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Atmosphere, CO2 on my mind

Atmospheric CO2 levels are rising and this will hurt our health and intelligence.

Have you ever been in a room where the air gets heavy – like a classroom?

At first, it becomes challenging to concentrate, and drowsiness slowly sets in. Then, a headache appears, and you might even have a hard time breathing. What a relief when a window is opened or you step outside and get fresh air!

Increased levels of CO2 in the air that we breathe are the cause of these effects. Climate change means that there will be no escape from these conditions for our children, not even in fresh, outdoor air.

During human evolution, CO2 levels have never been as high as today. Historic mass extinction events occur at times with drastic changes in the composition of the air that we breathe. What will the consequences be for life on earth due to the current changes?

“Atmosphere, CO2 on my mind” will give you a sound basis for understanding the health implications of rising CO2 levels on the human body, what role CO2 played during the evolution of life on earth, and what we should do to avoid disaster.

Amosphere, CO2 on my mind
Book cover, “Atmosphere, CO2 on my mind”

You can find my book at the following retailers:

Amazon (Kindle, Hardcover, Paperback)

Barnes & Noble (Hardcover, NOOK Book)

SCRIBD

Walmart (Hardcover)

thriftbooks (Hardcover)

saxo (Hardcover)

Or on Medium (Digital):

Chapter 1 – Dinosaurs & CO₂

Chapter 2 – The evolution of CO₂ on Earth

Chapter 3 – Human Evolution & CO₂

Chapter 4 – The era of accelerated CO₂

Chapter 5 – CO₂ & Observed impacts on humans

Chapter 6 – Why does CO₂ have a profound impact on the human body?

Chapter 7 – Insufficient CO₂ Reduction Strategies

Chapter 8 – Fusion – a Moonshot project

Chapter 9 – How to phase out fossil fuels

Chapter 10 – Us vs Them, we can not fight climate change with this mindset

If you are interested in booking me as a speaker, please contact me via mail: co2brains(at)gmail(dot)com

Royal Readers!

I was honored to meet Her Majesty Queen Maxima, T.R.H. Crown Prince Frederik, and Crown Princess Mary. Both Her Majesty Queen Maxima and T.R.H. Crown Princess Mary received a copy of my book, “Atmosphere, CO2 on my mind”, and I hope they will enjoy reading it. Seldomly have I been so nervous about meeting a group of people as last week. Fortunately, it turned out that the royals were well informed and very interested in sustainability and climate change.

Her Queen Maxima and T.R.H. Crown Prince Frederik
Her Queen Maxima and T.R.H. Crown Prince Frederik
T.R.H. Crown Princess Mary
T.R:H. Crown Princess Mary with my book

CO2 is poison to our intelligence

Rising temperatures and ocean levels are bad enough. But there is also a health impact on the human body and mind.

For those who still can not see the sense of urgency, maybe such arguments can finally convince them. That was my motivation for writing a book about this subject.

In the book, you can find more than 100 references to scientific papers that document the impact of CO2 on the human body.

I feel this subject is highly relevant, and therefore, I decided to make a pdf copy available for download.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated 🙏, and you can contact me at:

co2brains (at) gmail (dot) com

Atmosphere CO2 on my mind now on Barnes & Noble

Now you can also get my book on Barnes & Noble as an e-Book:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/atmosphere-daniel-lux/1141054548?ean=9788797376218

From the Backside:

Have you ever been in a room where the air gets heavy – like a classroom?

At first, it becomes challenging to concentrate, and drowsiness slowly sets in. Then, a headache appears, and you might even have a hard time breathing. What a relief when a window is opened or you step outside and get fresh air!

Increased levels of CO2 in the air that we breathe are the cause of these effects. Climate change means that there will be no escape from these conditions for our children, not even in fresh, outdoor air.

During human evolution, CO2 levels have never been as high as today. Historic mass extinction events occur at times with drastic changes in the composition of the air that we breathe. What will the consequences be for life on earth due to the current changes?

“Atmosphere, CO2 on my mind” will give you a sound basis for understanding the health implications of rising CO2 levels on the human body, what role CO2 played during the evolution of life on earth, and what we should do to avoid disaster.

ATMOSPHERE

The book “ATMOSPHERE, CO2 on my mind” is now available on Amazon:

For Kindle, as a paperback, and as Hardcover:

The defining feature of humans is our intelligence. How does a changing composition of earth’s atmosphere directly affect the human body and mind?

