Drifting Ever Faster Away from 350

The figures are out for 2011 and they're record-breaking.   Last year we managed to drive atmospheric CO2 levels to 390 ppm.

The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached a record 390.9 parts per million (ppm) in 2011, according to a report released Tuesday by the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO). That's a 40 percent increase over levels in 1750, before humans began burning fossil fuels in earnest.

Although CO2 is still the most significant long-lived greenhouse gas, levels of other heat-trapping gases have also climbed to record levels, according to the report. Methane, for example hit 1813 parts per billion (ppb) in 2011, and nitrous oxide rose to 324.2 ppb. All told, the amount of excess heat prevented from escaping into outer space was 30 percent higher in 2011 than it was as recently as 1990.

And here's what we've accomplished over the past half-century.

But whether you're a Liberal, a Conservative or a New Democrat, you're going to go out and vote for somebody who will pat you on the head and pay lip service to getting this under control and will then get back to boosting Canada's bitumen trafficking.

We absolutely must lay down the law with those Chinese and those Indians and their massive carbon emissions.   Except that would be the pusher criticizing the addict for drug abuse.   And besides, our per capita emissions are still way higher than theirs.   And a lot of their greenhouse gas emissions result from stuff that we have them make to fill our shelves at Wal Mart and just about everywhere else.