In many aspects, the greenhouse gas and climate change science makes the constant emission of greenhouse gases inherently dangerous.

Greenhouse gas emissions over an extended period are inherently catastrophic, that planetary catastrophe is inevitable at some level of atmospheric carbon emissions and global greenhouse gas levels.

This is made even more dangerous by the fact there is no way to predict with a high degree of certainty the levels of atmospheric emissions that make catastrophe inevitable.

To make matters much worse, the crucial December 2009 UN Copenhagen Climate Conference negotiations are based on fatally false and flawed assumptions.

The climate negotiations are set up for failure and planetary catastrophe. The science basis for the negotiations is restricted to the 2007 assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The IPCC says scientists cannot define what dangerous climate change is and the IPCC 2007 assessment ignores the very worst dangers of global climate catastrophe.

The very greatest dangers from greenhouse gases are not included in the IPCC assessment. The effects on the oceans is not included in the assessment.

The IPCC in effect excludes the possibility of global climate catastrophe.

The science of global warming makes it clear that dangerous and catastrophic global climate change is inherent in the continued emission of greenhouse gases. The dangers are well known.

The scientific term dealing with danger is risk assessment.

Risk is the quantification of danger. Risk is calculated by the simple standard formula risk = probability x magnitude (of the consequence).

Large environmental health risks are assessed "conservatively." That is, the worst-case scenarios are addressed even if the probability is very low.

The IPCC does just the opposite. It is said that the IPCC assessment is conservative, but here the term means that the IPCC ratings are at the low end of the ranges of impacts.

Impacts that are of low or uncertain probability are excluded by the IPCC from the assessment. This disqualifies the IPCC assessments as scientific risk assessments.

The climate system of the biosphere is controlled mainly by the oceans.

The range of the natural greenhouse carbon gases carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) is maintained within a narrow range that acts as the planet's thermostat, switching the climate between glacial ice ages and warm interglacials.

The climate system can switch abruptly and irreversibly. That is, it can change the global temperature by 6° C in only a decade. So disturbing the climate by adding additional carbon dioxide and methane invites planetary catastrophe.

The only "permanent" atmospheric carbon sink is the ultra-long ocean carbon cycle. This cycle is started by green ocean phytoplankton absorbing CO₂—the carbon passes to ocean shell-making organisms that convert it to calcium carbonate. It ends eons later as ocean sediment, forming limestone and dolomite rock. This is the only way that atmospheric carbon can be taken out of the atmosphere permanently.

Over 80% of all industrial greenhouse gas heat has been taken up by the oceans, measurably warming them. Too much ocean warming is deadly for the health of the oceans, as it slows the water cycling that nourishes marine life and cleanses the oceans. Warming entire oceans is extremely dangerous.

Over 30% of all the industrial CO₂ emissions has been absorbed by the oceans as carbonic acid. The oceans have measurably acidified to the highest acidity levels in 20 million years. Acidifying entire oceans is extremely and catastrophically dangerous.

The combination of ocean warming and acidification is deadly for the oceans and to all life on Earth.

Methane is the primary driver of these natural global climate changes. This has been found from ice core studies. The global temperature varies in lock step with methane and varies closely with carbon dioxide.

The science of global climate change is characterized by long lags between a cause and its effect, or large system inertias.

Greenhouse gases constantly maintain heat in the atmosphere, heat that would normally escape into space. Global warming is heat experienced by living creatures like us on the surface of the Earth. This surface warming is measured by satellites.

The Earth is a mighty big place to heat. It is much harder to heat up by being over 70% water. As a result, it takes a long time (a lag) from an emission of a global warming greenhouse gas for the heat kept in by that emission to be felt or to register at the surface of the planet. It takes about 30 years. A big part of the heat radiated gets "lost" for a long time as the ocean currents take the heat deep into the ocean and around the planet, so the heating lag is called the ocean thermal inertia.

What it means for us is that our greenhouse gas emissions today will heat and damage the planet today's children inherit.

