Keep burning fossil fuels at current rates and you can kiss nature’s influence over temperature good-bye. That’s the conclusion of two recent scientific studies.
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Humans are forcing heat trapping substances into the atmosphere at a terrifying pace. We pump out more than 10 billion tons of carbon on the back of about 50 billion tons of CO2 equivalent hothouse gasses into the atmosphere each year. This massive volume is the upshot of an inexorably rising emission starting during the 19th century and continuing to this day. By the end of this century, rates of burning could again increase nearly threefold.
The current, rampant pace of human emission is now at least six times faster than at any time during Earth’s geological past. But on our current path, that rate could exceed 20 times that seen during any of the previous worst hothouse extinction events.
(Current rate of annual carbon…
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The Secular Jurist 