Atmosphere, CO2 on my mind” uses a scientific approach, intertwined with storytelling, to explain how the changing composition of the air that we breathe affects our bodies and minds. In three parts the story is told including illustrations and references to scientific papers

To understand how life and our atmosphere are connected, we start by looking at our past. The first atmosphere of our Earth was very much like that of Mars and Venus. But life itself terraformed our planet into a habitable place for numerous lifeforms. From time to time, this change in the atmosphere causes extinctions. But the extinction events also drove evolution forward to new heights. Without change, there is no incentive to explore new radically different solutions. The same also holds for the evolution of us, homo sapiens. During our evolutionary development, which resulted in us giving ourselves the title “sapiens”, translated to “wise”, we have experienced a very stable composition of the atmospheric composition. Simplistically speaking, evolution is the process of adaptation to the environment. Can we evolutionarily adapt fast enough to the extremely rapid change in our environment caused by climate change?

To understand the task at hand, we must first understand what a changing composition of the air we breathe does to our bodies. The crews of spaceships and submarines already today experience a different mixture of the air they inhale. Scientists have documented the effects that a spacecraft and a submarine have on the passengers of these vehicles. Medical science has in great detail explained how our pulmonary system (our breathing cycle) works. We are missing the link towards the change in the air we breathe, however. What are the long-term effects of higher CO2 levels and lower O2 levels? What are the effects on infants?

It is easy to avoid catastrophe, and we just need to do the right things right. And herein lies the challenge. What are the right things? We know that we have to stop using fossil fuels. The path forward, however, is not that clear. The currently broken scheme of accounting for our emissions needs fixing. The electricity demand will increase, potentially by a factor as high as ten. Fossil fuels are not only used to produce energy. Fossil fuels are components of numerous daily live objects, such as toys, wrapping materials, detergents, perfumes, and many more. We need replacements for all the things that today require fossil fuels, and maybe mother nature can contribute?

Climate change is highly unfair. The nations that caused our calamities are not the ones feeling the most brutal impact. We cannot solve our challenges if we keep working with a “them and us” mindset. Working in collaboration with developing countries might, however, solve multiple challenges in the most efficient way. Large areas in developing countries are turning uninhabitable, and we need to change this development. Coincidentally the same regions have abundant resources in solar energy, heat, and relatively cheap labor. Developing countries are part of the solution, and if we help them, we help everyone on Earth.

Do you live under the CO2 Dome?

Many towns are in the danger zone!

Illustration of a CO2 dome

As depicted in the illustration above, we can sometimes experience conditions with highly increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. This occurs in certain weather conditions, where there is little wind combined with the lack of rain. The air is not well circulated, and thus the exchange with cleaner air does not happen. These are the same conditions that also cause what we call smog. Some towns are more in danger of such domes. Towns that are located in a valley have a higher risk of bad air, as their location acts as a bowl where air pollution can be collected. Towns where hills shield from the wind are also at risk.

Read the full article on Medium.

Does CO2 harm your body?

Many adults have experienced the effects of alcohol. But not so many have experienced the effects that CO2 has on the body, right? Wrong! Actually, most of us have been in poorly ventilated meeting rooms. First you become less and less concentrated. Then we start feeling tiredness. Some of us might even doze off. In some rare cases, the room might be so badly ventilated, that we even start getting headaches. All of these effects are related to elevated levels of CO2.

Read the full article on Medium.

Can the CO2 quota system be repaired?

Global trade has grown massively over the last 20 years. This has resulted in a de facto export of CO2 production, especially to the developing countries. This export of CO2 has resulted in constant or even decreasing CO2 production in our part of the world, while we have experienced increasing consumption of goods.

China, which is one of the world’s largest emitters of CO2, consumes only goods that make up approx. 15% of the emitted CO2. The rest is exported, mainly to the US and Europe.

There are mainly 2 problems associated with the current system. The first problem is that local producers are becoming less competitive. The local producers have to pay CO2 taxes and taxes related to the transport of goods. External suppliers can avoid much of these expenses. The other problem is that in our part of the world we are responsible for some CO2 production that we are not accounted for. The goods that are consumed by us do not appear in our CO2 accounts.

Therefore, it would make sense that imports of goods should also require CO2 quotas. This would give a more accurate picture of our CO2 consumption.

Whether you want to buy CO2 quotas when importing goods or simply canceling CO2 quotas on import of goods is an inflamed political theme. If importers were to pay for CO2 quotas, this would be seen as a trade barrier or duty. Goods would be more expensive, but the effect on the reduction of CO2 would be significantly greater and thus give a substantial positive effect on the climate. A one-sided cancellation of allowances is also possible, but would make local production even less competitive.

Whatever is chosen, a unilateral effort gives very little meaning. Co2 emissions and the consequences for our climate are a global challenge and we must work with our trading partners, both for the sake of our companies’ competitiveness and for the sake of the climate. A change could however start in the EU.

Are our politicians ready to start such a process?

Advisory board

As one of the first actions for CO2 brains we would like to assemble an advisory board of scientist, experts and other interested parties.

If you feel a calling to participate in this endeavor, please contact me: daniel[at]co2brains[dot]org .