(The second installment in Saul Griffith's energy literacy and
climate change presentation -- Ed.) The result of our energy
use: Carbon Dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. Scientists
have now been studying the concentration of carbon dioxide in
our atmosphere for more than half a century; They principally
use two techniques: Direct measurement from research sites,
which measure the current concentration direct from that
atmosphere using highly sensitive instruments, and indirect
measurement, which requires inferring the concentrations from
ice-cores taken from glaciers, and from ice-cores drilled into
the antarctic ice-pack. The graph above shows the CO2
concentration as measured by different methods for the last
1,000 years. What this graph represents is the main reason we
are all becoming increasingly aware of our environmental impact.
This graph tells us about how we are risking our own future.
This might be the most important plot of natural phenomena that
science has ever produced. We need to keep l