Climate change has been a hot-button topic for a while now, but it has been generating a lot of buzz as of late. Although there are obviously other numbers that can be pulled from myriad outlets about how we are quickly falling into global warming, below are five of the most shocking. When all are put together on one page, it’s astounding how much more urgent the need for political and social action to combat climate change becomes.
High-polluting states will have to green their practices.
Image: Guy Gorek / Flickr
0.01%: the number of working climate scientists who reject man-made global warming. Of the 9,136 scientists in a research study by geologist James Lawrence Powell, only one person rejected the idea that humans are changing Earth’s climate.
800,000 to 15,000,000: the number of years it’s been since carbon dioxide levels were as high as they currently are. This is before humans even existed and the oceans were 100 feet higher than they are today.
142%: the percentage at which atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen since the Industrial Revolution. Not only has carbon dioxide risen, but the concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide are up 253 percent and 121 percent from pre-Industrial respectively.
19.6: the number of pounds of carbon dioxide that are produced by burning just one gallon of gasoline. The US Energy Information Administration has estimated that gasoline and diesel-fueled transportation added 1,522 million metric tons of carbon to the environment in just 2013.
400,000: the estimated number of deaths each year due to climate change factors. These factors tend to be hitting children the hardest. A group of doctors estimated that up to 7 million people could face premature death as a result of pollution. The numbers come from a 2012 report by Dara, with deaths due to “hunger and communicative diseases.”
These shocking figures are just the tip of the iceberg. For more information about climage change, visit www.dosomething.org.