We are also see population changes---and the age of modern man saw a huge increase in man's own ability to survive and reproduce.
Note that the red line is the growth rate, and it levels and begins falling about the same time that birth control methods become available and falls more as those methods become more available globally. Yet, the population will continue up through 2100-taking the 7+ billion people here now and increasing it to over 11 billion. Picture your neighborhood with almost twice as many people. Humans in that number can not help but impact the world, but we can do things that positively impact our human effects on the world.
Next, we have a graph of the carbon dioxide parts per million in our atmosphere. Note that once again we see an upcurve similar to our population curve but it is also related to the new use of fossil fuels to increase our productivity and speed up all our work. (industrial age, move to cities, increase in automobiles.)
Then we see the relationship between carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere and our planet's surface temperature. Same upward curve. Below shows it with the 5-year running mean, a nice way of leveling any one time quirks.
At current rates of temperature change and without our intervention we can expect to raise drastically by 2100.
Yet, most of us don't think humans are causing these changes or don't know what the whole subject is about.
Amazingly, developed Asia, Latin America, Canada, Europe all know more about it and understand and accept it due to human activity. The people of the USA are most likely to consider these changes natural. The countries that don't think humans are causing it, except for the USA usually have not even heard of the theory.
So what will the temperature changes do to the world? Think glaciers and the ice caps at the north and south pole. Massive amounts of water have been stored in those since the last ice age. (think cavemen and Mammoths.) If current sea level is ground zero, then any increase in water in the ocean from melting will raise sea level. Below is a list of places that currently exist below sea level.
Not every place that is below sea level will be immediately affected by a change in sea level, just as the water table in every place will not be immediately affected. But coastal areas will be changed and while an increase of 1 foot in 125 years (least case scenario) doesn't seem like much, the worst case, will make where we want to build much more important.
Plus, let us look at the flooding caused by hurricanes and torrential rains. A foot of rain can cause flooded streets, swollen rivers that take out bridges and flooded homes.
But, did we humans do this? Did we affect it at all?
This curve definitely mimicks the curves of population growth and industrial growth. But it also is related to the wealth of a nation and the unfettered use of fossil fuels and just plain denial that anyone can tell them anything.
So can we do anything? Let's look at what our human efforts did to the growing Ozone hole once scientists identified it and a plan to decrease the problem was initiated.
It is not like we fixed everything, but by decreasing the Ozone depleting substance consumption to zero we stopped the hole from increasing in size.
A journalist has written a book called the Sixth Extinction. It's timely and scary and worth taking a gander at.
Ultimately, humans will either wake up or they will go the way of the dinosaur. That will most likely eventually happen anyway, although we will probably leave remnants of ourselves---sort of like those modern dinosaur descendants--the chicken. If we don't want to be a rather rapidly extincted species, we might want to wake up today.
Earth is a planet and like all planets it has an atmosphere. Currently, Earth is about 0.03% carbon dioxide, but it was much higher before plants existed. The plants used the CO2 and gave off O2. Until the Plants existed, oxygen breathing/dependent creatures were not possible. Plants needed sunlight, water and CO2 as well as a diverse elemental stew to sink their roots in. (dirt).
The greenhouse effect was what we heard about back before anyone talked about global warming or climate change. Venus is an example of the Greenhouse effect in action. (nope, nothing about plants or glass buildings, just CO2 levels and temperature.)
460 degrees Celsius is 860 degrees Fahrenheit. Not hot as the sun, not hot as a cone 10 kiln, but hotter than an oven on broil. If you look at the graph below, you will see that it is much hotter than any other planet, including Mercury and way out of line with what you would expect the temperature to be based on distance from the sun. It is over twice as hot as Mercury, the planet closest to the sun.
Below is a diagram showing the layers of Earth's atmosphere. The point is, the Troposphere is where the greenhouse effect occurs, the narrowest layer closest to the earth. The next layer contains the Ozone which absorbs ultraviolet light, but none of the others affect convection, and convection is the thing related to heat.
The last chart has to do with the actual composition of the Earth's atmosphere. It's mostly nitrogen in the form of N2, two atoms of nitrogen bonded together making a stable molecule that usually exists as a gas. We rarely worry about nitrogen until someone changes pressure to quickly and the N2 in their body causes "the bends". Think deep sea diving.
Oxygen, the one we humans and most "animals" require for metabolism is the second most plentiful. It is normally considered to be 21%. There is some evidence that this has actually decreased over the years, not from us breathing too much, but because when you increase other gases, you dilute the ones not being added as rapidly. The ones in blue on the chart are the ones most likely to increase in proportion and thus decrease the percent of oxygen in the atmosphere.
In healthcare, we frequently give people higher percents of oxygen or O2 because either they are have a hard time getting enough of the gas through their lungs or their metabolic needs have increased beyond what normal breathing can provide. If O2 levels sink much below 21%, people predisposed to difficulties with their lungs---asthmatics, Cystic fibrosis, COPD, CHF, or people acutely ill with sepsis, pneumonia, acute myocardial infarction will need supplemental oxygen faster or all the time just to be where they currently live.
We decreased the Halocarbons by changing laws and human practices after concerns about increased ultraviolet light and an enlarging hole in the Ozone.
Both Carbon dioxide and Methane are increased by human activities.
We know how to decrease both of those right now.
Some rich people will lose some money when they have to change what they are making and selling.
Some people building cars and trucks and other petroleum based vehicles will have to learn some new things to build electric vehicles.
The coal miners and petroleum workers will need to learn about solar panels and wind energy.
Other changes could be needed.
Humans are currently the most prolific thing on the planet. It is the human Era.
We are not the biggest.
We are not the toughest.
We are not the longest lived or healthiest animal on the planet.
But, in the past, we were the most capable of adapting to change.
Time to choose that change before our adaptability is no longer enough.
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