Dire Straits

Going with the present trend, greenhouse gas levels around the mid-century will produce devastating long-term droughts and a sea-level rise that will persist for 1,000 years. This is regardless of how well the world curbs future emissions of carbon dioxide. Just in case you decided that we might as well continue with business as usual, from here on things are set to get worse.

Climate researchers from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Switzerland and France said their analysis shows that carbon dioxide will remain near peak levels in the atmosphere much longer than other greenhouse gases.

At the moment, carbon concentrations in the atmosphere stand at 385 parts per million. While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has set a goal of stabilizing atmospheric carbon at 450 ppm, the way we are putting out emissions place projections at 550 ppm by 2035, and then rising after that point by 4.5 percent a year.

If carbon dioxide concentrations peak at 600 ppm, several regions of the world like southwestern North America, the Mediterranean and southern Africa will face major droughts as bad or worse than the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Global sea levels will rise by about three feet by the year 3000. This does not factor in melting glaciers and polar ice sheets, which would add more to the sea level rise.

For the sub-tropics, a drop in precipitation by 10 percent could result even with carbon levels at 450 ppm. Big droughts will follow.

In the last five years, emissions have continued to grow despite warnings. Notably the west continues in its path while new entrant China has just beaten the US.

So what do we do? Blame each other? Ask the 'original perpetrators' to pay up? Does the planet care where the emissions come from?