Ehhh.
Alright everyone.
It’s probably time to get a little bit serious with this one.
Have you guys noticed how hot it’s been recently?
Like, really--really hot.
In fact, July has been the hottest month ever recorded.
Yeah.
Let that sink in.
In the entirety of modern human history, the last month that passed was the hottest.
Ever.
And if that’s not enough for you, the month before that--June--was also the hottest month
ever recorded, before July swiftly came and clinched the title.
What’s August got on the cards, eh?
And, not only that, but in the same month--Greenland, one of the most important ice-sheets in maintaining
the delicate ecosystem of our planet--lost 12.5 billion tons of ice, in a single day.
Yeah.
Don’t expect any hypotheticals in this one.
Let’s take a look.
Hello internet, what’s going on--and once again, welcome back to the most inquisitive
channel on YouTube--Life’s Biggest Questions.
As per usual, I’ll be your disembodied floating voice Jack Finch--as today, we curiously ask
the question--What If The Carbon On Earth Doubled?
Roll the clip.
(0:52 - 1:02 -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hFxG-8I0Go)
For the curious amongst you, that clip was from 2006’s An Inconvenient Truth, hosted
by Al Gore--a documentary that drew some scathing criticism at the time by those that would
argue against its scientific evidence.
Which--Eh--that’s a matter for a completely different video.
Hey, put it this way.
In some respects, the warning *signs*--not the results--laid out in that documentary
aren’t exactly as on the money as that film would paint it.
Because, in another sense--they are far, far worse.
The term canary in the mineshaft comes to mind--but that’s by the by--because now
that canary is on fire.
In this particular Life’s Biggest Question, we’re going to attempt to outline how our
planet will look if the carbon dioxide on Earth doubled.
Hold onto your hats--and you might want to bring some sunscreen--because it’s already
on its way.
Currently, as of today, the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels on Earth are 413.93 parts per
million.
Now, whilst without context that doesn’t exactly mean anything--when we look at the
grand scale of things, the reality of the matter is staggering.
And to do that, we need to scale the timeline back a bit--all the way to 1750, the baseline
that the International Panel on Climate Change uses to illustrate the severity of the matter.
You see, 1750 was an important year, because it illustrates our pre-industrial civilization--before
Britain kicked off the First Industrial Revolution, and the rest--as they say, is history.
Now, the study of Earth’s past climate history, before human influence became significant
enough to show up--helps us understand how different parts of the environmental system
change over short and long term scales.
A common argument to this is that our planet has undertaken a repeating cycle of warming
and cooling--culminating in Ice Age periods.
Which it has.
There is scientific evidence to corroborate that fact--and the circular nature of our
atmospheric makeup is a given.
No one disputes that.
But the failure comes when we don’t apply the bigger picture to the scale.
The scale--is very--important, because the scale is where we humans come into play.
And interestingly enough, researchers have overwhelmingly found that the warming from
human activity that has occurred since 1750 is as strong as the 3 degree warming increase
that drove the entire planet out of the last glacial maximum, and then into the comfortable
warmth of the Holocene that we still enjoy today.
For now, anyway.
From that point we know that the level of atmospheric CO2 has ranged from between 172
and 300 parts per million--for the past 1 million years.
The fact that our current carbon levels are 413.93 PPM--yeah.
That’s the point of this video.
Carbon is on it’s way to doubling.
But let’s scale it to an even finer point--and take a look at the short burst in history
that followed the industrial revolution.
The first time that atmospheric CO2 exceeded 300 parts per million, was roughly around
the time that the Titanic Sank in the North Atlantic Ocean.
1912.
Ish.
Modern Civilization was in full swing.
And then, roughly 100 years later--in 2013, the first PPM that exceeded 400 was recorded.
And then, just four years later--the first ever carbon dioxide reading above 410 PPM
was shortly followed.
And now--consistently, and continuously--it’s above that--and it increases to rise.
Put it this way, a study in 2011 found that since 1970--the Earth’s heat content had
risen at a rate of 6 times 10 to the power of 21 Joules per year.
Whilst that is an absolutely gigantic number, you can also put it this way.
That is about the equivalent of taking the energy output of around 190 thousand nuclear
power plants and dumping it into the ocean--every single year.
