According to the latest analysis, atmospheric CO2 levels have officially exceeded 400 parts per million (ppm), and there is little hope for them to come back to safety values.

Why is 400 ppm an important number? Simply because safe atmospheric CO2 values ??are considered to be equal to or below 350 ppm, and the last time the Earth had such high values ??dates back to about 4 million years ago. This means that man (and the rest of current living species) has never had to deal with similar levels of CO2.

At the appearance of civilization, atmospheric CO2 was about 275 ppm.   From what we began in 1850 to burn coal, natural gas, and oil, we arrived in only 150 years at 400 ppm. We are taking huge amounts of carbon through fossil fuels that have accumulated in millions of years. And we're releasing them in the atmosphere in a very short time, as this NASA's shocking chart shows.



These human activities have made the planet warm up at a rate 10 times greater than what we would expect from a normal interglacial period; From 1850 to today we have increased the temperature of 1 ° C, which despite it may seem small, is already having serious consequences on the environment.

The glaciers are melting too fast, threatening the aquatic reserves of millions of people. Mosquitoes, who love hot climates, are spreading to new environments, bringing malaria and other diseases to them. Other problems are periods of drought, more acidic oceans that become invisible for many species of fish, and rising sea levels (if the situation does not change, at the end of the century many coastal towns, including Venice, will inevitably be submerged, water).

The level reached 400 ppm, says researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, is expected to remain unchanged or even increase.

"If for some miraculous reason we stopped producing CO2 today, it would take decades to come back below 400 ppm, and we all know that this will not happen. The best scenario we face is that these values ??remain stable, and if the emissions fall, they would start to shrink in a decade. In my opinion, we will never have one month below 400 ppm, "said Gavin Schmidt, climatologist at NASA.

To avoid disaster, agreements are being made between states. On 3 September 2016, China and the United States (the world's largest emission-generator) signed a commitment to reduce emissions in Paris, with a rise in temperatures no greater than 2 ° C by 2100.

However, only this year we have recorded so many temperature records that such an engagement seems to be difficult to maintain (July and August 2016 have been the hottest months ever recorded by humans).

Less optimistic estimates say that by 2030 we will have produced so much CO2 to ensure a 2 ° C increase well before the 2100s desired by the Paris Pact. According to some, there will be an increase of 9 ° C by 2100, corresponding to 560 ppm of CO2: an apocalyptic scenario with natural disasters, less food, submerged cities, and collapse of the world economy.

All this, of course, can be avoided. The US could be fully fueled by a large wind farm such as Rhode Island, Indonesia from thermal energy, and potentially a mix of renewable and nuclear power could guarantee the self-sufficiency of most states. Something is moving, but of course it is very difficult to convert a fossil-based energy structure for more than 100 years.

We hope that the nation's commitment will be real, otherwise for the next generations, the situation could become really serious (and settling on Mars with Elon Musk would be the last resort).

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