Comments by "PM" (@pm71241) on "AMAZING:Vice President Mike Pence Speaks at GOP Retreat in Philadelphia Pennsylvania!!!" video.

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  3. questioneverything2 I assume you meant "present". Ok ... it's not as simple as that. There's a lot of inertia in the climate system, but what we do in the coming few years will determine whether we in the end manage to get control of the climate or it will spiral out of control. People alive today won't live to feel the ultimate consequences, but if we want a livable planet for the descendants of our grandchildren we need to act now. And wrt. to the physics.... it's actually really simple. When you burn hydrocarbons, you release CO2 (or when you emit CH4). CO2 is a dipolar molecule and will trap infrared radiation as heat. When present in the atmosphere it blocks the earth from radiating heat to space and thus creates an energy unbalance - currently around 0.6 Watt per square meter. Which makes the atmosphere, cryosphere and oceans heat up. The warming is currently measured to around 1.2 degree C When ice heats up - it melts. The last time the climate was so much warmer (during the Eemian), sea levels were 6-9 meters higher. ... but we haven't seen all the warming due to the CO2 already emitted yet because of the inertia. The last time the atmosphere had the current composition (in the Pliocene) temperatures were 2-3 degree C higher and sea level 25 meters higher. We will get to that temperature before the end of the century. Ice takes time to melt, but it's only a matter of time ... so we will get to that sea level within a couple of centuries too if we proceed with the politic the Trump administration has been laying out the last week.
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