Carbon dioxide levels have reached a record high, measuring over 410 parts per million in April according to reports from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. This is the highest level we have seen carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere in recorded history.

Scientists can estimate the CO2 levels in the atmosphere for the last 800,000 years, and in that time the average CO2 level has fluctuated between about 170 parts per million and 280 parts per million. Once humans began to burn fossil fuels, we saw CO2 levels jump to above 300 parts per million. In 2013, atmospheric CO2 levels reached 400 parts per million and continued to climb.

Taking the 800,000 years for which we have history, the average increase in CO2 levels was only about 35 parts per million over 1,000 years. Due to the increase in the CO2 we are pumping into the air, the current average is more than 2 parts per million each year. With such a drastic jump in CO2 levels, we could reach 500 parts per million by the year 2073.

Humans have been emitting CO2 into the atmosphere on a mass scale since the start of the Industrial Era. While carbon is a natural byproduct that is released from decomposition, ocean release and plant and animal respiration, atmospheric levels of CO2 remain at a somewhat neutral level with these occurrences alone. However, human interference has caused the atmosphere to spike with carbon.

Naturally-occurring carbon gets removed from the air by carbon-absorbing sinks, like oceans and plants. These natural sinks are only strong enough to balance out the CO2 levels in the atmosphere that occur from natural sources, and human-made pollution is not something they can remove because of the excess it creates.

The burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas is a very large contributing factor to CO2 emissions and makes up 87 percent of emissions caused by humans. In 2011, fossil fuels added 33.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere.

Fossil fuels are used in the production of electricity and heat, the transportation of people and goods, and the industrial sector. The generation of electricity and heat emits the highest level of CO2 out of any of the fossil fuel related economic sectors. In 2010, electricity and heat generation produced 41 percent of the CO2 that was emitted due to the burning of fossil fuels.

The primary users of this energy are the industrial, residential and commercial sectors. Industrial processes take up the bulk of this energy, using it to create cement, chemicals, steel and other materials.

In 2010, transportation accounted for about 22 percent of carbon emissions related to fossil fuels. All travel that is done by road, marine shipping and global aviation make up the transportation sector. This sector uses petroleum-based fossil fuels, like gasoline and diesel, for its energy.

CO2 emissions due to the transportation sector have grown steadily since the 1990s, and in 20 years they have increased by 45 percent.

Manufacturing and industrial processes created about 20 percent of CO2 emissions that were due to the burning of fossil fuels in 2010. Cement manufacturing produces the highest amount of carbon out of all the industrial processes, as the production of the material requires that limestone is heated to 1450 degrees Celsius. This process actively burns carbon into the atmosphere.

Deforestation accounts for 9 percent of human-made carbon dioxide emissions and it produced 3.3 billion metric tons of CO2 emissions in 2011. Removing trees can release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere depending on the method used, but deforestation also removes a critical natural sink for the reabsorption of CO2.

In addition, the soil balance changes when trees are removed from the land, and this causes even more carbon to be released. Soil erosion removes nutrients and further impacts the land’s ability to act as a carbon sink.

Increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere have a severely negative impact on human health. Overall, air pollution causes the deaths of 9 million people every year. As levels of CO2 continue to rise, health conditions caused by air pollution and corresponding global temperature increases will only get more extreme.

A study done in 2008 found that air pollution will cause the deaths of an additional 22,000 people for every degree Celsius that global temperature rises.

Scientists predict that deaths due to respiratory illness, emphysema and asthma will increase as CO2 levels do. Natural disasters will become more prevalent as well, with the increase in air pollution and global temperature causing superstorms, heat waves and rising sea levels.

Humans have never had to endure such drastic CO2 levels and air pollution as they do now, and with the future indications of only more CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere, a change needs to happen.

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