Environmental Engineering Reference
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component of the food chain. But the greater catastrophe ahead
is what happens when the ocean's CO
capacity is reached. The
amounts entering the atmosphere will then accelerate, with the
imminent danger of passing a tipping point of CO
2
concentration
in the atmosphere that could trigger an irreversible temperature
increase, which could be fatal for humanity.
2
Figure 1.
Global footprint by component, 1961-2005.
The burning of fossil fuels seemed like a reasonable thing for
humans to do once oil and natural gas resources were discovered
and the necessary technologies developed in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. Few, if any, guessed that this seemingly
innocent act was going to cause nature to react in an unexpected
and potentially disastrous way one hundred years later. Unintended
consequences are typical when we mess with complex systems
that we do not thoroughly understand.
It is therefore not surprising that global warming, which is a
direct consequence of rising CO
emissions, is currently the most
visible example of ecosystem breakdown. Examples of drought,
floods, hurricanes, glacial melt-ofs, shifting rain patterns and
other consequences of what amounts to about a one-degree
Celsius temperature rise are so numerous now that we all have had
some personal experience of what is in store. And this is just the
beginning. Clearly, we should be rationing the use of fossil fuels as
if our life depended on it. But even if we had a much larger biosphere
(and hence no immediate climate change problem) and much
larger fossil fuel reserves (hence no immediate peak oil problem),
we should still ration the use of this resource for the sake of
future generations and long-term sustainability. US President
George H. W. Bush once said: “The American way of life is not
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