Looks like it’s time to double down on our game plan to save the planet!
According to a study, the Earth’s carbon dioxide (CO2) levels have reached their highest point in three million years. Currently, the CO2 concentration level on Earth is at 410ppm, an amount which hasn’t been seen since the Pliocene epoch 2-5 million years ago. Carbon dioxide is one of the biggest causes of global warming, says scientists, and the main reason for this alarming rise is human activities.
“It seems we’re now pushing our home planet beyond any climatic conditions experienced during the entire current geological period, the Quaternary, a period that started almost 3 million years ago and saw human civilization beginning only 11,000 years ago,” says German-based Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research scientist Matteo Willeit, the lead author of the study. “So, the modern climate change we see is big, really big; even by standards of Earth history.”
The study says that if this number continues to grow, the water level of the Earth’s oceans will rise by 1-2 meters in the next 200 years. This number was taken from the results of a simulation that used a combination of past ocean floor sediments and ice volume data. Due to the increasing levels of CO2, the water level is actually 65 meters higher now than it was then.
