines 4%
Ships and boats 3%
Rail 2%
The good news is that the rain cleanses carbon from the atmosphere by dissolving it into the water. The water becomes more acidic causing it to erode rocks and pull away minerals. Those rivers eventually feed the oceans. Those minerals allow small sea creatures to make their shells. The remaining carbon sinks to the bottom where it forms limestone rocks.
The bad news is that from 1990 to 2021 passenger cars drove 45% more miles. Even though new-vehicle gas mileage has improved every year since 2005, because of increased population economic growth and city expansion, we are still increasing in emissions output every year. Even in 2020 when the world locked down and stood still, we increased by 13%. From 1990 to 2019 we had a 19% total emissions increase on average.
So what exactly is our future outlook? Oddly enough we can look to the distant past to predict our near future. You see, globe warmed this fast about 3 million years ago and the ice disappeared completely. It’s Important to note that most of the Earth’s history has been too warm for ice caps. Of course it’s only been a few hundred thousand that it’s been habitable for humans.
Only 33% of history has been cold enough for ice to form at one or both of the poles. We are actually living in a rare time called an icehouse period. It has been during the past 500,000 years that we have been experiencing weather as we know it. Which is right about the middle of the time period they modern humans appeared on Earth according to the Smithsonian Magazine. It’s safe to say we are flourishing in this period. Especially for the last 12,000 as the ice receded to the poles. For us, it’s been a perfect amount of ice.
As the planet continues to get warmer new forested areas will develop in the poles. Areas too cold to support life will warm and new life will emerge. Human beings will have to migrate away from the equator as it heats up. Millions of people will be displaced by ecological events. Vast amounts of acreage will disappear under water. But that’s the destination. What does the journey look like?
At first the transition will be slow. As the ice melts it releases trapped carbon at an exponential rate. So the changes will eventually start coming faster and faster. Already our agricultural grids have changed. Meaning you can no longer grow certain plants in the same areas you used to be able to. However, over time it will change enough to introduce more tropical species farther north. If that’s any comfort to you.
Rivers fed by glacial runoff will expand during the melting period while other inland lakes will shrink. As we all saw with Lake Mead, high temperatures and drought shrank it by 2/3. A rainy spring helped but it’s still only 34% full. As the droughts become longer, the lakes will dry up even more. Some completely. The same will be true of smaller fresh water rivers.
As the carbon builds in the atmosphere, our summers will become hotter. Our winters will become shorter but more extreme. Carbon blocks the heat of the sun from escaping in the summer but also blocks the heat from the sun from fully reaching us in the winter says Gregg Braden best selling author and host of the show Missing Links. He holds degrees in Marine Biology/Geology as well as Structural Geology and Earth Science.
An extreme example of carbon blocking the sun occurred after a volcanic eruption in the year 536 that caused two solid years of winter in Europe. The volcano itself was located near Indonesia. It was an extremely large eruption that effected tree rings as far north as Ireland. The historians of the day noted that most of Europe got roughly 4 hours of light per day and it was a dappled sunlight. Meaning it was in patches. Suddenly the artwork from that time, with it’s red and orange hued skies, makes a little more sense.
As I stated, this was an enormous eruption. One the likes of which we haven’t seen since and there’s no evidence to suggest that climate change will result in more volcanic activity. Of course, there’s no evidence to say it won’t either. After all, it has been 3 million years since the last quick defrost. So how do we know, really?
The best evidence we have are ice and mud cores taken in Antarctica that records the climate from that region for over 3 million years. We also learn about plants and animals from fossil records being found in newly exposed beaches at edges of glaciers. The evidence is really pretty sound.
Depressed yet? Well don’t be. The very best news is that all of the technology we need to slow down climate change has already been invented. All we have to do is implement it. With some of the most aggressive climate legislation we have seen come out of Washington DC, it is beginning to happen. We can slow down climate change and give our species more time to adapt to the future of our planet. Perhaps we can even achieve a carbon balance that will keep us in the sweet spot. The end result is this; The planet certainly will survive no matter what. Perhaps if we move quickly to reduce our carbon emissions, humans will too.
KG Farrell is an author, activist and artist living her best life in Northwest Missouri. She has previously published two suspense novels that you can find here here.