Forum Post: CO2 Methane & Climate Change 101

CO2 101:

First the suns ray generate heat on the surface of the planet.

Many of he suns rays bounce back out into space verses getting soaked up by the planets surface.

CO2 in the atmosphere blocks the suns ray from bouncing back out into space, keeping them here which means more of those rays are soaked up by the planet. That means the planet gets warmer.

Fossil fuels when burned increases the amount of CO2 put into the planets atmosphere which means more of the rays are blocked from going back out into space which means more heat on the planet. It is a vicious cycle.

On the first link below look at the Climate 101 clip, it does a good job of explaining this.

http://climaterealityproject.org/

Global scientist from all over the world agree that CO2 levels have been steadily increasing for decades. They measure CO2 levels in "parts per million."

By using trapped gas in ice core samples scientist can measure the CO2 content that was in the earths atmosphere going back hundreds of thousands of years.

Recently it was discovered that over the course of the past 600,000 years that the CO2 concentration has never been over 300 parts per million, that is until the onset of the second industrial revolution when the world began to use fossil fuels.

We are now at about 389 pars per million or somewhere very close to that.

Scientist fear that if we go over 400 to a max of 450 parts per million the temperature of the earth will increase by 6 degrees celsius or more.

This would result in the permafrost in places such as siberia and others to melt. That is important because that permafrost contains tons of methane gas which is frozen in the tundra. Methane is 20 times more powerful of a green house gas than CO2

This could cause all of the ice on the planet to melt. Sea levels will rise, etc.

http://co2now.org/Future-CO2/

http://co2now.org/

As the temperature increases the planets water cycle changes. More of the water from the oceans is evaporated and comes back to earth as rain, snow, hail, etc. The storms get bigger and larger and the water comes down faster. This is why we have seen so many severe weather events. These severe weather events are become more and more frequent as the climate changes.

All of the worlds scientist agree is caused by increasing CO2 levels.

The US is the only industrialized nation IN THE WORLD that has a MAJOR POLITICAL PARTY that DENIES Climate Change/Global Warming.

Who are you going to believe, the world community of scientist or the fossil fuel lobby?