Hot and Cold Numbers

Historian Will Durant, (‘Story of Civilization’), wrote in the first volume of his epic series, “Civilization is an interlude between ice ages: at any time the current of glaciation may rise again, cover with ice and stone the works of man, and reduce life to some narrow segment of the earth.” That was, of course written almost 60 years ago and events on this planet have moved on somewhat. Few scientists at that time had a good idea of what was happening to the climate as it was accelerating it’s warming. That we would eventually tip into another ice age was almost a given, after all, we had gone through four or more major ice events in the last million years, so why not another one?

CO2, (carbon dioxide), is a gas which helps adjust the amount of heat retained in our planet’s atmosphere, more CO2, more warmth, less CO2, it gets cooler. During the ice ages the average amount of CO2 in the air was 180 parts per million (PPM) and the average temperature was 8 degrees Celsius less, or 14.4 degrees Fahrenheit lower then average. More modern temperatures such as what they were in pre-industrial revolution times, (early 1800s), the CO2 levels were around 275 PPM. So if we look at what the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere currently is, we might be able to see where we are trending. As of October 7, 2020, the amount of CO2 in the air was 411.08 PPM, up from 408.20 PPM a year ago. Doubling pre-industrial CO2 levels, we could raise the temperature by as much as 4 degrees Celsius, or 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit over past averages. So I guess we can pretty much kiss the next ice age goodbye, not that we would want it anyway.

Will Durant understood very well what the effects of climate on civilization were, how floods, droughts and deserts could displace nations and their people. He said, “To the geologic eye all the surface of the earth is a fluid form, and man moves upon it as insecurely as Peter walking on the waves to Christ.” A warming Earth is a uncertain place, as weather patterns we have come to count on during the last several thousand years are readjusting, we may be in for some unpleasant surprises. We are just getting to know some uncertainty in current droughts, floods, stronger storms and hurricanes, widespread wildfires and different growing seasons for our crops. We did not raise up our civilization until the last ice age ended. Will we be able to balance between the cold periods of the past with the hot periods of the future? We live in the middle of a somewhat narrow band of temperature extremes, perhaps we should stop pushing ourselves in a direction that will not be conducive to us and our planet’s well-being.

(My photo of a bison on Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake, which is a remnant of a much larger ice age body of water, Lake Bonneville. It covered most of western Utah at the end of the last ice age and shrank down to its current size just 8,000 to 10,000 years ago.)

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