From Waging Non-Violence: http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/as-new-co2-milestone-is-reached-climate-science-and-action-grow-inseperable/
Bryan Farrell
May 16, 2013
Standing atop Mauna Loa in Hawaii, with this gorgeous view in front of me, it was hard to imagine that the air I was breathing carried a deadly message. Then again, as the largest volcano on Earth, Mauna Loa is not exactly home to the most welcoming of climates. Ancient Hawaiians only went there to make offerings. Tourists seldom visit. The only reason to drive away from the tropical beaches below, up a poorly maintained road that has potholes within potholes, through several climate zones each colder and less hospitable than the last, is to study, well, the climate.
Since the 1950s, scientists at the Mauna Loa Observatory have been monitoring changes in the atmosphere — most prominently, the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide (the primary greenhouse gas emitted by humans). When I was there in January 2012, CO2 was measured at 397 parts per million. That’s nearly 120 ppm above pre-industrial levels, about 80 ppm above the first measurement in 1958 and 47 ppm above what’s considered the safe upper limit.
Last week, for the first time in several million years, we reached the milestone figure of 400 ppm. As a result, this generally overlooked beacon of climate science, administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, found itself in the news. But in many ways, the news can frequently be traced back to this remote peak in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. From extreme weather to political debate to massive protests like the ones against the Keystone XL pipeline, the research from Mauna Loa is one of the main reasons we talk about climate change and understand that it is the result of humans altering the composition of the atmosphere.
As someone who has been writing about climate change for the better part of a decade, I was primed to visit Mauna Loa when a family vacation led me to Hawaii (woah is my carbon footprint!). But I was also eager to find out what the scientists thought of their research fueling something like an actual climate movement. Station Chief John Barnes, however, was typically scientific in his response, saying, “If NOAA says this is what we predict for climate change, whether you want to do anything about it is a decision for society, not NOAA.”
Continue reading at: http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/as-new-co2-milestone-is-reached-climate-science-and-action-grow-inseperable/