We are told by the scientists that the planet has been warmed 0.8° C since industrialization, but we should say that the global warming energy is at 1.4° C today. That adds in the 0.6° C of thermal inertia or the heating that is "in the pipe." The science up to a few years ago informed us that 1.4° C global warming is extremely and potentially catastrophically dangerous.

We now know for sure that today's 0.8° C global warming is catastrophically dangerous because of what is happening right now in the Arctic. Runaway global warming could happen at any time.

As the planet takes a long time to warm and as the surface is mostly water, it will also take a very long time to cool down. In fact, it will take hundreds of years for the planet to cool even if all greenhouse gas emissions are cut off now. But because of the very long lifetime of gases in the atmosphere, it will take over 1,000 years for the planet to cool, once we stop adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, if we do.

That means global warming climate changes and ocean level rise will last at least 1,000 years.

It's now clear why emitting any greenhouse gases is inherently very dangerous. Not only is this not being acknowledged, but the measures that the science dictates for stopping global warming are also not being acknowledged.

Greenhouse gases are, scientifically speaking, Heat Radiating Global Warming Gases. They create the "greenhouse effect" in the sense that they do indeed trap heat energy. They do so because they are active heat energy radiators.

Solar energy passes through the atmosphere as light, and when it hits the planet's surface, it's converted to radiant heat energy. That heat energy radiating from the Earth activates atmospheric greenhouse gas molecules. They constantly re-radiate the heat for as long as they last in the atmosphere.

Water vapor (or vapour) is the main greenhouse gas due to its abundance in the atmospher. It is rarely mentioned in climate change discussions. Global warming increases atmospheric water vapour, which increases global warming. This is called a positive (ly bad) climate feedback loop. This feedback doubles the global warming from a greenhouse gas emission. This makes these emissions inherently dangerous.

The rest of the greenhouse gases are atmospheric trace gases present in the atmosphere in minute concentrations. Atmospheric CO₂ is measured in parts per million, and methane is measured in parts per billion. Even so, the presence of these gases prevents the planet from being (or becoming) a ball of ice.

This makes it clear that these gases are very powerful global heating agents. It also makes it clear that a small increase in atmospheric carbon levels is highly dangerous, as small additions will lead to very large global temperature increases. So emissions of greenhouse gases are inherently very dangerous.

The top three greenhouse gases emitted by industrialization are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Another recently recognized major global warming emission is black carbon, or soot.

Major sources of carbon dioxide emissions are...

• power (electricity) generation.
• internal combustion engines (cars, buses, trucks, lawn mowers, etc.).
• cement production.
• deforestation.

The main sources of methane and nitrous oxide emissions are intensive livestock production and chemical fertilizer production, or, in other words, industrial agriculture.

The radiative potential (heating capacity) of greenhouse gases are expressed in terms of the heating of CO₂, which is given a heating capacity of 1. All other gases have much larger heating capacities than carbon dioxide, making all the non-CO₂ gases extremely dangerous.

For comparison, the radiative potential of a greenhouse gas is given as its heating averaged over 100 years. So carbon dioxide's potential is 1 over 100 years. The heating capacity of methane is 25 (25 times the potential of carbon dioxide). But the real heating capacity of methane is its heating over the lifetime of methane in the atmosphere. Methane lasts 12 years in the atmosphere, over which time its heating is 100 times that of carbon dioxide. And then it breaks down into carbon dioxide.

In their global warming effect, the three major greenhouse gases last over 100 years. Their persistence and cumulative effect make them all extremely dangerous.

Carbon Dioxide. The mean duration of CO₂ is given as 100 years, but the most important fact about its emissions is that 20% of all carbon dioxide emissions last in the atmosphere for 1,000 years. It is measured in parts per million.

Methane. The duration of methane itself is about 12 years, but the heating caused by methane emissions is much greater and much longer than the numbers indicate. Methane is measured in parts per billion.

After 12 years, the methane as gone, but it has been converted into carbon dioxide by chemical reactions in the atmosphere. So a proportion of methane emissions carry on heating as long as CO₂ does.

