May 28, 2011

Carbon emissions from energy use reached a record level last year, up 5% from the previous record in 2008, the International Energy Agency said. The Paris-based agency called the findings a "serious setback" to limit global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F), which was set at the U.N. climate change talks in Cancun, Mexico, last year. The world has edged incredibly close to the level of emissions that should not be reached until 2020. Carbon emissions climbed to a record 30.6 gigatons in 2010. For the 2-degree goal to remain attainable, emissions in 2020 can't be greater than 32 gigatonnes. And for that to happen, carbon dioxide emissions over the next 10 years have to rise less than they did between 2009 and 2010, the agency says. This raises the prospect of dangerous temperature increases later in the century. If the predictions hold, sea levels could rise two meters by the end of the century, displacing around 2.5% of the world's population over the course of the century. Furthermore, rainforests will be at risk of retreat in eastern Amazonia, Central America, and some parts of Africa. But not to worry, the rainforests only produce the vast majority of the oxygen humans use to breathe. None of this is really a problem for me. I’m old and won’t live more than 20 years at the most. But my grandson, Gavin Russell, is going to be living on a planet unfit for humans. But it’s alright because the top 1% of humans will have had far more money than they could ever use. Greed is strangling us all.