Global suffocation/warming - how long until unbreathable air?

Answer 1

Science has proven that this earth goes through periods of heating and cooling every five to ten thousand years. Its not going to make the air "unbreathable", its going to bring on climate changes that have happened many times before.
Ice ages, deserts become jungles and vice versea.
Mother nature is in charge, not us.

Answer 2

Global warming is a problem. I'm having a big problem with it because weather info in UK only goes back about 200 years. What happened before that? Was it mild in winter as we are having in London now? I have managed to find one diary from the early 18th century which mentioned a storm - boy you ain't seen nothin' yet. This storm in the London area blew roofs of hundreds of houses, knocked down chimneys and killed dozens of people. Was it caused by global warming?

Was global warming the real killer of the dinosaurs?

Did global warming start life on earth?

The air is unlikely to become unbreathable.

The biggest and most real threat to human life on Earth, is not global warming, it's a super volcano. The Earth has one of these about every 50,000 years or so. Some scientists believe one is due soon. There's a potential one sitting right under Yellow Stone Park USA. If this thing blows, we've all had it. Such an explosion, equivalent to about 6,000 Hiroshima atom bombs, will turn Earth into winter for a period of 5 - 10 years. If we're not blow away by the blast, we will certainly starve to death. The last time this happened it is estimated there were only a few thousand people left on Earth. Obviously the pop is bigger now, but we could be reduced to a couple of million or less.

Forget global warming - think super volcano - be afraid, very afraid.

Answer 3

There is a ratio scientists use to describe the content of a substance in the air: "parts per million". So if you have a thousand parts per million of something, you are saying that substance makes up 0.1% of the air. Here's the thing: the your lungs need to take in lots of air. You can't get by breathing only 99% oxygen over the long term, because you NEED all of that air. Your lungs get polluted and your breathing capacity decreases, you stop being able to sleep at night without a ventilator mask. Carbon is straight up dust-- how well do you think you would be able to breathe dusty air? Of course you breath it all the time... now imagine there was even more dust. Sooner or later, you'll end up short of breath (asthma). As parts-per-million levels of carbon dioxide (that stuff you exhale after taking a breath). The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the only means of turning CO2 into oxygen is either a machine or a plant (via photosynthesis). So we're killing off all the plants and polluting the oceans (where most of the plants are) and eliminating the oxygen output of the planet even as we increase the CO2 output. The air is becoming steadily staler as a result. There are two effects of this stale air: the air is warmer (triggering global warming, deserts, and sea level rises / swamp land formation at the coasts) and it's harder to breath. Right now the CO2 PPM of the planet is estimated at 400, an increase of 120 since the Industrial Revolution (and half of that increase happened in the last 30 years). So in 2045 it'll probably be 460, plus a little extra from all the projected increases in industrial smog if something isn't done about it. That's a long way from 10000 parts per million (1% content). But this estimate is for the entire globe, including the oceans, the ice caps, the rainforests and Siberia. By the time 1% global CO2 is reached... well that's where no one knows. The poisonous air will certainly result in the deaths of tens, even hundreds of millions as the population slowly shrinks. The air and plants will recover, over time, without humans to pollute and destroy them... but it could be your line which gets extinguished someday. Think about that. What is your commitment to the generations? Does it matter to you that you may be responsible for the deaths of your descendents? What is the role you will play in their future? We might not even make it... a lot of powerful countries are gonna get swallowed up by the oceans by the time we reach 1000 PPM... I'm betting they get their act together before then, and make war on those who don't.

Answer 4

Thirty years or so ago, when I was a wee tyke at school, they were telling us that the Earth was about to enter a new ice age, and that it was probably already too late to do anything about it. It's just the same overhyped hysteria, but since the ice caps haven't overtaken London yet, why, it must be the other extreme!

Relax, don't worry too much, in another 20 years they'll tell us all the carbon-saving back at the turn of the century is causing carbon winter or some damn fool thing. Anything to keep you from noticing that the government is bleeding you dry of both wealth and liberty.

Answer 5

We'll drown before we suffocate.

However, if you mean when will the CO2 level be too high for us to breathe then I used to work for a petrochemical firm with oxygen detectors. When the detectors showed less than 20% the whole plant was supposed to be evacuated. If the level went to about 18-19% you would pass out and die. Normal oxygen levels are about 21% so there's not a lot of leeway as you can imagine.

Fortunately I think there's plenty of oxygen about. Its the climate change that is the thing to worry about!

Answer 6

Let's not worry about suffocation just yet.

Carbon dioxide is increasing a little at a time.

That makes the place warmer.

As the icecaps melt off the mountains and the glaciers turn to rivers and the polar caps bleed away into the rising ocean...

Take a deep breath
cause the world
it is a
changin.

Answer 7

Don't worry - it won't happen. It's all a load of twaddle to allow the government to introduce new taxes. We were told - in all seriousness - in 1973 that we were almost out of petrol. That was 33 years ago. Since then, oil has been found in just about every place on earth, plus an ocean of it under Siberia which will be difficult, though not impossible, to extract.

Lots of nonsense talked about the environment - nothing ever materialises! :-)

Answer 8

you mean polution ,this has nothing to do with global warming . global warming exists because the sun's cycle is hotter now than in any other time in modern history.

unbreathable air ,not in our or our great grandchildrens life time or maybe ever.

Answer 9

I doubt the air will be unbreathable for many thousands of years. It would take a huge catastrophic event to make the air unbreathable.

Answer 10

There is abundant Oxygen and Nitrogen in our atmosphere, and in spite of the scares, we are polluting less now than we did a hundred years ago.