Daily Archives: April 3, 2022

The pandemic’s affect on Carbon Dioxide Emission

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The pandemic brought forth by Covid-19 caused much change and hardship.  However, not every change that the world underwent in regards to the pandemic was bad.  Due to the decreased levels of travel that occurred from the pandemic, CO2 emissions fell by 5.4% in 2020.  In the United States alone, the 4.58 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide produced in 2020 was an 11% decrease from the previous year.  The decrease in the US was also due largely to the decrease in transportation seen both in the US and throughout the world.  Since the transportation sector is the biggest contributor to CO2 emissions in the US since 2016, this 11% decrease is a welcome change.   The drastically decreased amount of man-made pollution in the air appears as a positive from the outside.  However, despite the sudden 5.4% drop in CO2 emissions, the growth in atmospheric concentrations remained within the year to year variation caused by natural processes according to NASA.  This is due largely to the fact that absorb as much CO2 as it had in previous years.

The dip seen in reported levels of CO2 emissions was however temporary and the CO2 emission levels have bounced back up.  The 5.4% decrease reported during the early stages of the pandemic was still short of the necessary 7.6% yearly reduction estimated by the United Nations Environment Programme.  Even with the world at a standstill during the early months of the pandemic, the required decrease of CO2 emissions estimated to be necessary were still not met.  These decreased levels of CO2 have now rebounded due to the reopening of many sectors and the world is back on the same trajectory it had been on prior to the pandemic.

 

Works cited

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/emission-reductions-from-pandemic-had-unexpected-effects-on-atmosphere

https://www.statista.com/statistics/183943/us-carbon-dioxide-emissions-from-1999/

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00090-3

On Current CO2 Emissions

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Thinking about units, numbers, and measurement of CO2 led me to think about current CO2 emissions, and especially how much we would have to decrease them by and when. According to the Presidential Climate Action Project, “In order to stabilize CO2 concentrations at about 450 ppm by 2050, global emissions would have to decline by about 60% by 2050. Industrialized countries greenhouse gas emissions would have to decline by about 80% by 2050.”(There are a lot of really good numbers and statistics in this document, and they’re all stated very clearly, so I urge everyone to check out the link above.) Basically, to only stabilize CO2 concentrations(not even decrease them!) we would have to globally reduce CO2 emissions by 60%.  In 2020, according to the Global Carbon Project, 36.4 billion tonnes of carbon were emitted. To cut back by 60% globally, we would have to go from 36.4 billion tonnes of carbon per year to 14.56 billion tonnes of carbon per year, if my math is correct. Emissions haven’t been that low since 1970, according to the Global Carbon Project chart I previously linked. Definitely a big step to take in just 28 years!

Carbon emissions: Cap or trade

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As mentioned in other posts, carbon dioxide, an important greenhouse gas measured in ppm has been shown by NASA and other media outlets to have increased steadily measured since the beginning of the industrial revolution in 19th century. NASA’s data (AIRS 2002-2016 times series) displays that in 2005 CO2 emissions were at a level of approximately 375 ppm, and comparing that to the last measure in that set in 2016 CO2 emissions dramatically rose to 425 ppm in mid-tropospheric calculations. Most recently NASA’s GEOS team during the 2020 COVID pandemic tracked a significant decrease in overall CO2 emissions especially during February through about April (13% decrease) and then an uptick in CO2 emissions restarting in the summer months (3% decrease) when people again became mobile. Although changes like these produce positive externalities for the environment, their short term effects shouldn’t be overstated since according to Jessica Merzdorf Evans at NASA’s Goddard space flight center, CO2 can last “for up to a century after it is released.” Luckily, technology for recording disturbances to the CO2 cycles (positive and negative in the economic senses of the word) is becoming more sensitive to every CO2 change from detecting the  effects of ‘isolated’ wild fires in California to a global shutdown to carbon emitting cars, not only that but models like AIRS and OCO-2 are putting these seemingly isolated incidents in conversation with one another both in the macro, micro and mini senses of time and space.
While in the short term, it may be humanly impractical to pause the entire global economy one solution that may help reduce carbon emissions is by playing a balancing game with carbon credits. These credits represent one ton of carbon emissions to be ‘removed’ from the atmosphere. Economically, an oversimplified example might look like the following: gardener Riley plants enough plants to take in 2 tons of carbon dioxide per year, which means a factory owner producing 3 tons of carbon per year can purchase Riley’s positive externality of 2 less tons of carbon per year leaving the factory owner responsible for 1 ton of carbon per year in the atmosphere rather than the original 3 tons. Additionally, because Riley now has saved 2 more tons of carbon emissions yearly they might be able to use those credits to plow their land with a tractor emitting 1 ton a year at no additional cost to Riley the gardener. While this innovation is not perfect since carbon credits only work to offset a more significant negative externality, it would seem as if more green projects which work to localize green production would go a long way in the short term to increase the positive externalities to the environment and in the long term for ourselves.

