Carbon dioxide toxicity and climate change: a serious unapprehended risk
Abstract:<p>&gt; &quot;As atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide continue to escalate and drive climate change, the issue of CO2 toxicity is not recognised as a global risk. The toxicity of CO2 for breathing has been well defined for high concentrations but it remains effectively unknown what level will compromise human health when individuals are perpetually exposed for their lifetime. There is evidence from the few studies of long-term low-level exposure that permanent exposure, to CO2 levels predicted by the end of the century, will have significant effects on humans. Other studies of slightly higher CO2 levels may offer clues to effects that may occur when humans experience lifelong exposure. Unhealthy blood CO2 concentrations have been measured from people in common office environments where reduced thinking ability and health symptoms have been observed at levels of CO2 above 600 ppm for relatively short-term exposures. Although humans and animals are able to deal with elevated levels of CO2 in the short-term due to various compensation mechanisms in the body, the persistent effects of these mechanisms may have severe consequences in a perpetual environment of elevated CO2. These include threats to life such as kidney failure, bone atrophy and loss of brain function. Existing research also indicates that as ambient CO2 increases in the near-future, there will be an associated increase in cancers, neurological disorders and other conditions. Research is urgently required to clearly identify the severity and proximity of this risk, associated with the primary human function of breathing, being a potential major aspect of climate change.&quot;<p>---<p>Every day, I grow more and more convinced that we are just <i>utterly</i> screwed. Global warming (I am starting to favor the Stallmanism &quot;global heating&quot;) has us fucked left, right, and sideways. And the leaders of the world do little about it.<p>It&#x27;s already too late to reverse course, hasn&#x27;t been possible for a while. Even then, mitigation isn&#x27;t coming, not fast enough. There is not enough political will, and a magic carbon-<i>reducing</i> invention is... unlikely (if unpredictable).<p>From whence cometh hope? (Because I&#x27;m almost out of it.)