Kyle Kramer

Let’s Not Blow the Budget

A few years back, financial analysts and scientists alike began to figure out a “global carbon budget ” we would need to stick to if we want to avoid radically overheating our planet. In other words, there’s a fixed amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide we can emit globally by 2050 Ñ at the time, it was about 565 billion tons (gigatons, or Gt) total. Currently, human activity produces about 36 Gt of carbon dioxide a year.