This does not make us powerless prisoners of fortune. All our solar panels, wind turbines, electric cars, lithium-ion batteries, LED lightbulbs, nuclear plants, biogas digesters, press conferences, declarations, pieces of paper all our shouting and arguing, weeping and marching, reporting and ignoring, decrying and denying all our speeches, movies, websites, lectures and books our announcements, carbon-neutral targets, moments of joy and despair none of these to date have so much as made the slightest dent in the steepening upward slope of the Keeling Curve. All those smiling heads of state shaking hands, the diplomats hugging on the podium after marathon sessions of all-night negotiating – none of that actually made any identifiable difference to the Keeling Curve, which is the only thing that actually matters to the planet’s temperature. There is no visible slowdown, no sudden downwards blip, to mark the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, still less 2009’s Copenhagen ‘two degrees’ commitment or the landmark Paris Agreement of 2015. That means that the rate of CO 2 accumulation in the atmosphere is steadily increasing, from roughly 1 ppm in the early years to about 2 ppm annually today. Unlike the slopes of the huge volcano on which it is measured, the initially gentle upward curve gets steeper the higher you go. You can follow the relentless upwards progress of the Keeling Curve in real time on Twitter, via Keeling Curve is a useful reality check, one that cuts through all the noise and confusion of the climate and energy debates. This figure will already be out of date by the time you read this book. It mainly comes down to how much we continue to rely on fossil fuels for energy.’ Perhaps no one was listening, because at the time of writing the atmospheric concentration of CO 2 has hit 408 ppm. But what happens from here on still matters to climate, and it’s still under our control. ‘There’s no stopping CO 2 from reaching 400 ppm,’ commented Ralph Keeling sadly. For the first time ever in human history, CO 2 levels had briefly touched the 400 ppm threshold.

On the Scripps Institution for Oceanography, which maintains the Observatory, made a landmark announcement.

If global warming continues at the current rate, we could be facing extinction.When Charles Keeling began his measurements in 1958, the rarefied air atop the lava fields of Mauna Loa contained CO 2 at a ratio of 315 parts per million (ppm), already substantially higher than the pre-industrial concentration of about 278 ppm. Here's an old article about Mark Lynas and his predictions Īnd here's a quick summary on what's in his books:

Mark lynas our final warning