Wangy Wagnols's video: Anonymous: OpCO2Alert

Levels of the damaging greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, have reached an alarming new milestone, at the world’s oldest measuring station in Hawaii. The Mauna Loa Observatory, which has measured the parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere, since 1958. The readings form the Keeling curve, which shows the rapid increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere as a result of human activity. The 1958 readings showed the concentration of CO2 was 313ppm in March 1958, and that had risen to 400ppm by May 2013. Meteorologist, Eric Holthouse, re-tweeted, about the Mauna Loa readings, and said,: “This is the first time in human history our planet’s atmosphere has had more than 415ppm CO2. “Not just in recorded history, not just since the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago. But since before modern humans existed millions of years ago. “We don’t know a planet like this.” Ralph Keeling, the director of Scripps CO2 programme, said: “The average growth rate is remaining on the high end. “The increase from last year will probably be around three parts per million whereas the recent average has been 2.5ppm.” He added. “It is likely we’re seeing the effect of mild El Nino conditions on top of ongoing fossil fuel use.” It is estimated, that the last time CO2 concentrations were this high, was during the mid Plioscene ehpoch ehra, around 2.5 to 5 million years ago. During that period, global temperatures were 2 to 3 Celsius higher than they are today, global sea levels were at least 25m higher, and sea ice at the Arctic had retreated and given way to forests, where summer temperatures regularly reached 15 Celsius. The Paris climate agreement, signed by most countries in 2015, is designed to try and limit average global temperature rises to 1.5 Celsius above what they were in the pre-industrial ehra. However, last year’s report by the United Nations’ scientific body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, warned, that the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases we are still putting into the atmosphere, are currently on the right track to exceed 1.5 Celsius of warming, between 2,030 and 2,050. If temperatures continue to increase at the current rate, 3 Celsius by the end of the century. Once we hit the 2 Celsius warming mark, the report said that the world, will become profoundly a very different place. There will be almost no coral reefs remaining, the Arctic will be completely free of ice during summer, and huge numbers of animals and plants will become extinct as their habitat becomes smaller and smaller. Devastating heatwaves and wildfires will become more frequent and could make some inhabited parts of the world impossible to continue living in. The impact for humans will be enormous, the report said, particularly in areas already vulnerable to sea level rise such as the low-lying coastal regions of Bangladesh and Vietnam, and island territories like Kiribati and the Maldives. Rising waters, will evacuate millions from their homes, and crop yields will fall dramatically in sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia, and Central and South America. The report also concluded, “that limiting global warming to 1.5 Celsius, would require rapid, far-reaching, and unprecedented changes, within, all aspects of society”.