Earth Day provides grim view of future

MOSES LAKE — As thick ice buried Antarctica it recorded the makeup of Earth's atmosphere back a million years, showing the rate and extent concentrations of carbon dioxide changed.

The ice reveals the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere varied from about 180 to 300 parts per million (ppm), according to Ezra Eickmeyer, of The Climate Project.

Eickmeyer was the featured speaker during Saturday's Earth Day Celebration and Information Fair at Big Bend Community College Saturday, where more than 100 people attended to gain information about the environment.

Like the natural 120-ppm fluctuation in the concentration of carbon dioxide scientists found in Antarctica's ice, the Earth, from the very beginning, experienced constant changes, he said.

"But when we get into the industrial revolution, there is something quite different going on," Eickmeyer said.

After a million years, the concentration of carbon dioxide never exceeded a peak of 300 ppm, he said. The heat-trapping gas now sits at 382 ppm.

An increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, he said, brings warmer temperatures.

Between the year 1800, with a concentration of carbon dioxide of about 280 ppm, and the last ice age, at 180 ppm, the surface of the Earth changed dramatically, he said.

"That 100 ppm is the difference between us having a mile of ice over our heads, right here, and having today's relatively warm climate," Eickmeyer said. "That's based on a very small fluctuation of the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere."

Eickmeyer presented a power-point program titled "Climate Change: Our Future is Now."

His presentation opened with the science and world view relating to climate-change issues.

He claims global warming is heating the oceans, causing more frequent and intense hurricanes. It's redistributing rainfall, flooding some areas, causing record drought elsewhere, he said.

The sea ice in the Arctic, which reflects up to 90 percent of the sun's radiation, is melting faster. The dark ocean, which is then exposed, absorbs as much as 90 percent of the sunlight, reducing the amount of solar energy reflected back into space.

"It's global warming causing more global warming," he said.

Eickmeyer shifted his presentation to focus on climate change in the Northwest. He claims there is a retreat of glaciers in the Cascade Mountains.

Seasonal snowmelt and groundwater runoff contribute water to rivers in the spring and early summer, he said, but in late summer and fall the rivers are fed almost entirely by glaciers.

Irrigators in Eastern Washington depend upon water from glaciers to provide critical water in the dry months, he said.

"In the last couple of decades, the Northern Cascade glaciers have lost a total mass of between 18 and 32 percent," he said. "This is not good news for our future of agriculture."

Eickmeyer closed with ideas to reverse current trends of climate change.

If business as usual continues and no changes are made, he said, concentrations of carbon dioxide are going to rise further.

"What's the surface of the planet going to look like if we allow that to happen?" Eickmeyer asked. "If we allow that to happen, I believe that will be the most unethical thing we've ever done as a human species."