Global Warming
- For most of the last 10,000 years, the concentration of the most abundant greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, remained fairly steady at 280 parts per million, but since the Industrial Revolution began, humans have been adding to this in two ways: by burning coal, oil, and natural gas, and also by cutting down nearly half of the World’s forests, releasing carbon stored in the trees and reducing the Earth’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide. These activities have increased the CO2 level over 30% to about 380 parts per million and is continuing to increase at the rate of .4% per year or a 2% increase every 5 years.
- Human activities have raised atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases to their highest level in 420,000 years and likely has not been exceeded during the past 20 million years
- Just in the past decade, almost seven billion tons of carbon was released each year. About half of it dissolved in the oceans or was absorbed by plants; the other half (35 billion tons) was added to the atmosphere and will remain there for 50-200 years
- The average U.S. household is responsible for the emission of around 60 tons of CO2 annually. This is a similar impact of driving nearly 133,000 miles in a year
- The amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted per person, per day without raising the CO2 level in the atmosphere is 9 pounds. The current amount being emitted worldwide is 24 pounds per person, and in the U.S. it is 122 pounds per person
- 2006 was the hottest year since records have been kept (since 1880)
- January 2007 broke the record for the hottest January (worldwide) by .81 degrees. Normally records are broken by hundredths of a degree
- The earth has warmed by about one degree over the past century and experts predict that it will increase another 2 to 12 degrees during the coming century, depending to a large degree on how much more CO2 we add to the atmosphere
- The Amazon basin produces roughly 20% of Earth’s oxygen and absorbs a huge amount of CO2 through photosynthesis, but during the past 40 years, close to 20% of the Amazon rain forest has been cut down
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The facts listed above were found in various books, articles, and web sites that seemed credible and reliable, and also contributed by members of the network.