If you can’t tell already, that’s not just bad news--that’s terrifying news.
So what does a planet that has passed the point of no return look like?
Well, the major model of argument that opposed the warning signs of climate change--have
consistently boiled it down to a term known as climate sensitivity.
The reality of the matter is, whilst climatologists have been trying to pin that fateful equation
down since the late 1800s, we never really knew what the full extent of it was--or what
it could be, down to the fact that our Earth’s climate has a pretty specific disposition
to how carbon affects it.
Like any science, it relies on the specifics--and part of the process is pinning down definitive
evidence.
But let’s zone it back to that magic number--410 PPM, or today’s more specific number, 413.93
PPM.
The last time that CO2 levels were this high, global surface temperatures were 6 degrees
higher, oceans were 100 feet higher--and modern humans didn't even exist.
There was also much more absorptive flora for our planet to sink most of the carbon--but
that’s by the by, we already know the devastating effects of deforestation.
But let’s see what we’ll be dealing with if the rising PPM maintains its course--which
it will without radical intervention from our civilization--and hits its 500 PPM milestone
in 2050.
The current figure is that a temperature increase of 1.5 degrees is the most likely scenario--but
as that increases, the repercussions become more and more dangerous.
With even just a two degree change of global warming--the results would be devastating
for the planet--and at that change, our Arctic would be entirely ice-free.
No more ice in the Arctic.
Good job guys.
And the result of that--would be over a meter of sea level rise--which is enough to fully
submerge the Marshall Islands and many others--whilst leaving the tropical regions of the planet
deadly for anyone working outdoors, or those that work in downtown areas.
Most of India’s and Central America’s burgeoning metropolises would be unsafe to
reside in.
Deadly heat waves would plague North Africa, Central America, Southeast Asia and the Southeast
US--as well as Europe, which we’re already witnessing this year.
Parts of France and Germany were 46 degrees last month, an unprecedented historical temperature.
These increasing heat waves will lead to devastation for agriculture--with a predicted decrease
in the yields of wheat, rice and corn by over 20%.
And then--food shortages, combined with extreme weather systems, could potentially trigger
the migration of tens of millions of humans--leaving many regions of the planet completely ungovernable.
We’re setting up the wood--and the tinder is lit.
Forest Fires are raging throughout Siberia--the permafrost is thawing considerably, the sea
levels are rising--and our oceans are increasingly experiencing irreparable acidification.
That’s the bad news.
But is there any good news?
Well, despite the severity of the situation--there is always hope.
What it will take though, is our civilization facing a series of hard truths--but the cost
of ignoring those truths--are the lives of tens of millions of human beings.
Our entire fossil-fuel economy has to be considerably transformed in a very short amount of time--completely
cutting all ties with our economies relationship with oil, and instead investing our abundance
of resources into green, sustainable energy.
It’s a difficult thing to do--and it won’t come without considerable challenge--but it
is the only course of action.
Carbon emissions are killing the Earth’s atmosphere, and countries such as China and
the US--alongside emerging economies in India and Africa, as well as the whole of Europe--need
to radically change.
Our entire civilization--needs to radically change.
There is no time for climate denying or climate delaying politicians.
Our only role is to vote them out--and instead, put in place a system of people and politicians
that can lead toward successfully steering our civilization in the right direction.
In 1939--the World went to War with Hitler and Nazi Germany, following the invasion of
Poland--and subsequently, an entire planet united itself in opposing facism and the ideals
of evil.
Entire generations of men and women bravely sacrificed their lives to ensure the safety
of their children and future generations.
They refused to be bystanders in the course of history.
Now--we face another sacrifice--not dissimilar in any way--but no less dangerous.
The stakes are too high.
The price we will pay is irreversible.
Carbon is on the rise--this is no longer a hypothetical.
Well.
There we have it.
Our very long and very severe answer to the question.
What do you guys think?
Let us know your thoughts down in the comment section below, as well as any intriguing insights
of your own.
Before we depart from today’s video, if you’d like to continue on with your questioning
binge, then please feel free to click that playlist floating shortly above.
Unfortunately, that’s all we’ve got time for in today’s video.
Cheers for sticking around all the way until the end.
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OUTRO.