In essence, it is what we are doing by allowing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to increase. Much of the CO2 humanity has pumped into the atmosphere has been absorbed by the oceans and, as a result the oceans are acidifying.
In case it hasn't occurred to you yet, the plankton in the oceans produce much of the oxygen in the atmosphere. If the oceans continue to acidify and the life forms in the ocean die off, the result will not be very good, to say the least.
Nothing will be done, of course. Between the "junk science" propaganda of the extraction industries, the paranoia of the conservatives ("it's all a plot to get us back to living in mud huts") and the Chinese/Indian complaints of "we didn't cause this, why do we have to suffer", nothing will be done until we are on the brink of a mass extinction event. But by then, it will be far too late.
This is a global problem and as much as individual efforts to reduce their carbon footprint may be laudable, they will have all of the effect of farting during a hurricane.
Either humanity does something with all dispatch to stop adding CO2 to the atmosphere or our civilization will die and, possibly, so will our species.[1]
[1]I'd bet on extinction as the likely outcome, if there was any way to collect on the bet.
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It's too profitable to maintain a habitable planet. Too profitable to stay alive.
When the aliens discover our ruins, they'll be so impressed at how opulent some of us were at extinction.
There are some who say that the next mass extinction event has already begun, although I don't know if the actual numbers support them. Yet. You know, in the 90's I read Daniel Quinn's books (and some other related stuff) and got a sense that there wasn't much time left to do something that might save our asses. Then W showed up and not only wasted a decade, but set us back on policy and public perception so far that now I find it hard to think of us as anything but toast. Which is not a helpful outlook, but I kind of grew up where there is still enough of a functioning ecosystem to hunt and fish a little. So all I do is get pissed off at the ruining of everything for money by idiots who don't know what they're doing and my blood pressure starts going up again.
-Doug in Oakland
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