Carbon Dioxide: Too Many New Records

We humans are pushing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere five times faster than we were in the 1960s. We’ve reached not only a new record of 427 parts per million but also a new record in the amount of increase in one year.

Scripps Institute of Oceanography

The current concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is twice what it was prior to industrialization in the 19th century, and higher than it’s been in several million years — when sea levels were 78 feet higher than today. 

Also: a quarter of the carbon dioxide we’ve emitted in the past 175 years has been absorbed by the oceans, which are becoming more and more acidic as a result. Bye-bye, coral reefs. 

The amount of CO2 the oceans can absorb has slowed since the start of industrialization — so more of our excess CO2 is going into the atmosphere.

Meanwhile, we’ve pushed atmospheric methane to a level approaching three times what it was before the Industrial Revolution, mostly because the amount of livestock we’re farming. Rice paddies, landfills, and fossil fuel extraction also contribute.

Methane heats the air a lot faster than carbon dioxide does. It degrades in about a decade into water and — yikes! carbon dioxide. 

CO2, unfortunately, is niiiiice and stable. It hangs around for hundreds of years. If we could somehow end all emissions by 2100, it would take thousands of years for CO2 to drop to its pre-industrial level.

Y’all, I’m nervous. Every day, I choose hope that we can manage as a human family to reduce consumption, transition to renewable fuels, and make peace. But despair over the world we are leaving the coming generations is never far from my mind.