Counting Carbon:
Understanding Carbon Footprints of Buildings

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Historically the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere hovered just under 300 parts per million (ppm), but it’s now approaching 400 ppm. CO₂ is not the most powerful of the greenhouse gases on a per-molecule basis—not by a long shot—but it is by far the most common and most significant of those generated by humans. Various targets have been proposed as acceptable levels of CO₂, most famously 450 ppm, above which the resultant temperature rise would likely cause extreme disruption to Earth’s ecological and social systems. Many policy initiatives give lip service to this goal, but current actions are inadequate to reach it. Based on more recent scientific findings, author Bill McKibben has launched a campaign to reset that target at 350 ppm, a point we passed in 1988. That’s a much more ambitious goal, but one that, if achieved, would more likely lead to a future climate that resembles our own.

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