My relationship with mathematics has always been a little acidic. As a child, I sat through math exams flooded by stress hormones. After sitting through the grueling 120 minutes, my bones jellied, like barbecued marshmallows. So, when I decided to join a bank four years ago, I was being my adventurous best.
I have since quit the bank, but the stint hasn’t gone unpaid. For one, my numerophobia has eased to an extent; I am an enthusiast now. With faint but growing certainty, I have started perceiving the invisible halo of information that a number carries around itself. For instance, when I first stumbled upon the infamous ‘400 ppm’, I could immediately sense an exciting expansion beyond the facade of what seemed like an unapproachable encoded acronym.
environmental-auditing.org
400 ppm
It happened on May 9, 2013. The carbon dioxide concentration on the earth’s atmosphere reached 400 particles per million. But what does that actually mean?
It meant good news for our gardener, because the weather of Pokhara, where I have been living for a year now, has undergone such a massive change in the last few years that the fodder for cattle has started sprouting three months prior to its season.
“See, even before the onset of monsoon, the trees are full of mature, olive green foliage,” he made an elated announcement. He embraced the change open-heartedly, not realizing that the change in weather patterns had also led to the glacier meltdown last year that wiped out the entire village of Tatopani, just 20 kilometers away.
And sadly, his naiveté wasn’t an individual statement; it represented our general understanding of the way nature is changing around us. I, for one, didn’t know the exact reason these greenlings were maturing way before their time.
Frankly, it was only after reading Prayash Raj Koirala’s article in Republica (Danger Ahead, May 20) that I had some inkling about the gravity of the looming danger. And my own experience is, many times the news of climate change come in such jargoned guise, that it is easy for a layperson like me to underestimate its significance in our daily lives.
What does it mean?
Simply understood, parts per million (ppm) is a way of measuring the concentration of different gases, and in this context establishes the ratio of the number of carbon dioxide molecules to all other molecules in the atmosphere. The atmosphere is an amalgamation of several gases, which in their ideal proportion maintain the equilibrium of temperature on earth, among other functions. Carbon, along with other heat trapping gases, is responsible for raising the temperature of earth. According to 350.org, a website run by environmental activists, since the beginning of human civilization up until about 200 years ago, the earth’s atmosphere contained about 275 parts per million of carbon dioxide. 275 ppm CO2 is a useful amount—without some CO2 and other greenhouse gases that trap heat in our atmosphere, our planet would be too cold for humans to inhabit.
A few years ago, scientists had unanimously agreed that the ideal carbon concentration should not exceed 350 ppm to maintain ideal living conditions on earth (please refer to www.350.org for a more accurate picture). Ironically, when this conclusion was made, we had already exceeded the number by some 30 ppm. If so, why is reaching 400 ppm such a big deal?
As Ralph Keeling, Director of the Scripps CO2 Program in California which is designed to make climate change science accessible to the layperson, said to The Guardian, the number 400 is a milestone mostly because it’s a nice round number that people can grasp. In his words, “This is really a moment for human awareness, just like passing a 50th birthday.”
Implications
Since Charles David Keeling began recording carbon levels at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, in 1958, carbon concentration has soared rapidly in last decade, and is tipping over at the average rate of 2 ppm every year. If the trend continues, it would only take us two more decades to reach 450 ppm, the point of no return.
At 450 ppm, scientists predict the earth will go through a major makeover with the meltdown of glaciers, as many islands and coastline habitats would be submerged under the ever increasing sea level. Carbon concentration will also increase the acidity of sea water, challenging the existence of coral reef and other hard shelled water animals. Not to forget, the obvious scarcity of water due to glacier meltdown.
And all this will happen in the next TWO DECADES. That is, if we don’t change our ways.
The change, sadly, now needs a deeper acknowledgement of problem than just writing few tips for recycling, reusing, forestation, or maybe even some behavioral change. Frankly, I am not an expert, and I can’t claim to have one solid answer to this issue when the most outstanding minds of our generation are struggling with the same.
However, the heart of the tragedy lies in the fact that the problem has already reached a threshold, and most of us are simply unaware of it. It’s like having a cancer cell and not knowing its crazy multiplications going on in one’s body.
Reading about this issue has given me an understanding that the environmental crisis isn’t merely a distant global issue as I had always perceived it. It is actually an issue of individual crisis, and if unaddressed with individual intelligence, will mean an individually initiated global suicide.
The author is a Communication Associate at ComForm Project/ Institute of Forestry
appadipobhava@gmail.com
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