Bill McKibben, author of the groundbreaking book End of Nature, says that no ecosystem on earth is free from human influence. There is not much left of the world that you can t see the human imprint on, he says. He goes on to say that humans have achieved domination of most of the ecosystems on earth. Humans take more nitrogen out of the atmosphere and make fertilizer than all the plants on the planet put together. White and other scientists research the cycles of carbon in the ocean, in plants and fossil fuels and in the atmosphere by studying cores of ancient ice, tree rings, sediment layers and coral.
Humans release carbon that has been sequestered deep in the earth by burning fossil fuels.
These are actually 100 million year old plant remains that are found today in the form of oil and coal. White says that in the pre-industrial world carbon was in the atmosphere at 265 to 280 parts per million. By 1960 there were 320 parts per million. Today there are 360 parts per million of carbon in the air, and White predicts that that figure will rise to 560 if the world burns all of its fossil fuels. And this scenario is not far from happening.