Early in the 19th Century scientists began to formulate the proposition that atmospheric increases in carbon gasses, for example CO2, raise atmospheric temperatures. Although this linkage was experimentally proven by Irish physicist John Tyndall in 1859, it wasn’t until Charles David Keeling found a precise way to measure atmospheric CO2 that the “greenhouse effect” became fully accepted by scientists.
The “Keeling Curve” begins in 1958 and continues to the present. The saw tooth line reflects the global timing of photosynthesis (plants absorbing CO2 in the Northern Hemisphere during spring/summer), and the net rise over time is caused by human activity. “Anthropogenic climate change” results from fossil fuel combustion that is accelerating since 1958.
Change in CO2 Parts Per Million Concentration in the Atmosphere*
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| Total | Number | Annualized | ||
| Years | Period | Change | Years | Change |
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| 1958 to 1980 | 1 | 24.3 | 22 | 1.1 |
| 1980 to 2000 | 2 | 30.3 | 20 | 1.5 |
| 2000 to 2022 | 3 | 48.0 | 22 | 2.2 |
| 1958 to 2022 | Total | 102.5 | 64 | 1.6 |
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*All measurements are seasonally adjusted and taken in March (Scripps Institution of Oceanography 2022).
Between 1958 and 2022, CO2 concentration increased from 314.4 to 416.9 parts per million. These levels are well above those found during prior time, going back 800,000 years. Ice-core samples from this time scale demonstrate that CO2 levels varied between 170 to 300 parts per million. The only logical explanation for the post-1958 increase is human activity. The most alarming aspect of the post-1958 period is acceleration in the rate of change. When post-1958 change is broken into three separate periods, we see that the annualized rate of change doubled between the first period to the third period. Despite all attempts to check anthropogenic climate change, it is accelerating and getting worse year by year. This explains why extreme heat, hurricanes, polar ice cap melting, flooding, sea level rise, etc. are getting worse over time.
Professor Michael Mann (UCLA) believes that people have not stopped anthropogenic climate change because national governments, corporations, and the preferences of wealthy consumers all favor the status quo. Mann argues that climate change is in keeping with powerful social fundamentals, namely “capitalism, the nation state and individual citizen rights” (Mann, 2013, p.396). To break through the power of this triad, democratic politics focused on the nation state is perhaps the most strategic point of leverage. It is obvious that the majority would favor stopping climate change to the extent they understand it, that a well-informed majority would prevail where there is strong democratic governance. Second, nation states have the power to dictate energy policy, to nationalize energy resources, and indeed many nations effectively do this already. Finally, a sustainable energy system would be cheaper, healthier, more efficient, and therefore create the material basis for expanding individual rights, not limiting them. Convincing wealthy, as well as non-wealthy, consumers to support an energy transition is logical and therefore possible, given it is in the majority interest. All of this becomes possible to the extent that informed, democratic political power prevails over those interests intent on burning fossil fuel for profit, those who choose to continue a way of life that limits our present and future options for a livable world.
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