Bill McKibben Quotes About Summer
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We finally know where the red line for climate really is. After the rapid melt of arctic ice in the summer of 2007, our best scientists, led by NASA's Jim Hansen, went back to work and produced a series of papers showing that with more than 350 ppm (parts per million) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we couldn't have a planet "similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted."
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For those of us who worry more about working people than about windfall profits for oil companies, it may net out. A better question is: what does it do to our economy if we manage to overheat the earth? This summer's drought provides a small taste.
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A third of summer sea ice in the Arctic is gone, the oceans are 30 percent more acidic, and since warm air holds more water vapor than cold, the atmosphere over the oceans is a shocking five percent wetter, loading the dice for devastating floods.
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We've lost half the summer sea ice in the Arctic. We've wiped out an enormous percentage of the world's coral reefs. We see huge changes in the planet's hydrology already, the cycles of drought and flood both amped up because warm air holds more water vapor than cold. These things are happening with a one-degree increase and going to two degrees won't be twice as bad, the increase in damage won't be linear, it most certainly will be exponential. So it was precisely the wrong moment to elect Trump.
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