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Science Daily | Carbon dioxide higher today than last 2.1 million years
June 21, 2009 Researchers have reconstructed atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the past 2.1 million years in the sharpest detail yet, shedding new light on its role in the earth's cycles of cooling and warming.
The study, in the June 19 issue of the journal Science, is the latest to rule out a drop in CO2 as the cause for earth's ice ages growing longer and more intense some 850,000 years ago. But it also confirms many researchers' suspicion that higher carbon dioxide levels coincided with warmer intervals during the study period.
The authors show that peak CO2 levels over the last 2.1 million years averaged only 280 parts per million; but today, CO2 is at 385 parts per million, or 38% higher. This finding means that researchers will need to look back further in time for an analog to modern day climate change. Full article in Science Daily
The Monthly | Tim Flannery reviews The Vanishing Face of Gaia
June 2009 James Lovelock's latest book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning (Allen Lane, 192pp; $29.95), has an important message. In a few years, or a few decades at most, abrupt changes in Earth's climate will begin, which will end up killing almost all of us and cause the extinction of almost all life on Earth. The tropics and subtropics will be rendered uninhabitable by this shift, and the few survivors will cling to favoured regions such as Britain and New Zealand. Lovelock believes there is little we can do to avert our fate, for the causes of the climatic shift are now so entrenched that they are in all likelihood irreversible. In his view the best we can hope for is personal survival in a world of warring nations or, if we are particularly unfortunate, a world ruled by warlords.
Apocalyptic visions such as this are usually the province of doomsday cults or writers of science fiction. It's unusual to find a scientist advancing one. Yet James Lovelock's scientific credentials are impeccable. Full article in The Monthly
BNET Energy | Deutsche Bank launches giant greenhouse gas counter in US
June 18, 2009 Deutsche Bank’s ginormous “Carbon Counter” — unveiled Thursday in New York City — is the type of in-your-face campaign passers-by will find nearly impossible to ignore. The towering electronic billboard — with its 13-number red digital display and ‘Climate Change Affects Everyone’ message perched on top — is more than an ever-growing tally of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere.
It’s also a sign — and a very large one at that — of the growing interest and investment surrounding climate change. Full article in BNET | Deutsche Bank: Know the Number
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The world's most current data for atmospheric CO2 is from measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. These high-precision measurements were started by Dave Keeling (shown in the photo) in March 1958. 
