My younger daughter, 11, has been learning about the climate crisis at school for several years now. I’m grateful we live in a state and attend a school where teaching the science behind global warming is still considered essential. Of course she is also learning in real time too: wildfires, extreme heat, endless air quality alerts. We’re all living through it. She hears the words “carbon” and “carbon dioxide” thrown around a lot in relation to climate change. So she asked me what carbon means, why people keep mentioning it, and how it’s related to what trees do.
(Short digression: Is it just me or are children always learning about photosynthesis no matter what grade they’re in? It’s for sure at least a lesson a year on how mighty trees pull carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into oxygen.)
“So carbon is good, right?” she asked.
There’s something about kids and their questions. They cut right to it. Frequently, my kids ask me something that seems simple and I’m momentarily confused. Or maybe it’s shame; I feel I should have a quick and simple answer for any question. But when it comes to carbon, I didn’t. I wanted to broaden her question and offer a wider response than just good or bad. I wanted to explain the relationship between carbon pollution and the climate crisis—but not be confusing.
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So I turned to our latest resource, Carbon Dioxide 101, to help me frame my response. I started with the basics:
- Carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution causes climate warming and dangerous health impacts.
- The burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas over the last century has increased the concentration of carbon pollution in the atmosphere.
- This combustion mixes with oxygen in the air to form CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
- This added CO2 has heated the earth, causing the climate disruption we are experiencing today.
So far so good. Next, she wanted to know if carbon pollution was new, or if it has always been happening. I described that greenhouse gases, including CO2, have always trapped heat in our atmosphere—like a blanket. But extra pollution from industry, farming, and deforestation, or removing trees from large areas of land, have altered the balance of greenhouse gases that has allowed human civilization to thrive for thousands of years. Because of this carbon pollution, the atmosphere now traps too much heat and our planet cannot properly cool off.
Humans are a big part of the problem, which makes sense even to a sixth grader. While the earth’s climate has gone through natural cycles of warming and cooling over millions of years, human civilization has only spanned the last 10,000 years. During this period, the climate was relatively stable until the Industrial Revolution. CO2 levels in the air are now higher than ever in the last 800,000 years. And each year that passes, human activities release more CO2 into the air than natural processes can remove.
With that, I had answered her question. Her interest fizzled before I could share information about the link between increased carbon dioxide and extreme weather. She also wasn’t hugely interested in learning about sources of CO2. Apparently, 11-year-olds (or mine, anyway) assume transportation is more of an issue than burning fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, petroleum) for energy use. I guess cars are more visible? Agriculture didn’t quite register on her radar as something that increases CO2 in the atmosphere, but deforestation as a source of CO2 made sense to her. All of that teaching about photosynthesis makes kids love trees and understand their worth. I love that.
I didn’t go into the health impacts of CO2, though our latest resource explains that while it’s not harmful in and of itself, its unchecked release into the atmosphere causes climate heating, which worsens air quality, increases heat-related illnesses and death, and exacerbates all climate-related health concerns.
We did talk about carbon pollution being an environmental justice concern. Some communities bear an unfair burden of extreme weather caused by carbon pollution. For example, places across the United States with large Black populations have higher temperatures on average; they are also more likely to have a lot of air pollution, less access to green spaces like parks, and nowhere to cool off. And power plants that burn the fossil fuels responsible for carbon pollution are more often located near low-income communities and communities of color.
Cutting CO2 emissions is essential to fighting climate change and safeguarding the health and future of our children. There are many ways to reduce CO2. I feel strongly it should not be up to my daughter and her friends to fix a problem she certainly didn’t create. But they have inherited it and all its wide-ranging impacts. Talking about the climate crisis always makes her feel anxious, so I reassured her that there are many people working in climate jobs across all professional sectors—from scientists to politicians to engineers to writers, like me, all doing their part to push for solutions to combat carbon pollution.
Tell Congress: Commit to Climate Investments and Clean Air Progress