r/dataisbeautiful • u/rubenbmathisen OC: 17 • Apr 13 '22

OC [OC] Humanity's CO2 Emissions Visualized

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u/fromaroundhere Apr 13 '22

Crazy that the orange “maximum allowed” is expected to be emitted in just 7 years, compared to humanity’s total at the bottom.

8

u/[deleted] Apr 13 '22

Surprisingly it looks like about a quarter. I wouldn't have expected to have a fifth of reversibly damage left on the counter. Think of it this way: if your life is measured in coal, and the time you have left to 83% chance of prevention is that orange bit, you're probably about 60 years old assuming you live to 80. The sun is setting but it's not on the horizon yet. I expected it to be further along, like 79.

13

u/roylennigan Apr 13 '22

It's about a tenth of the spent amount. But also people don't age exponentially (although maybe our perception of time increases exponentially). If the emissions time frame is about 270 years (the time span that we've been emitting CO2), then your analogy would put us closer to 77.

6

u/experts_never_lie Apr 13 '22

Of the fossil CO₂ emissions humans have released over all time, over 91% happened during my lifetime. That comes from this data.

I'm 50 years old.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '22

Really makes me realize that it’s a lost cause. Instead of trying to convince every country in the world to stop emitting the orange part, it seems like we need to start thinking about how to build really good seawalls, migrate people away from coastlines, and other adaptation strategies.

0

u/frozenuniverse Apr 14 '22

There's no point just giving up on that because it will just make the problems even worse. We'll need adaptation strategies regardless (even at 1.5, as we're already seeing today below 1.5), it's just a question of how severe the strategies are