Blog Post < Previous | Next >
NASA
CO2 Emissions: We control our own destiny
In November of this year, representatives from countries around the world gathered in Egypt for the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (“COP 27”) to address the global challenges of climate action and negotiate agreements to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions. Their progress was generally more of the same as in other years: lots of bold talk and concern, but little substantive action.
It’s no longer a secret that we are losing our battle to stop dramatic climate consequences in our future.
The illustration, below, provided by Elements is based on data from the Global Carbon Project. It shows levels of global fossil fuel carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from 1900 to 2020. It is astonishing in several ways.
Faced with this data, the logical response is to be concerned by the dramatic increases in greenhouse gas emissions since 1900 and particularly since 2000. But the chart also shows just how much impact our activity has on the amount of greenhouse gases (“GHGs”) we are spewing into the atmosphere, annually. What is even more interesting is the rates of change in the levels from year to year. It is surprisingly unsteady to the point that the past 10 years look like a roller coaster.
It’s obvious that the level of GHG emissions that are driving climate change is directly tied to our socioeconomic conditions. The good news is this means we control our destiny. Unfortunately, it's also clearly showing us that all of our real success in reducing greenhouse gases had been completely accidental because it generally coincides with wars, depressions, pandemics, and financial crises. Since intentionally having a dysfunctional world is not a viable strategy to reduce GHGs from increasing, it means we haven’t yet cracked the code in addressing this shared, existential challenge through real changes in how we live.
And I’m not talking about the superficial things that fill our headlines about electric cars and walkable cities and riding bicycles or other simplistic things that are proposed to win political brownie points. I’m talking about doing the heavy lifting that involves changing how and where we work and the means and methods of global manufacturing, resource extraction, energy systems and delivery, international and industrial transportation, farming and agriculture, GHG sequestration, waste treatment and recycling and reuse, and how and what we construct our built environment. (Hard data shows that continuing to build using traditional designs, materials, and methods results in a dramatic net increase in GHGs over the lifecycle of our buildings.)
As shown by the chart, above, these facts are not to be taken lightly if we want to have any chance of keeping cities like Miami, Florida (or even 25% of the state of Florida) or Downtown Manhattan in New York City above sea level in the coming decades. And even if we stopped all of our GHG emissions tomorrow, climate change will still be driven by the cumulative global emissions that have already been released into our atmosphere and will continue to impact our climate for thousands of years.
Addressing all this will take enormous investments in science, technology, adaptive reuse, education and jobs training, and much more to lower GHG emissions and our overall environmental degradation impacts we're having on our planet.
Food for thought.
Bob Silvestri is a Marin County resident, the Editor of the Marin Post, and the founder and president of Community Venture Partners, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community organization funded by individuals and nonprofit donors. Please consider DONATING TO THE MARIN POST AND CVP to enable us to continue to work on behalf of California residents.