With experts warning that the global climate crisis is becoming more and more dire, scientists and environmental activists say they are turning to the public to help effect change before it's too late.
The planet is emitting nine gigatons of carbon every year, and that amount increases annually, Jason Smerdon, a climate scientists for Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, told ABC News. By other estimates, the amount could be more than 30 gigatons a year. Read More
Note: The estimates for carbon emissions in the above article are different because of different unit choices, not because of differences in the estimates. For instance, Smerdon is quoted as saying that humans emit ~9 GT of C per year, which is 9*3.667 or ~33 GT of CO2 equivalent emissions. 9 GT C per yer is therefore equal to the 33 GT of CO2 equivalent emissions per year that is reported in provided link to "other estimates."
Note 2: Just for fun, consider the following description of a GT provided in the Chapter 7 Back-of-the-Envelope calculation from Mathez and Smerdon: A gigaton (Gt) is 1015 grams, or 1 billion metric tons, which is hard to imagine. To put it in perspective, consider that a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, the largest warship ever built, weighs a measly 88,000 metric tons under full load. A single gigaton would therefore amount to about 11,364 of these warships! If you prefer an example from land, the Great Pyramid of Giza is estimated to weigh about 5.9 million metric tons, requiring 170 such pyramids to equal just 1 gigaton. In either case, these quantities put into perspective the massiveness of a single gigaton...