Fair to Partly Whalish

A Reuters news story ("World carbon emissions stall after almost 40 years of gains: IEA") reports that the International Energy Agency has finished their tabulating and concluded that the human race released 32.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2014, approximately the same amount as in 2013. In the same year, the global economy grew by three percent. So we know that we can have economic growth without worsening the emissions problem.

So everything's cool now, right?  We can stop worrying about global warming?

32.3 billion metric tons is 71.2 trillion pounds. That's about the same as 6 billion African elephants or 187 million blue whales. or 98 thousand copies of the Empire State Building. It's the same weight as 376 copies of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, fully loaded.

We do not notice the carbon dioxide that we add to the atmosphere, because it's invisible and odorless. But, if we could somehow put 187 million blue whales into the air each year and keep them aloft and visible, you'd pretty soon be able to see the problem. That's about four whales per square mile, distributed over the surface of the earth.

After a few years, the weather forecasters would be talking about "fair to partly whalish".

So no, we can't stop worrying about global warming. We need a lot fewer whale equivalents being injected into the atmosphere.