Earth’s atmospheric content and temperatures

Phanerozoic Eon 541 – 0 million years ago

Cenozoic Era 66 – 0 million years ago

Age of Mammals

• Quaternary Period 2.58 – 0 million years ago
  Holocene/Anthropocene Epoch 11,700 to 0 years ago (Age of Man)
  Pleistocene Epoch 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago (Homo sapiens appear)
• Neogene Period 23.03 – 2.58 million years years ago
  O2 ca. 21.5 vol % (108 % of modern level)
  CO2 ca. 280 ppm (1 times pre-industrial level)
  Temp ca. 14 °C (0 °C above modern level)
• Paleogene Period 66 – 23.03 million years ago
  O2 ca. 26 vol % (130 % of modern level)
  CO2 ca. 500 ppm (2 times pre-industrial level)
  Temp ca. 18 °C (4 °C above modern level)
  Graminoids – grass plant life appears

Mesozoic Era 252.17 – 66 million years ago

Age of Reptiles
Pangea supercontinent breaks up
Conifer plant life dominates

• Cretaceous Period 145 – 66 million years ago
  O2 ca. 30 vol % (150 % of modern level)
  CO2 ca. 1700 ppm (6 times pre-industrial level)
  Temp ca. 18 °C (4 °C above modern level)
• Jurassic Period 201.3 – 145 million years ago
  O2 ca. 26 vol % (130 % of modern level)
  CO2 ca. 1950 ppm (7 times pre-industrial level)
  Temp ca. 16.5 °C (3 °C above modern level)
  First small burrowing mammals appear
• Triassic Period 252.17 – 201.3 million years ago
  O2 ca. 16 vol % (80 % of modern level)
  CO2 ca. 1750 ppm (6 times pre-industrial level)
  Temp ca. 17 °C (3 °C above modern level)

Paleozoic Era 541 – 252.17 million years ago

Pangaea supercontinent forms
Cambrian Explosion occurs: Fish, arthropods, amphibians and reptiles develop

• Permian Period 298.9 – 252.17 million years ago
  O2 ca. 23 vol % (115 % of modern level)
  CO2 ca. 900 ppm (3 times pre-industrial level)
  Temp ca. 16 °C (2 °C above modern level)
  Sea level (above present day) Relatively constant at 60 m (200 ft) in early Permian; plummeting during the middle Permian to a constant -20 m (-66 ft) in the late Permian.
• Carboniferous Period 358.9 – 298.9 million years ago
  O2 ca. 32.5 vol % (163 % of modern level)
  CO2 ca. 800 ppm (3 times pre-industrial level)
  Temp ca. 14 °C (0 °C above modern level)
  Sea level (above present day) Falling from 120m to present day level throughout Mississippian, then rising steadily to about 80m at end of period
• Devonian Period 419.2 – 358.9 million years ago
  O2 ca. 15 vol % (75 % of modern level)
  CO2 ca. 2200 ppm (8 times pre-industrial level)
  Temp ca. 20 °C (6 °C above modern level)
  Sea level (above present day) Relatively steady around 189m, gradually falling to 120m through period
• Silurian Period 443.8 – 419.2 million years ago
  O2 ca. 14 vol % (70 % of modern level)
  CO2 ca. 4500 ppm (16 times pre-industrial level)
  Temp ca. 17 °C (3 °C above modern level)
  Sea level (above present day) Around 180m, with short-term negative excursions
• Ordovician Period 485.4 – 443.8 million years ago
  Plant life begins to emerge from the oceans
  O2 ca. 13.5 vol % (68 % of modern level)
  CO2 ca. 4200 ppm (15 times pre-industrial level)
  Temp ca. 16 °C (2 °C above modern level)
  Sea level (above present day) 180 m; rising to 220 m in Caradoc and falling sharply to 140 m in end-Ordovician glaciations
• Cambrian Period 541 – 485.4 million years ago
  O2 ca. 12.5 vol % (63 % of modern level)
  CO2 ca. 4500 ppm (16 times pre-industrial level)
  Temp ca. 21 °C (7 °C above modern level)
  Sea level (above present day) Rising steadily from 30m to 90m

Proterozoic Eon 2500–541 million years ago

Neoproterozoic Era 1000 – 541 million years ago

• Ediacaran Period 635 – 541 million years ago
  O2 ca. 8 vol % (40 % of modern level)
  CO2 ca. 4500 ppm (16 times pre-industrial level)
• Cryogenian Period 720 – 635 million years ago
  Snowball Earth

