Okay, Now Can We Stop?

So much for good intentions - of which the Road to Hell is paved.

For the seventh consecutive year, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are up. They're just going up and, guess what, we're going down.

Atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas were 414.8 parts per million in May, which was 3.5ppm higher than the same time last year, according to readings from the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, where carbon dioxide has been monitored continuously since 1958. 

Scientists have warned for more than a decade that concentrations of more than 450ppm risk triggering extreme weather events and temperature rises as high as 2C, beyond which the effects of global heating are likely to become catastrophic and irreversible.

OPEC Wins

It was last September that OPEC, echoing the prediction of the International Energy Agency, boasted that oil consumption was booming well into the future, at least out to 2040. It was enough to cause UN Sec-Gen, Antonio Guterres to warn we had until 2020 - yeah, that's right, next year - to make sharp reductions to carbon emissions or we would lose the fight.

But just how bad are the latest numbers.  See for yourself.

This is the seventh consecutive year in which steep increases in ppm have been recorded, well above the previous average, and the fifth year since the 400ppm threshold was breached in 2014. In 2016, the highest annual jump in the series so far was recorded, from 404.1 in 2015 to 407.66 in 2016. 

As recently as the 1990s, the average annual growth rate was about 1.5ppm, but in the past decade that has accelerated to 2.2ppm, and is now even higher. This brings the threshold of 450ppm closer sooner than had been anticipated. Concentrations of the gas have increased every year, reflecting our burning of fossil fuels.

FFS, what is in our leaders' minds that makes them think flooding world markets with high-carbon, low-value, high-cost bitumen is a good thing? Let's not start with Jason Kenney. Let's begin with that guy in Ottawa.