CO2 levels reach new record high

As reported by the Guardian today, using data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration which takes readings from Mauna Lao in Hawaii.

Atmospheric CO2 nows stands at 387 ppm (parts per million), a figure that is now some 40% higher than the level pre industrial revolution, and the mean growth rate for 2007 was some 2.14 ppm.

"From 1970 to 2000, the concentration rose by about 1.5ppm each year, but since 2000 the annual rise has leapt to an average 2.1ppm."

Now no-one really knows exactly what the increasing CO2 levels will actually do to our planet's biosphere and climate, but the models used by the IPCC are projecting some pretty scary trends, and anything mankind can do to mitigate the rate of CO2 increase seems, at least to me, to be getting rather important, to say the least. Yet, we seem to still be doing loads of talking (and arguing), setting targets [see post below], and actually achieving, well, sod all! Meanwhile, the amount of CO2 we are pumping into the atmosphere is climbing, inexorably, increasing almost year on year, and at a rate not seen for millions of years.

I'm beginning to fell like I'm sitting inside a global scientific experiment; we don't know what might happen, or when it will, but something sure as hell is going to, sometime in the future. Let's hope mankind finally doesn't realise it has to act at a point that is too late?

Targets, Targets & More Targets.....

.... and the majority of them will NOT be met.

I didn't have time to post this from the Telegraph last week but it really does need exposing. It is highlighting a report from the Policy Exchange think tank.

"Two thirds of the key climate change targets made under Labour were now unlikely to be met."

"They found that rather than being an honest motivator of achievement, where failures were acknowleged and lessons learnt, a pattern of "creative accounting" had emerged where targets looked in danger of being missed."

"The report concluded that the sheer number and complexity of targets made them easy to forget or miss and therefore they lost their motivating force."

Not a bulls eye in view - no real surprises there then!