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let me go to myth number one
Human
carbon dioxide our emissions are too small to really matter
so first stop on
what what's interesting is we have data for at least five hundred thousand years or longer
that shows that CO two is never gone above three hundred parts per million in the atmosphere
right now we're about three hundred eighty seven parts per million in the atmosphere
the other thing that they were able to measure on between eighteen as the late eighteen hundred's
and the mid-nineteen fifties
was that there was a noticeable drop in carbon fourteen in the atmosphere
carbon fourteen
is emitted by plant materials but when you burn fossil fuels since on carbon fourteen
is an unstable Isotope
mean it has a half-life of six thousand years
of the more fossil fuels you apparent that actually contain carbon fourteen so we actually
had
the real tracking carbon fourteen in the atmosphere even though we were producing more
and now we have had an increase because of nuclear tests
and other sorts of nuclear experiments
that have increased the carbon fourteen in the atmosphere
another interesting point that human beings emit about hundred times you know
it's it's really interested in what volcano emissions
in that so the idea that volcanoes
somehow been causing on global warming is untrue
and and finally
about forty percent of all the C02 that human beings emit get absorbed by
carbon thinks primarily the oceans and also land-based sources
of that we've already noticed a thirty-percent acidification of our oceans meaning
they are not able to absorb all the CO two and it's starting to acidify
the oceans which already
we've we've talked about the national security
implications thank you
of us acidification in our oceans
I never to the idea that there's nothing we can do about global warming well first off
we already have seven several decades in the pipeline
i'll be forty carries over antique greenhouse and a greater over the last century
we're expecting three to four more degrees the final omissions past
%uh thirty percent of our ice caps have already diminished and spring is coming about eight
hours early earlier annually so the process is already occurring
what we're trying to do is avoid the tipping point
which the ITC she says basically
the two degrees increase centigrade
which were hearing already that could
and technically wipe out our coral reefs
this tipping point 0:02:49.260,0:02:51.209
this four hundred fifty parts per million
high level which would get us to two degrees its probably too high a safety zone is maybe
three fifty
but again it's not based on the IPC the projections were looking at about five hundred parts per
million
we need to have re evaluate those those targets anyway what I do want to point out is there
are precedents one is our international work on %uh
at reducing ozone pollution
%uh which is relatively been successful up until the last couple years
all right now ninety thousand that this year we just had a report that our and ozone hole
is second largest ever
and it's part partly due to a aerosols coming out of China and Russia
so already you know we been making headway were starting to go backwards again
%uh but anyway
well of political will is needed we dropped out of the Kyoto Accords the US
has not been able to pass
any sort of federal legislation we just had the reggie program here
that happened in the northeast and now transitioning that
at the federal level is a top priority