Reaching
400ppm is a moment of symbolic significance, a station on the Via
Dolorosa of environmental destruction. (Underlying Photo: Corbis)
The data go back 800,000 years: that's the age of the
oldest fossil air bubbles extracted from Dome C,
an ice-bound summit in the high Antarctic. And throughout that time
there has been nothing like this. At no point in the preindustrial
record have concentrations of carbon dioxide in the air risen above 300
parts per million (ppm).
400ppm is a figure that belongs to a different era.
The difference between 399ppm and 400ppm is small, in terms of its
impacts on the world's living systems. But this is a moment of symbolic
significance, a station on the
Via Dolorosa
of environmental destruction. It is symbolic of our failure to put the
long-term prospects of the natural world and the people it supports
above immediate self-interest.
The only way forward now is back: to retrace our steps and seek to return atmospheric concentrations to around 350ppm.
The only way forward now is back: to retrace our steps and seek to return atmospheric concentrations to around 350ppm, as the
350.org campaign demands. That requires, above all, that we leave the majority of the
fossil fuels which have already been identified in the ground. There is not a government or an
energy company which has yet agreed to do so.
Recently, Shell announced that it will go ahead with its plans to
drill deeper than any offshore oil operation
has gone before: almost 3km below the Gulf of Mexico. At the same time,
Oxford University opened a new laboratory in its department of earth
sciences. The lab is
funded by Shell.
Oxford says that the partnership "is designed to support more effective
development of natural resources to meet fast-growing global demand for
energy." Which translates as finding and extracting even more fossil
fuel.
The European Emissions Trading Scheme, which was supposed to have capped our consumption, is now,
for practical purposes, dead.
International climate talks have stalled; governments such as ours now
seem quietly to be unpicking their domestic commitments. Practical
measures to prevent the growth of global emissions are, by comparison to
the scale of the challenge, almost nonexistent.
The problem is simply stated: the power of the fossil fuel companies
is too great. Among those who seek and obtain high office are people
characterised by a complete absence of empathy or scruples, who will
take money or instructions from any corporation or billionaire who
offers them, and then defend those interests against the current and
future prospects of humanity.
This new climate milestone reflects a profound failure of politics, in which
democracy has quietly been supplanted by plutocracy.
Without a widespread reform of campaign finance, lobbying and
influence-peddling and the systematic corruption they promote, our
chances of preventing climate breakdown are close to zero.
So here stands our political class at a waystation along the road of idiocy, apparently determined only to complete the journey.
© 2013 The Guardian
George Monbiot is the author of the best selling books
The Age of Consent: a manifesto for a new world order and
Captive State: the corporate takeover of Britain. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian newspaper. Visit his website at
www.monbiot.com
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