Let’s Be Real

The third truth is the fact that Earth is faced with a giant human population. The exponential increase in population is the root cause of every societal challenge on Earth today. But population is a very hard thing to control and that’s why scientists are worried about a major decrease in the future.

Here’s what transpired in our past:

The Ice Age began about 2.5 million years ago and ended roughly 12,000 BC. During that span of time, modern humans originated about 200,000 years ago, migrated from Africa to Europe around 48,000 years ago, and were greeted by the last Ice Age chapter that ended our globe’s freeze. Earth then became environmentally perfect for giving birth to civilizations. For the first time, humanity had a pristine planet to work with and our ancestors flourished with farming, metal works, villages, cities and towns. And by 1 AD, people on Earth numbered at around 300 million, and it took 1,850 years for the population to grow by another 800 million or so, for a grand total of around 1.2 billion. 

Now let this sink in. From the middle of the 19th century to present, or about 170 years, humanity increased eightfold while still occupying that 13% of the globe. Nobody was concerned about this until about sixty years ago, which is perfectly understandable. I’ll get to that later. The UN predicts 9 billion people by 2045 that will grow to 10 billion by the end of this century. All to exist on that 13% of livable soil.

The fourth truth: Science has always been there to progress civilization (and we didn’t know what fossil fuels would do before it was too late). Since the start of the Industrial Revolution when Great Britain became the number one commercial nation, scientific progress ramped up and made immeasurable contributions to humanity right up to now. Science relating to machinery, chemical conversion for manufacturing, water and steam power, textiles, iron production, and medical advancements. Science ignited the transportation, industrial and energy sectors; and televisions, transistors, personal computers, etc. benefited society. 

Science can be divided into three sections: nature, social and abstract. Nature, or natural science consists of biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy and Earth science. The least appreciated of the sciences is environmental, or Earth science - the study of our planet’s physical makeup - the one science that understands climate change. It’s the one science that will never stop researching what we all take for granted: air, water, food and land. This is the one and only group of individuals that all of humanity had better start listening to and following on a regular basis.  

The fifth basic truth is an atmospheric measurement which reveals the level of CO2 in our air: parts per million, (ppm), the IT factor regarding the invasion of greenhouse gas. CO2 is the most abundant of the harmful gasses and it can last over 1,000 years, unless it’s removed. While methane is more toxic, it dissolves in less time. During the Pre-Industrial Revolution, the figure was 286 ppm and in 2023, that number increased to 421 ppm. At about 1,000 ppm, breathable oxygen starts to become a concern. 

This heavy gas traps a portion of the sun’s radiation energy in our atmosphere like a thin, invisible sticky cocoon, rather than allowing excess heat to escape back into space. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, about 1.5 trillion tons of carbon and methane have been sealed into this Earthly heat dome that grows by about 37 billion additional tons each year. Our lid is more dense now than 14 million years ago - all because of polluting fossil fuel energy. And we had no idea until about 60-70 years ago.

Science wasn’t 100% sure as to how greenhouse gas was produced until roughly the 1950’s. By the late ‘70s, Earth scientists were waving red flags about certain air quality consequences that had already arrived, and others that were still awaiting us. For the most part, the early warnings were ignored and we lost six or seven precious decades of reasonable preparation for averting our new climate normal that started visibly revealing itself within the last fifteen years. That’s when carbon neutrality and decarbonization became part of our vocabulary thanks to Earth scientists.