Nitrous oxide (N₂O). Nitrous oxide lasts in the atmosphere just over 100 years, and has 300 times the heating capacity of carbon dioxide over that duration. It is measured in parts per billion.

Carbon dioxide is estimated to have caused close to 60% of all global warming. The other greenhouse gases together have warmed nearly as much as carbon dioxide has. However, the contribution of methane may be greater (it's very complex to estimate its warming).

Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other haline gases are still present in significant amounts, and their use has not been stopped, even though the Montreal Protocol mandated it. CFC substitutes are not 100% ozone-safe, while also working as strong greenhouse gases.

Global emissions of the main greenhouse gases have been rising exponentially (accelerating) ever since fossil fuel and agricultural industrialization started in the mid-1800s. The 1992 UN Climate Change Convention and the later Kyoto Protocol made no difference. In fact, global emissions jumped after both. Global emissions are accelerating now faster than ever.

Global greenhouse gas emissions increased by 70% from 1970 to 2004, according to the IPCC.

The recent big jump is due to economic globalization, where the investment money goes to wherever labour and environmental costs to industry are the cheapest. Economic globalization also lures huge populations into the Western consumer culture of materialism and profligate waste.

Carbon dioxide–up 35%

Methane–up 150%

Nitrous oxide–up 16%

The combustion of fossil fuels is inherently dangerous. It is responsible for the emissions of multiple toxins into the air we breathe. Some of these toxins have no safe threshold of human exposure.

The greenhouse gases emitted constantly and increasingly from burning fossil fuels are catastrophically dangerous to large human populations that are the most vulnerable to climate change, to land animal species, and to the ocean and marine species. The continued combustion of fossil fuels has already started catastrophic Arctic carbon feedback loops.

The science is definite that catastrophe is inevitable without stopping our burning of fossil fuels. That is because the science is definite that only zero carbon emissions can stop global warming.

To survive we must stop burning fossil fuels. Of this there is no question. But there are no plans to do so, and no organizations are proposing it (even the scientists).

Fossil fuel use emits mainly the carbon dioxide, but it also is responsible for adding some of the other major greenhouse gases, including methane, nitrous oxide and lowo-level ozone to the air.

Fossil fuels don't just add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. They add soot and toxic chemicals to the air we breathe, and they add acids, which continue to destroy buildings and make lakes, and our oceans, unliveable. Fossil fuel air pollution takes a huge toll on human health—far greater than had been realized.

Soot (black carbon), according to a more complete assessment published 2009, has a far greater global warming effect that had been thought—up to 60% of the effect from carbon dioxide.

The impacts of global climate change on the oceans and of the climate change feedback loops that oceans affect are not included in the IPCC assessment. So oceans are not being considered in the current UN Copenhagen Climate Conference negotiations.

Our oceans are a huge carbon sink. They store millions of tons of carbon dioxide. But climate change is warming the oceans, and warmer water can hold less CO₂. The oceans release it to the atmosphere, which in turn speeds up the warming process. So the oceans become a source of global warming. The oceans have the greatest effect on the climate system.

As the oceans acidify, marine life dies off. This leads to a loss of food sources, starting with the plankton, and moving all the way up the food chain to dolphins, whales and humans.

This acidification also means that the one and only way that elevated atmospheric carbon levels can be sunk (taken out of the atmospheric carbon cycle) will be impaired as the plankton-based biological carbon pump is damaged and the shell-forming ability of sea creatures is impaired. That means that global warming could last not a thousand years, but hundreds of thousands of years.

Combine our protein losses from smaller fish and seafood catches with the protein and carbohydrate losses from an agricultural base stricken by high temperatures (see The Deadly Denial of Climate Catastrophe for more about agriculture), and we (and most creatures on the planet) are heading towards very, very tough times.

To ensure the survival of our food supply, we must act now to stop carbon dioxide and methane emissions into the atmosphere. A Zero Carbon economy is what we need now.

The green buttons on the left provide more information about the Zero Carbon economy, and how it can help up protect our food supply for our families, and their families.