6) We screw it all up and go beyond 500 ppm and are on the verge of extinction but by the grace of 2012 or some other unfathomable miracle we are saved and learn from our mistake.
I got $100 riding on this.
If you look at greenhouse gas levels and zoom out on the timeline far enough to capture previous cycles of rising levels and subsequent ice ages, things look pretty normal.
But if you zoom in to our current peak you\'d see that it\'s pretty obvious that we\'re in the midst of a pretty steep/exponential-style curve towards this-definitely-ain\'t-natural territory.
Even if you zoom in to just the last 200 years or so, greenhouse gas levels rise really steeply with the dawn of the industrial age and take off on a nice exponential curve from there on out.
Both things are true. We are in the middle of a natural cycle. But we are also making it way the hell worse than it would be normally. Actually, the fact that we are heading towards the peak of the natural cycle is what makes human-caused rises in greenhouse gasses a heckuva lot more serious then it otherwise would be.
Yep the oceans release a good amount of CO2. Even more so when icebergs and glaciers melt into the ocean and release further molecular grips of CO2. And then the frozen soil underneath the old glaciers melt and release a bunch of the stuff too. When Greenland melts (now in progress...) we lose one of Earth\'s biggest reflective ultraviolet mirrors and probably cross the tipping point where the domino effect of rising temperatures / rising oceans / fucked up weather is no longer avoidable.
Free market values (which is what they are, values, not actual practice. Most people do not experience anything like a "free market" and are largely fucked over by this system and the epic greed and power struggles it breeds) do not trump the need for rapid and decisive global consensus and action to at least attempt to mediate this looming worldwide not-so-natural disaster.
Besides, the idea that we have to flush our economy down the shitter to take care of this is false. The New Deal created a bunch of jobs. A new (and emerging, but too slowly) green economy would benefit manufacturing, service, scientific... ahh probably all sectors of the economy while simultaneously offering The United States an opportunity to reclaim its former position as a forward thinking economic and otherwise leader of the "free" world.
Might offer some fresh blood a shot at some of that old money too
