Here in the Comox Valley, we are reminded of this every time we walk, bike, or drive around, and see the evidence staring us right in the face. The Comox Glacier is continuing to melt at an alarming rate. Two more large exposed areas of rock are now visible, and there is evidence of fragmentation of the glacier everywhere. This significantly shrunken ice field and snowpack contributes far less cold, biologically useful, water inflow for the aquifer and Puntledge River system than it used to.
This entire emergency always leads back to carbon.
The most important statistic of our time is the amount of carbon dioxide, CO2, in the atmosphere, measured in parts per million, or ppm. Our future depends on reducing that number, thinking of the best ways to bring it down, and halt/reverse global warming.
In 1959, when the CO2 level was still manageable at 315 ppm, the ESSA (now NOAA) began recording at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, the annual mean growth rate of CO2 that we are putting into the atmosphere.
The average increase was a modest 0.89 ppm per year for the first ten years, bringing the atmospheric level up to 323 ppm by 1970, with a 13 ppm increase over that period.
It took us another 46 years, until 2016, to add 77 ppm more — blowing past 400 ppm — leading Colm Sweeney of NOAA to say, “It’s going to take a deliberate focus on reducing fossil fuels emissions to near zero – and even then, we’ll need to look for ways to further remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.”
For the decade 2010-2020, the average annual carbon growth was picking up speed, at 2.45 ppm per year. This alarming acceleration in the rate of increase was a clear warning to start taking serious measures to cut carbon emissions.
It is essential to initiate significant reductions in emissions immediately. Somebody has to go first.
