The World Resources Institute’s CAIT is an incredible suite of tools that supplies one of the most reliable sources of climate data on the planet. Recently they updated what I consider to be one of the most concise, interactive infographs I’ve seen to date: the top 10 Greenhouse Gas Emitters and their sources.
It provides an excellent insight into what nations and industries are contributing to the 40%+ increase of concentration of greenhouse gases humanity has caused that continues to rise and wreak havoc on the planet’s atmosphere since the industrial revolution.
Most of these gases come from oil, coal, wood, and natural gas (this is still man-made, including gases such as Methane that are reaching horrifying highs thanks to the demand of beef– the 1.5 billion cows awaiting slaughter each belch and fart out the equivalent amount of methane as a car per day).
There are some startling trends to notice here, one of which is that 6 of the 10 countries that are emitting 75% of the worlds greenhouse gases are actually poorer countries, largely China, whose attempts at westernizing mimic America’s industrial revolution, which was arguably the starting point of the climate issues we’re experiencing now.
A recent publication in Nature predicts that, if the rate of increase continues as is, we can expect to see historically unprecedented highs as early as 2047 that will have major impacts on ecosystems, biodiversity, and the livelihoods of people all around the planet( for America at least, this looks a lot like hurricanes and floods on the east coast, dustbowl conditions in the southwest) with particularly harmful impact upon the tropical regions of the planet.
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