Storms of My Grandchildren
“ IN 2007, THE ENVIRONMENTALIST AND writer Bill McKibben began bugging me, very politely, to either confirm 450 parts per million as the appropriate target level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or else to define a more appropriate one. He was developing a Web site to draw attention to this target limit and was thinking of calling it 450.org. I kept putting him off, though. I wanted a number that would remain valid for policy purposes for the foreseeable future. And I wanted to have a good science rationale—otherwise the number would have little meaning.
The issue of what is the “dangerous” level of greenhouse gases has been around a long time. Back in 1981 my coauthors and I concluded (in our paper “Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide,” published in Science) that serious effects of climate change might make it necessary to leave a large part of the coal in the ground. And in 1992 most countries of the world, including the United States, signed the United Nation...s Framework Convention on Climate Change, with the objective of stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gases at a level that would avoid “dangerous”MoreLess
The issue of what is the “dangerous” level of greenhouse gases has been around a long time. Back in 1981 my coauthors and I concluded (in our paper “Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide,” published in Science) that serious effects of climate change might make it necessary to leave a large part of the coal in the ground. And in 1992 most countries of the world, including the United States, signed the United Nation...s Framework Convention on Climate Change, with the objective of stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gases at a level that would avoid “dangerous”MoreLess
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