Just cut it in half ...

Halving carbon dioxide emissions by half by 2050 could stabilize global warming.

To contain global warming, and its risks and consequences, warming compared to pre-industrial times (pre 1900) should not exceed two degrees Celsius. Although, according to the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there is no specific temperature threshold for dangerous climate changes, and the negative effects are gradually increasing, over one hundred countries have adopted this “2°C target”. Scientists have used a new probability model to calculate how much CO2 our atmosphere tolerates under these target specifications. This and another study, recently published in Nature, produced similar results: From 2000 to 2050, a maximum of 1000 billion tonnes of CO2 may be emitted into the atmosphere. Roughly speaking, today, around one third of this wad has already been shot.

One third of this wad has already been shot? WTF kind of reporting is this?

Carbon Dioxide a Deadly Gas?

The answer to that question is: Yes.

Which is why the EPA was right in making the call that they did when they said that greenhouse gases, which includes carbon dioxide, pose significant hazards to humans.

The scientific analysis also confirms that climate change impacts human health in several ways. Findings from a recent EPA study titled “Assessment of the Impacts of Global Change on Regional U.S. Air Quality: A Synthesis of Climate Change Impacts on Ground-Level Ozone,” for example, suggest that climate change may lead to higher concentrations of ground-level ozone, a harmful pollutant. Additional impacts of climate change include, but are not limited to:

* increased drought;
* more heavy downpours and flooding;
* more frequent and intense heat waves and wildfires;
* greater sea level rise;
* more intense storms; and
* harm to water resources, agriculture, wildlife and ecosystems.

Bold emphasis mine, and here is Exhibit A.

In a "Perspective" published in the journal Science, Peter Brewer and Edward Peltzer combine published data on rising levels of carbon dioxide and declining levels of oxygen in the ocean in a set of new and thermodynamically rigorous calculations. They show that increases in carbon dioxide can make marine animals more susceptible to low concentrations of oxygen, and thus exacerbate the effects of low-oxygen "dead zones" in the ocean.

Carbon dioxide can pose more than the direct health hazard to humans, as you can see above. Those dead zones, mostly located near the coasts also will translate into reduced food supplies. I don't know about anyone else but ... I'd like to be able to continue to eat in the future.

Build a pond ...

... and help cut down on global warming.

Research led by Iowa State University limnologist, or lake scientist, John Downing finds that ponds around the globe could absorb as much carbon as the world's oceans.

Professor Downing found that constructed ponds and lakes on farmland in the United States bury carbon at a much higher rate than expected; as much as 20-50 times the rate at which trees trap carbon. In addition, ponds were found to take up carbon at a higher rate than larger lakes.

According to this report, the two major ways that carbon is stored in ponds is by runoff from the surrounding soil (which contains carbon - in the form of decomposing plant material), and from algae and other aquatic plants which use carbon dioxide for photosynthesis.