CO2 and Climate Change

Senior Energy Analysts and Forbes Magazine contributor Robert Rapier writes:

Whenever I write about climate change, some people always respond with anger or denial. The denial crowd tends to stick with classics like “The climate is always changing” or “We don’t really know how much humans are contributing.” I even know one guy—way out on the fringe—who insists CO₂ levels aren’t even rising.

I used to respond by saying we’re running a massive experiment on the atmosphere. If the doomsayers are wrong and we cut fossil fuel use anyway, the worst that happens is slower growth and cleaner air. But if the skeptics are wrong? There’s no switch to flip us out of that mess.

I just started reading The End of Eden by Adam Welz, and he summed it up in a single line: “We are creating an atmosphere in which no humans in history have ever lived.” That’s the heart of the issue. The very air we breathe is slowly changing—and there’s no sign of CO₂ emissions slowing down. Many species are not going to be able to cope with that.

More CO₂ in the air also means more carbonic acid in the oceans, which lowers pH, bleaches coral, weakens marine shells, and threatens the food chain.

And if we want to make that worse? Just keep burning more coal. That’s about the worst move we could make right now.

—

FWIW, I can relate to having climate deniers write back to me in anger.  It comes with the territory, as they say.

Over the years, I’ve been a guest on many dozens of talk-radio shows, and a caller once called me a cockroach. The host was furious with the caller, but I just laughed. “Not everyone agrees with the climate scientists, some of whom have been studying this subject since the 1970s, I said.  “But ‘cockroach?’  That’s a first.”