PPM

Parts per Million (PPM). This is how the we measure the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere ... and, so you know dear reader, this measure has roughly grown from 300 PPM to 400 PPM during the course of our increased use of hydrocarbons during the last hundred years or so. But, you know what? The rarity of this metric escapes most viewers. So let’s reshape things. Assume you enter a banquet hall with 10,000 place settings ... 400 PPM would equate to just 4 place settings in this large hall actually containing food (in this case carbon dioxide canapés)! Pretty sparse, eh?

Now, imagine that our flora (trees, grass, bushes, crops, seaweed, etc., etc.) are dinner guests at this sparse banquet. Our flora would be constrained to these four place settings. Yes, the plates would be constantly replenished ... but the diners would be aggressive in their hunger ... in order to grow and be healthy. (Which flora WE need to have to grow and be healthy.) This, pretty much, analogizes our current global ecology.

”CO2 is our friend.”

The End is Near!

The UN is now having a cow ... CO2 levels in our atmosphere have now reached 396 parts per million which is about 0.04% (not even 1/10 of one percent) ... see: EN News Article. Isn't it clever of these blatherskites to express these things in parts per million ... which sounds big ... when the actual real percentage sounds so puny? Given this revelation, the rest of this UN's arm waving about carbon dioxide levels is just so much eye wash when one couples it with the fact that temperatures on Earth have not risen for the last 15 years at least. Why is this? Perhaps there are other forces at work counteracting the effects of CO2? And might we not be getting colder if not for the work of our life-giving friend, carbon dioxide?

I will concede to the UN's numbers ... that there has been an infinitesimally small increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in out atmosphere. So what? The thing that continually amazes me is that the plant life on our planet can convert such a small helping of its primary food into such a lush harvest. Can we not be grateful for that?