415 ppm: We Are all Part of Exxon’s Unchartered Climate Experiment Now

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/05/16/415-ppm-we-are-all-part-exxons-unchartered-climate-experiment-now?fbclid=IwAR2KvhPZZbt2g_ubigceLNT7Qqqt5rz9bQfA46vlZqQtydviaPG3248TZCA
"We are all now a living experiment. Never before in human history have carbon dioxide levels reached 415 parts per million. These levels were last seen maybe some 2.5-5 million years ago, during the Pliocene, but then the earth was much warmer than it is today and it was way before us. Back then, there was no Greenland and trees grew near the South Pole. Sea levels were much, much higher. Maybe 25 metres higher. 415 ppm is a grim number. It signals we are in deep, deep trouble. And in the words of Rolling Stone magazine: “Further evidence (as if further evidence were needed) of just how hell-bent we are on cooking the planet we live on.” To show you how much we are changing the climate: Every year another 2-3 ppm of carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere. Before the industrial revolution it was 280 ppm. And now it is 415 ppm. We could have stopped the relentless rise of carbon dioxide, but we did not. In part the reason collectively we have failed to do so is the power of the oil companies and one of the most sophisticated public relations exercises ever undertaken to deny and obfuscate the truth."