I read that one of the glaciers that was/is receding had locked in a massive underground salt-water lake, so at least one isn't diluting the sea when it melts!
You're right about homes polluting more than cars. I'm fortunate to live in a modern, well built and very well insulated flat that needs only a tiny amount of power to keep warm, but the vast majority of housing stock is 30-150 years old with obsolete heating systems and vast hot water tanks.
I'd be interested in the correlation between CO2 levels and industry/population/farming.
I think the 25% rise in CO2 over that period has a lot more to do with the massive increase in the world's population, and presumably more vegetables grown and animals reared to feed them. The start of the industrial revolution was about 1850. There were 1,262,000 people. In 2008 there were 6,707,000. That's a 530% increase in people. The number has shot up since 1950 (when it was 2,521,000) - presumably because we have much better medicine and haven't had any major wars since then.
The peak of global industrial production was in the 1930s when the world was gearing up for war. Since then industrial activity has dropped a fair bit. Factories and power plants have become more efficient and cleaner. If it was industry mainly driving the CO2 levels they would be going down now, but if population is shooting up at the same rate as CO2 then it's more likely that there are simply too many people.
Industry can be cleaned up, but we're not going to stop humans breeding.
I read that one of the glaciers that was/is receding had locked in a massive underground salt-water lake, so at least one isn't diluting the sea when it melts!
You're right about homes polluting more than cars. I'm fortunate to live in a modern, well built and very well insulated flat that needs only a tiny amount of power to keep warm, but the vast majority of housing stock is 30-150 years old with obsolete heating systems and vast hot water tanks.
I'd be interested in the correlation between CO2 levels and industry/population/farming.
I think the 25% rise in CO2 over that period has a lot more to do with the massive increase in the world's population, and presumably more vegetables grown and animals reared to feed them. The start of the industrial revolution was about 1850. There were 1,262,000 people. In 2008 there were 6,707,000. That's a 530% increase in people. The number has shot up since 1950 (when it was 2,521,000) - presumably because we have much better medicine and haven't had any major wars since then.
The peak of global industrial production was in the 1930s when the world was gearing up for war. Since then industrial activity has dropped a fair bit. Factories and power plants have become more efficient and cleaner. If it was industry mainly driving the CO2 levels they would be going down now, but if population is shooting up at the same rate as CO2 then it's more likely that there are simply too many people.
Industry can be cleaned up, but we're not going to stop humans breeding.