"The last time carbon dioxide levels were this high, causing the atmosphere and oceans to heat up, was about 3m years ago. Prior to about 800,000 years ago the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was never more than 300 parts per million – that rate has now sailed well beyond 400ppm.
All of this should compel urgent action, say experts.
“This is within our control. It’s a bit like if you are hitting yourself in the face with a hammer – you can choose to stop doing that.”"
@CelloMomOnCars I believe climate change is a bfd that we have to deal with BUT this article says that the CO2 levels were more like six THOUSAND ppm during the age of the dinosaurs: https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2022/09/20/you-asked-dinosaurs-survived-when-co2-was-extremely-high-why-cant-humans/
Can someone explain the discrepancy to me, please?
Our expert says: Although carbon dioxide levels have been much higher in the past, they generally increased slowly, giving plants and animals time to adapt. When the rate of climate change was staggeringly fast, like today, there were big problems.
There is no discrepancy. Dinosaurs lived 60-250 million years ago and CO2 levels where that high back then. BTW: the article you linked talks of ONE thousand ppm, not six.
The Guardian article I linked talks about times between now and only 3 million years ago.
https://earth.org/data_visualization/a-brief-history-of-co2/
@CelloMomOnCars I was taking literally "prior to about 800,000 years ago the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was never more than 300 parts per million – that rate has now sailed well beyond 400ppm".
(And later in the article I mentioned, it did say six. Yes, earlier it said one or two.)
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