Carbon Budget

McKibbon explains in Chapter 1 of Eaarth that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere during the period of climate stability that fostered the rise of human civilization was 275 parts per million (ppm) (p.13).   According to James Hansen, the "safe" number, allowing for some warming but not globally devastating, would be 350 ppm.  (For this reason McKibbon and five of his undergraduate students formed 350.org, one of leading environmental groups addressing climate change.)
When McKibbon wrote Eaarth in 2009 the planet was approaching 390.  Now we are over 400. (See the chart from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.)
 Nature magazine has said that above 350 we "threaten the ecological life-support systems... and severely challenge the viability of contemporary human societies." McKibbon points out that 20 million years ago, when levels were over 350 the oceans were 100 feet higher and temperatures rose 10 degrees C. The Zoological Society of London has said that at 360 coral reefs cease to be viable. (Eaarth, 17).

Taking account of the fact that a portion of the carbon emitted is removed by oceans (becoming more acidic) and forests (that are not cut down or destroyed by fire or pests, the "carbon budget" is how much carbon can be emitted and still have a likelihood of keeping global warming at 2 degrees C.  (Total cumulative emissions from 1870 to 2014 were 400±20 GtC from fossil fuels and cement, and 145±50 from land use change. This total of 545±55 GtC was partitioned among the atmosphere (230±5 GtC), ocean (155±20 GtC), and the land (160±60 GtC). See the Global Carbon Project website.)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) optimistically sets that amount at 1,000 GT (or, more specifically, one trillion tons of equivalent carbon dioxide which they believe will give the world a 66% chance of staying below 2 degrees C. (Their number does not take into account emissions of methane and other gasses so, in fact, even to stay to their optimistic calculations the "carbon budget" should be corrected to 800 billion tons.)  Humans have already put 545 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, so we have used up well more than half of the total available budget. (These numbers do not include natural feedback loops, such as greater methane (5 times more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2) being released from warming permafrost or seabeds.)  One critical question avoided in the Paris Agreement is who gets to use up the carbon still allowable?  While the numbers combine hard science and guess work, it is clear that there are far greater known reserves of coal, oil, and gas than human beings can use.  As much as possible carbon needs to stay in the ground and we need to transition to a non-carbon based economy as fast as possible.

My Earth, or is it Eaarth?

Earthrise, NASA Apollo 8 mission

The earth that we knew -- the only earth that we ever knew -- is now gone. (p. 27)

This might be for me the most heartbreaking sentence in the first chapter.  I don't want to accept it.

There is so much beauty on our world, in all things great and small, from wildflowers to mountains. 

How could it be that our earth is "gone"?  And what does that mean?
My years meeting regularly with climate change experts allows me to consider, difficult as it may be, that McKibben might, alas, alas, may not be overstating the case.  (Our class will research this.  That will be our first task. We need to find out!)

Climate change is supposed to be for the future, for the grandchildren, that I don't yet have.  Everyone knows it is for the grandchildren. (I just googled "climate change and grandchildren" and got over 1.7 million hits.)  McKibbon asks,

So how did it happen that the threat to our fairly far-off descendants, which required that we heed an alarm and adopt precautionary principles and begin to take measured action lest we have a crisis for future generations, et cetera -- how did that suddenly turn into the Arctic melting away, the tropics expanding, the ocean turning acid? How did time dilate, and "100 or 200 years from now" become yesterday? (p. 13)

If this has happened, what the hell?  Why hasn't everyone been screaming about it?  Why aren't they screaming now?

Red Pill or Blue Pill

Ten years ago, I saw Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth.  It was scary; I believed it.  But I kept on with usual activities.  Climate change was not at the center of my attention.

Yet, I noticed increasing changes in the weather, unusual events. Three years ago I became a member of the WMU Climate Change Working Group and began meeting regularly with scientists and social scientists on our campus, all experts on climate change. These people were profoundly troubled and desperate that we take immediate action.  They were doing everything they could think of to alert our community.

I began to share their concern.  I became involved in the campaign of my friend and colleague Paul Clements, one of the leaders of WMU Climate Change group, running against our congressman, Fred Upton, because of his work against climate change, Upton has been identified as the "#1 Enemy of the planet Earth in the US Congress."

I started reading more.  I thought about how to address climate change in my own field of English education.  I planned a class about climate change.  I gave talks at teacher conferences.  I became a coauthor of a book about teaching about climate change, now in progress.  I accepted the opportunity to teach this section of Our Place in Nature.

Starting the teaching of this class I find myself thinking of the film The Matrix (1999).  The main character, Neo, has moments of awareness that there is something fundamental going on behind the facade of normality of his every day life. But he is not sure what it is or what to think.  Then he is given a choice, a red pill or blue pill, gain knowledge, find out what is really going on as uncomfortable as that may be, or choose to live without knowledge, to remain in his uninformed, uninvolved everyday world.  Is our class the red pill? Do you choose to swallow it?