We Are F%$#ed

It turns out that the emissions creating anthropogenic climate change may not just broil us, it mayd strangle us directly as well.

Short version of this study: They collected blood test results over the past roughly 20 years, and there are increasing signs of CO2 toxicity, and the trend indicates that there may be acute health impacts from this by 2075 or so.

On the bright side, I'll be dead then.

Abstract

Anthropogenic activities are increasing the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere. There is mounting experimental evidence that lifetime exposure to these increasing atmospheric CO₂ levels can negatively impact the normal physiology of organisms. However, directly assessing this in humans is very difficult. We analysed serum bicarbonate (HCO₃⁻), calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) levels from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 1999 to 2020 as indirect proxies for atmospheric CO₂ exposure. Over this period, average bicarbonate levels in this population show an increasing trend which parallels rising atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. Both Ca and P have decreased steadily over the same period. If these trends continue, blood bicarbonate values could be at the limit of the accepted healthy range in half a century, and Ca and P will be at the limit of their healthy ranges by the end of this century. Studies indicate that, after this time, elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide, leading to CO₂ accumulation in the body, has the potential to cause a range of adverse health effects. These findings highlight the urgent need for significant reductions in anthropogenic CO₂ emissions to safeguard public health.