Human-Generated Climate Change

¶ … perturbed by humanity (how and why)? Although the most obvious effect of human-generated climate change may be the warming of the earth, it is not the only negative impact of the increased concentration of fossil fuels in the environment.

This is reflected in notions such as the fact that "environmental consequences of increasing ocean acidity, caused by the solution of CO2, may be at least as serious as greenhouse-induced temperature rise." The increased solution of CO2 due to industrialization can affect the massive amounts of flora and fauna living in the ocean, which can also have an impact upon terrestrial life which depends upon fish for food. The fishing industry is likely to be impacted as well as animals that depend upon fish to survive.

Climate change is also not easily reversible. "Natural sources and sinks of CO2 are closely balanced, maintaining the total abundance in the atmosphere and oceans constant on a one million time scale, with temperature-controlled exchange between them.

CO2 released by fossil fuel burning is an addition that will remain in the ocean system for millions of years." This unfortunate conclusion indicates that not only has humanity negatively impacted the natural balance of CO2 in the atmosphere, but that any changes which it strives to make will likely not be enough to restore that balance for millennia. This is also confirmed by the conclusion that "the Earth's surface temperature is maintained by a combination of CO2 and water vapor, but the greenhouse control is not instantaneous.

Although increasing CO2 causes increasing temperature, thermal inertia of the ocean slows the response, and, even if the emissions stopped now, the full impact of industrial era CO2 emissions would not be felt for at least a century." The full negative fallout of what has been done to the earth will only be felt by future generations, a fact which will likely result in an even greater, unfortunate but inevitable incentive to focus on short-term economic benefits vs. long-term environmental preservation.

In fact, some environmental activists are even throwing up their hands, effectively declaring the human-generated nature of the change to be irreversible. "Although absorption of heat by the oceans is temporarily concealing the magnitude of the environmental changes that have been initiated, they will be permanent, in the sense of lasting for millions of years. This is the time scale of natural remediation processes.

The CO2 added to the atmosphere-ocean system by human activity will remain in the system indefinitely." At minimum, this indicates that radical actions are required to stop adding to the problem. "An approach to a stable equilibrium state of the environment, and avoidance of an eventual extreme greenhouse effect, will be possible only with complete cessation of CO2 emissions.