Current Event #10: “Plunge in carbon emissions from lockdowns will not slow climate change”
Olivia Cevasco
Mr. Ippolito
AP Biology - C Even
7 January, 2021
Borunda, Alejandra. “Plunge in Carbon Emissions from Lockdowns Will Not Slow Climate Change.” Science, 20 May 2020, www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/plunge-in-carbon-emissions-lockdowns-will-not-slow-climate-change/.
The article “Plunge in Carbon Emissions from Lockdowns Will Not Slow Climate Change” suggests that although carbon emissions decreased during the Coronavirus pandemic due to worldwide lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, the overall impact on the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere was minute. In 2020, transportation by car dropped 50%, aviation travel dropped 75%, yet carbon dioxide emissions dropped only by 10% (about 2.6 billion tons of CO2), bringing us back to 2006 carbon dioxide levels. Carbon dioxide lingers in the atmosphere from 300 to 1,000 years, so slightly reducing carbon dioxide emission in one year will result only in small changes and our emissions continue to accumulate. Borunda provides an excellent image to explain this concept:
“Think of the atmosphere as a bathtub. Human-driven CO2 emissions are like the water coming out of the tap. The ocean and land, which absorb or use up some of that CO2, are the drain—but even when they’re wide open, they can only let out half the water that comes in. When a momentous event like this pandemic happens to push CO2 emissions down, it’s as if the bath’s tap has been shut by 17 percent. But over 80 percent of the water is still gushing into the tub, so the water level in the tub will still rise.”
Because of the continual rising, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration reached the highest level recorded in human history in May at 418 parts per million.
While life has changed drastically because of the Coronavirus pandemic and individuals have reduced their carbon dioxide emissions by not driving cars, the drop in carbon dioxide emissions last year will likely become erased when the vaccine enables people to return to work and carbon dioxide emissions increase. So while a lockdown seemed like the temporary solution to reducing the atmospheric CO2 concentration, this method wasn’t sustainable. According to Borunda, “We’re still spitting out more than 80 percent as much CO2 as normal, even when life feels devastatingly different.” In order to actually change our global CO2 emissions, Richard Betts, a British scientist, notes that “it’s not about going back to the way things were, but to a better way.” Decreasing the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will require innovation that we can sustain over the course of many years, such as the use of bio-plastics, biofuel, wind energy, and solar cells.
I decided to review this article because I was interested in how our COVID-lifestyles affected the atmospheric CO2 concentration. This article’s main strength is its abundance of statistical data to explain and support Borunda’s idea that 2020’s lifestyle changes had an infinitesimal impact on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. Her writing is clear and she provided imagery to explain a confusing concept to distinguish the difference between CO2 emission and the cumulative concentration. To improve Borunda’s already excellent article, I’d suggest more graphs and other images because the textual information was dense. Overall, this article was concise and very informative.
Julia Reich
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
AP Biology C Even
1/7/20
Borunda, Alejandra. “Plunge in Carbon Emissions from Lockdowns Will Not Slow Climate
Change.” Science, 20 May 2020, www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/plunge-in-carbon-emissions-lockdowns-will-not-slow-climate-change/.
Link to Olivia’s review https://bronxvilleapbiology.blogspot.com/
Oliva’s review of the article, “Plunge in Carbon Emissions from Lockdowns Will Not Slow Climate Change” was overall very interesting and well written. One aspect she did particularly well was explaining the relatively complicated topic in a simple way. For example, she includes a more well known example, written by Alejandra Borunda, to explain why only slightly reducing carbon dioxide emissions in one year will result in small changes and emissions to continue to accumulate. A second aspect she did well was utilizing data and numbers from her article and weaving them into her review. When she includes numbers, including the fact that carbon dioxide emissions dropped only by 10% while transportation by car dropped 50% and aviation travel 75%, she puts the earth’s situation into perspective for her audience. Third, Olivia furthered Borunda’s opinion on the topic and included her own thoughts. Olivia added that a lockdown was only a temporary solution to reducing the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, something that may not have been found in her article.
While Olivia’s article was nearly perfect, there are a couple aspects she could improve on. The first is to elaborate more on a few points she made. For example, she writes that the use of bio-plastics, biofuel, wind energy, and solar cells are types of innovations that can sustain the decrease of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. Olivia could do further research to see what types of innovations are being used by certain companies. Secondly, Olivia’s review had a few run on sentences that didn’t make total sense. She could easily fix this by rereading her work out loud to catch silly mistakes. Overall, however, her review was nearly perfect and interesting to read.
I chose to read Olivia’s review because her topic on carbon emissions is a current issue that will impact the rest of my life. I have read other articles and heard about carbon emissions dropping due to quarantine, which at first seemed like a great feat; however, after reading Olivia’s article, I now realize that the decrease in emissions is not enough to help slow global warming and the inevitable melting of icebergs. The rate at which the emissions are going down due to a lack of transportation is nowhere close to the rate at which we produce carbon dioxide. I will try and be more environmentally safe from now on and do my best to reuse and recycle.