Antarctica Glacial Melting another indication of Unsafe Atmospheric Carbon levels

While sifting through the noise of politics and science, we come across one irrefutable claim that all parties agree on: the amount of atmospheric carbon that is safe. That number, measured in parts per million, is 350. Currently, the level of atmospheric carbon measured is 390.18 ppm . Scientists state that if the level of carbon continues to rise, the global temperature will rise, which will have catastrophic environmental consequences.

A consistent level of atmospheric carbon at or above 350 ppm will eventually cause the earth to summarily unclench its jaws and belch all of its pent up carbon; a kind of reprisal for the irreparable damage it sustained on behalf of humanity. This global roar will raise the temperature worldwide causing glacial melting and consequentially, rising sea levels, all other environmental casualties notwithstanding. The heightened glacial melting on Antarctica’s coast is one blatant example of this increased glacial activity.

This contemporary battle between physical law and societal law rings true with the words of Charles Dickens: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity… It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

Indeed, we are living in a time of great disparity. There is a disparity between what avid environmentalists claim and what the cynics refute with a gusto that echoes from ear to ear and spreads like a wildfire throughout the media. Though this leaves the average American bemused, skeptical, and untrusting, we do not have to be tourists in the process of global and economic change. We do have the power, more than ever before, to change what we know to be harmful to future generations.  But do we have the will as a society to do something about it?