Created for Backyard Hacks 2021, we have created an interactive visualisation of the impacts of carbon on our planet!

Scroll through this site to learn all about the problem and what you can do to help, finding some useful tools along the way

Carbon is the most important element to living things because it can form many different kinds of bonds and form essential compounds.

Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the universe and is the building block of life on earth. On earth, carbon circulates through the land, ocean, and atmosphere, creating what is known as the Carbon Cycle. All living things contain carbon in some form, and carbon is the primary component of macromolecules, including proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and carbohydrates.

The changes in the carbon cycle impact each reservoir. Excess carbon in the atmosphere warms the planet and helps plants on land grow more. Excess carbon in the ocean makes the water more acidic, putting marine life in danger.

Global temperatures have rising by:

“Over 0.8 degrees C since 1880” (source)

"Two-thirds of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15-0.20°C per decade."

A one-degree global change is significant because it takes a vast amount of heat to warm all the oceans, atmosphere, and land by that much. In the past, a one- to two-degree drop was all it took to plunge the Earth into the Little Ice Age.

This rise in temperature isn’t all the warming we will see based on current carbon dioxide concentrations. Greenhouse warming doesn’t happen right away because the ocean soaks up heat. This means that Earth’s temperature will increase at least another 0.6 degrees Celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit) because of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere. The degree to which temperatures go up beyond that depends in part on how much more carbon humans release into the atmosphere in the future.

Though natural cycles and fluctuations have caused the earth’s climate to change several times over the last 800,000 years, our current era of global warming is directly attributable to
human activity—specifically to our burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, gasoline, and natural gas, which results in the greenhouse effect.

Humans are increasingly influencing the climate and the earth's temperature by burning fossil fuels, cutting down forests and farming livestock.

This adds enormous amounts of greenhouse gases to those naturally occurring in the atmosphere, increasing the greenhouse effect and global warming.

"2011-2020 was the warmest decade recorded, with global average temperature reaching 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels in 2019."

Natural causes, such as changes in solar radiation or volcanic activity are estimated to have contributed less than plus or minus 0.1°C to total warming between 1890 and 2010.

Burning coal, oil and gas produces carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. Fertilisers containing nitrogen produce nitrous oxide emissions. Increasing livestock farming means more cows and sheep produce large amounts of methane when they digest their food.

Changes to water resources can have a big impact on our world and our lives! Floods and droughts will become increasingly more commopn, and they will begin happening in new places. Our food supply depends on climate and weather conditions.

Certain crops will be unable to grow in places that they used to and human farm workers can suffer from heat-related health issues, like exhaustion, heatstroke, and heart attacks. Rising temperatures and heat stress can also harm livestock.

Climate change will continue to have a significant impact on ecosystems and organisms, though they are not impacted equally. The Arctic is one of the ecosystems most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, as it is warming at least twice the rate of the global average and melting land ice sheets and glaciers contribute dramatically offsite link to sea level rise around the globe.