links utilized:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna3228
scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/how-climate-works/carbon-dioxide

jpl.nasa.gov/news/emission-reductions-from-pandemic-had-unexpected-effects-on-atmosphere

climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/

scitechdaily.com/nasa-makes-first-of-it’s-kind-detection-of-reduced-human-CO2-emissions/

 

Carbon Dioxide and its effects on Coral Reefs

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Carbon Dioxide is a powerful greenhouse gas that has been at the center of political discussions surrounding Climate Change. As humans release more CO2 into the atmosphere, the “Greenhouse Effect” causes the earth’s temperature to rise, having devastating consequences for life on earth. While much of the CO2 stays in the atmosphere, a huge amount of the gas is absorbed into our oceans. This has terrible consequences for life on the seas. Coral Reefs have taken the brunt of this damage. Coral Reefs are dying at an increasing rate. This is a major problem because “Coral reefs specifically contribute to more than half of the oxygen our planet relies on, and these are vanishing at an unprecedented rate” (Gannon). This will have terrible consequences for other forms of life, as well as for humans. Unbelievably, “Over 2,838,240 acres of coral reef are lost every year, totaling an area 10x the size of New York City” (Gannon). This is a terrifying figure. Regardless of whether people want to admit that this is going to have terrible consequences for humans, it will. Human beings need to come to the realization that as a global community, we need to figure out a way to reduce the amount of CO2 being released into the atmosphere.

 

Works Cited:

https://reefrevive.org/reefcrisis?gclid=CjwKCAjwi6WSBhA-EiwA6Niok3YkXou-JfFjIx84rGg6gZneWHDNWg3uVi8sPbKLgT9G9IlEY3fyBxoCjMkQAvD_BwE

 

 

Carbon dioxide’s impact on climate change

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Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that contributes greatly to the Earth’s temperature to rise, therefore heavily impacting climate change. Carbon dioxide is also known to react with water molecules which fluctuates the ocean’s pH level. The drop in pHI in the oceans, known as ocean acidification, has lowered from 8.21 to 8.10 since the Industrial Revolution. This is a significant change because a change of o:1 in pH indicates a 30% increase in acidity of the oceans. Another impact carbon dioxide has on the climate is through atmospheric carbon levels. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were estimated to be 412.5 parts per million in 2020. The global atmospheric carbon dioxide level has increased by 12% over the past 20 years. The present day levels of carbon dioxide are higher than they have been in 3 million years when conditions were hugely different in terms of the sea level and the regular temperature of the globe. The reason that the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are so high today is due to the burning of fossil fuels that are returning carbon to the atmosphere at a higher rate that makes it increasingly difficult for the atmosphere to remove all of the carbon through its natural processes alone. This amount of carbon dioxide warms the Earth and contributes to other greater factors that are putting the Earth at risk. Atmospheric carbon dioxide may exceed goo parts per million by the end of this century if global energy demands continue at the rate they are going at or even increase.

Works Cited:

https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide

Climate Change Due to Increase of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

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Carbon dioxide (measured in parts per million or ppm) is a greenhouse gas that impacts the heat regulation of the Earth, impacting the climate change that we see today. The increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide is specifically responsible for about two thirds of the Earth’s rising temperatures and energy imbalance, contributing to the change in global climate patterns also known as climate change. Certain human activities like driving a car emit carbon dioxide. Additionally the usage of fossil fuels emits large amounts of carbon dioxide into the air which traps heat in the atmosphere, causing global warming. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic decreasing people’s activity (especially during the heights of the pandemic where many people were not traveling by plane or car) and the economic slowdown, the global level of carbon dioxide hit a new record high in 2020 of 412.5 parts per million (ppm). Another concerning point is that humans are adding a lot more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than is naturally produced and can be accommodated for. The global growth rate or atmospheric carbon dioxide is now 2.3 ppm per year and is about 100 times faster than previous historical natural increases in carbon dioxide. According to these measurements, the human impact on the plant and the excessive amounts of carbon dioxide emissions are impacting climate change and the overall temperature and well being of Earth. There are ways for us to decrease carbon dioxide emissions such as carpooling, decreasing leisure flight usage and doing simple things such as turning off the lights. 13% of the greenhouse gas production (including carbon dioxide emissions) in the Unites States are from the production and transportation of food. So it is also important to eat local and organic food to help decrease the excessive carbon dioxide production. According to these articles, the production of carbon dioxide is rapidly increasing, but there are simple ways that we can all help decrease our carbon footprint (the total amount of greenhouse gases we produce from our actions) and help global climate change.

 

Citations:

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide

https://cotap.org/reduce-carbon-emissions/