According to NOAA 2021 was the sixth warmest year on record. Earths land and ocean surface temperature in 2021 was 1.51 degrees F above the 20th century average. It also marked the 45th consecutive year (since 1977) with global temperatures rising above the 20th-century average. The years 2013-2021 all rank among the ten-warmest years on record. Earth’s temperature has risen by 0.14° F (0.08° C) per decade since 1880, and the rate of warming over the past 40 years is more than twice that: 0.32° F (0.18° C) per decade since 1981. All scientific evidence clearly indicates that global warming is real and every couple of weeks we seem to hear about another study and another report that the process is happening faster than predicted. Glaciers melting faster than predicted, polar ice melting faster than predicted, oceans rising faster than predicted, oceans warming faster than predicted, the list goes on and on.
We have passed the point of no return for global warming and no matter what we do, the temperature will continue to rise for decades yet to come. If the temperature continues to rise unchecked we will soon pass the point of no return for human survival and the survival of most species on this planet. That point of no return is only a few short decades away, but once it is crossed the decline and death of the human race will be a slow painful process that will play out over centuries yet to come.
Our planet is heated by two different types of heat: natural heat (heat from the sun, geothermal activity, and natural fires), and artificial heat (heat created by human activity (mining, refining, production, distribution, HVAC, transportation, etc.)). The human race has been adding heat to this planet from the very first time we learned to control fire. If you light a candle or light a fire you add heat to the planet that has to be dissipated. No matter which type of heat source you consider, if BTU gain equals BTU loss the average temperature will remain the same forever. Since conduction and convection require mass, global heat dissipation can only occur through radiation back into space. The fact that earth’s temperature has risen by 0.14° F (0.08° C) per decade since 1880 tells us that by 1880 the earth had reached its limit for radiant cooling. Once that limit was reached, all excess heat had to be stored for future release back into space. Earths primary heat sinks are the continents and oceans on it’s surface. The air in our atmosphere simply provides convection heat transfer to even out the heat distribution. In order to bring the planet back into balance all of that stored heat has to be radiated into outer space.
In terms of global warming, there is very little we can do that will affect natural heat sources. The sun will continue to shine and volcanoes will continue to erupt. The only heat we can control is the artificial heat that we add to the planet. There are three factors which affect human impact on global warming, the technology we use (human activity), the insulation we add to our planet(green house gases) and overall population of this planet. In 1850, the population of the United States was 23,191,876 and the world wide population was estimated to be 1,200,000,000. Today the population of the United States is over 331,000,000 and global population is estimated to be 7,674,306,624. There is a direct correlation between human population, green house gases, and global warming. No matter what technology we use, when we double the population we will double the impact.
We have been tracking energy use for a long time and no matter what the energy source is, it can be expressed in BTUs. When you consider all energy used for all human activities on this planet, the global annual per capita energy use is 85 million BTUs. Each person we add to the global population will add 85 million additional BTUs of heat to this planet each year for as long as they live. Current population growth is approximately 80 million people per year which means we add an additional 800 million BTUs of heat to the planet each year through population growth which has to be radiated into outer space each year to keep the earths average temperature constant. We have compounded our problem by adding additional green house gases (insulation) to the atmosphere thereby reducing the amount of heat we can radiate back into outer space. We are currently adding 6.5 metric tons of green house gases per person per year to the atmosphere. Current population growth means that we will add an additional 520 million metric tons of green house gases to that total each year through population growth.
From 1880 to 2005 global warming and green house gas increase has been driven by population growth. If you plot all three on a graph you will see they follow the same curve up until 2005. After 2005, global temperature and green house gas totals continue to rise faster than population growth. That tells us that around 2005 we passed the point of no return for global warming and no matter what we do it will continue for decades to come. How far are we from the point of no return for human survival on this planet?
Every ecosystem has a limit to the life it can support and once you exceed that limit you begin to destroy everything you depend on to support life within that ecosystem. In the 1950s and early 1960s scientists began to raise the alarm about overpopulation and the impact it would have on our lives. In 1963 The National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine published the report The Growth of World Population: Analysis of the Problems and Recommendations for Research and Training which clearly identified the underlying cause of the problems we see today with global warming, pollution, declining resources, etc. etc. Push back from institutionalized religions soon made any mention of overpopulation politically incorrect. As a result of the push back we have only been addressing part of the problem, green house gas emissions. We can not solve the problem of global warming without solving the problem of overpopulation and the religious false narratives that drive it.
The fastest and simplest way to solve the problem of global warming is to reduce human fertility rate through education and family planning thereby allowing the overall population to decline naturally through attrition. We have passed a point of no return on global warming and human death rates will increase in the short term no matter what we do. If we can keep the fertility rate below the death rate the overall population will begin to decline and the impact of overpopulation on our environment will begin to decline. If we focus on clean technology, efficiency, and population we can quickly reverse the process and we can survive. If we continue to allow the unrestricted population growth of the past one hundred and forty years to continue, we are doomed. Human activity will continue to heat the planet, the natural release of greenhouse gases will increase, global warming will increase, death rate will increase, the die off of life on earth will increase, and there will be no turning back.
To the religious extremists I say this, stand with me before God and make your claim as a Martyr of your faith. If God does not accept your offer and save humanity, we must save ourselves.
“Lord,
Please answer The Martyr’s Prayer Challenge as requested in The Martyr’s Prayer and bring peace to this planet.
Amen”