Mesoproterozoic Era 1.6 – 1.0 billion years ago

Rodinia supercontinent forms

Paleoproterozoic Era 2.5 – 1.6 billion years ago

Columbia supercontinent forms

Pre-Free Oxygen (atmospheric)

Archean Eon 4.0 – 2.5 billion years ago

Neoarchean Era 2.8 – 2.5 billion years ago

Oxygenic photosynthesis first evolved
Kenorland supercontinent appears

Mesoarchean Era 3.2 – 2.8 billion years ago

Vaalbara supercontinent breaks up

Paleoarchean Era 3.6 – 3.2 billion years ago

Vaalbara supercontinent forms

Eoarchean Era 4.0 – 3.6 billion years ago

Evidence of C12 enrichment

Hadean Eon 4.6 – 4.0 billion years ago

Earth’s crust formation
Surface temperature of 230 °C (446 °F) because of the atmospheric pressure of the heavy CO2 atmosphere

O2 = Mean atmospheric O2 content over period duration
CO2 = Mean atmospheric CO2 content over period duration
Temp = Mean surface temperature over period duration

Information Age Pollution

I live in Cleveland, OH. Cleveland is the city that famously had its river catch on fire in the 1960s, which the world has never forgot about. The truth was considerably less exciting, but a reporter was there to witness a small fire in the debris that was floating around a re-fueling dock on the Cuyahoga River which caught on fire. Even though dock workers said it happened all the time and was a minor incident, the story went viral and Cleveland was forever the city with the Burning River.

These days there is no debris floating around the re-fueling dock. There isn’t even a re-fueling dock. Cleveland is Post-Industrial. That means all the industry left, and left their empty shells behind. The river is cleaner. The air is cleaner. What used to be a stinky steel refinery is now a shopping center. We made real environmental progress and the quality of the environment in Cleveland is much improved. Everyone is broke because there are no manufacturing jobs, but the quality of the environment is definitely improved.

The burning rivers, toxic skies and dead fish in our waterways were a byproduct of the Industrial Age. The pollution was everywhere. Industry chugged toxins out of smokestacks, dumped chemicals into the waterways and soil, and pretty much dumped whatever they needed to dump where ever they wanted to.

These days we have entirely different pollutants affecting our quality of life. It’s pollutants that are byproducts of an Information Age.

In an attempt to identify the pollutants, I’ve begun to list unique causes. Here is the list in progress:

• Misinformation
  • The dissemination of factual falsehoods
  • The creation of false flags
• Anonymity
  • The enabling identity
• Alarm-ism
  • The action of an activist fear-monger
• Revisionism
  • The perpetuation of historical falsehoods
• Sabotage
  • Shutting down or disabling access to information

The pollution that is invading our lives has the potential to destroy our society. It’s as serious as the Greenhouse Effect. It permeates all walks of life, turns family members and neighbors into enemies and brings government to a crippling halt. Something needs to be done about it.

It took guys like Ralph Nader, his Consumer Protection Agency, and the idea of an Environmental Protection Agency to curb Industrial Age pollution. Citizens became aware of the fact that the air they breathed and the water they drank actually could damage their health – if those things were dirty. But, those solutions were presented at a time when the news media reported with less bias, when people didn’t have instant access to six different self-serving opinions on the subject. Today you can just cherry-pick your opinion and back it up with selective fact finding. I don’t think an organization like the EPA could even be formed today – because of the pollutants from the Information Age.

Imagine that our congressional leaders and executive branch actually joined together to create an Information Clean-up Act. The Alarmists would go nuts railing against it as an attack on the First Amendment. The Mis-Informationists would Anonymously spread divisive rumors and self-serving statistics that show it is akin to Nazism or Stalin-ism. The Saboteurs would launch a DDoS attack against the Information Clean-up Act’s web presence.

How can a society regulate Intellectual Responsibility? It can’t.

I shamefully forget who it was that said the greatest evolutionary achievement that a modern man can make is to “control his thoughts”, but that is exactly what is required. Each individual needs to “control” their impulse to rush to judge, to rush to take a side, take a stand. It’s an Information Age for crying out loud! A person should be able to find enough VALID information on a subject to form an educated opinion and be knowledgeable on many different subjects. But, maybe that’s too Utopian.

Where is it going to end? When? How? There is no smokestack scrubber that can be put in place that filters out the toxins. I can’t picture a solution in my mind to this Mental Disease.