Writing on his Informed Comment blog Monday, historian Juan Cole said that life on Earth in that pre-historic era, known as the Pliocene Period, is not a place humans would recognize:
In the Pliocene, it was much hotter.
In the Pliocene, oceans were much higher, maybe 90 feet higher.
That is our fate, folks. That is what 415ppm produces. It is only a matter of time, and some of the sea level rise will come quickly.
Amsterdam, New Orleans, Lisbon, Miami – the list of cities that will be submerged is enormous.
Elsewhere online, reaction to the unsettling milestone was met with a mix of frustration, alarm, and fresh demands for urgent action to address the crisis.
These broken records are starting to sound like a broken record. https://t.co/7kePdTwB6x
— Greenpeace (@Greenpeace) May 13, 2019
Climate warning as global CO2 levels rise to highest point in millions of years#letsbanfossilfuelshttps://t.co/JW80kaBJ9h
— Let's Ban Fossil Fuels (@ban_fossilfuels) May 13, 2019
Despite the new measurement, it is not as if humanity has not been endlessly warned that this is the path it’s on.
“If the threshold seems unremarkable (it shouldn’t),” wrote Jonathan Shieber at TechCrunch, “it’s yet another indication of the unprecedented territory humanity is now charting as it blazes new trails toward environmental catastrophe.”
As Shieber explains:
The increasing proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is important because of its heat absorbing properties. The land and seas on the planet absorb and emit heat and that heat is trapped in carbon dioxide molecules. The NOAA likens CO2 to leaving bricks in a fireplace, that still emit heat after a fire goes out.
Greenhouse gases contribute to the planet maintaining a temperature that can sustain life, but too much can impact the entire ecosystem that sustains us. That’s what’s happening now. As the NOAA notes, “increases in greenhouse gases have tipped the Earth’s energy budget out of balance, trapping additional heat and raising Earth’s average temperature.”
While scientists have stated that much of the future warming is already “locked in,” Cole points out that humanity’s main focus must be to make sure all efforts are made to reverse the emissions trend in order to limit the scale of the destruction.
“What can be stopped is its getting any worse,” Cole concluded. “But that would require moving with blinding speed to wind and solar power and electric cars.”
And the message from the global climate justice movement has been crystal clear: It’s an emergency. Act like it.