Education is the key to coping with climate change
Wikimedia Commons
By Tamim Younos
Climate change is a controversial and polarizing issue of our times. There are extreme opinions and agendas on both sides that are not helpful in coping with the issue in a rational manner. There is no serious effort to inform the public about the facts of climate change, possible causes and effects of climate change, and its strong link to our daily lives.
The science of climate change encompasses causes and effects of climate change. Climate change mathematical models are developed to make projections of what the future climate will look like under various human influences. While there is uncertainty in climate-change models, the factual basis of climate change is the rise in Earth’s average surface temperature, measured over long periods of time: years, decades or even centuries.
Younos is president and research director for environmental sustainability programs at the Cabell Brand Center for Global Poverty and Resource Sustainability Studies in Salem.
February 17, 2013 - 7:44 AM
Yup…let’s educate.
“Carbon Dioxide mostly originates from burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil.”
As I understand it, natural causes of CO2 production are over 700,000 gigatonnes annually while human activity CO2 emissions are about 30,000 worldwide.
@1 – The issue is that the land and ocean cannot absorb the extra CO2 being put into the atmosphere each year. Only roughly 40% is absorbed, the rest stays in the atmosphere. This increase is driving the change in climate.
Sorry, forgot to include my sources:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5958/1394.abstract
http://www.bgc.mpg.de/service/iso_gas_lab/publications/PG_WB_IJMS.pdf
“Education is the key to coping with” many, many issues we face. It cannot take hold soon enough either.
Dave…thanks for the reply.
So if I’m hearing you correctly…The earth can “handle”/ absorb let’s say 712 gigatonnes of CO2. But 730 GT is out of the question.
you seem to be excluding that possibility based on some “gut” feeling, or do you have an actual basis for doing so? the assumption of the “subdue the earth” crowd is that our environment and ecosystems can handle anything we could ever throw at them, but the .evidence. suggest that isnt so.