Enough Keeling Curve for you?
What’s worse than Trump? No this isn’t a joke or a riddle. The answer isn’t “two Trumps.” (Even though that’s actually a correct answer, it’s not what I’m looking for.)
The answer is 430 ppm. Okay, I’ll stop being coy and obscure. What I mean by “430 ppm” is 430 parts per million, and it means that there are now 430 molecules of CO2 and 999,570 molecules of other gases or water vapour in the air, on average.
While that might not sound like much, climate, like baseball, is a game of inches. Small numbers of CO2 molecules can cause calamity and human suffering on a global scale never seen before.
Of course, it’s a common fallacy that all upward trends continue upward forever. For example, just because inflation is on the rise again (thanks to Trump) doesn’t mean it will continue to infinity. But in the case of climate change, increases in CO2 will continue, because we understand the mechanism that causes it.
The day I was born the planet was only 314 ppm. That was an era when 400 ppm was unthinkable, and was thought in fact by climatologists to be preposterous science fiction. Today in 2025 it’s reality, and next year that number will go up.
These measurements indicate that countries are not doing enough to limit greenhouse gas emissions and reverse the steady buildup of global warming-causing C02 buildup. It goes without saying that the Trump “administration” of goons, thugs, thieves and knuckle dragging cretins are doing nothing about climate change — in fact they’re spreading lies and taking action that’s made it much worse — and they will continue in the trend for as long as they’re in power.
For the first time in human history, indeed, the first time in tens of millions of years, the planet has reached 430 ppm. And we humans are responsible for this unprecedented disaster. “Another year, another record,” Ralph Keeling, a professor of climate sciences, marine chemistry and geochemistry at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said in a statement. “It’s sad.”
Carbon dioxide levels are usually represented on a graph known as the “Keeling Curve,” named for Keeling’s father, Charles David Keeling. In 1958, Charles Keeling began taking daily measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide atop the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. The Keeling Curve tracks back to the Industrial Revolution. It has climbed steeply ever since.
So if you’re wondering why every year is a new record for average temperatures, it’s the Keeling Curve. If you want to start a conversation about climate change — and you should, every chance you get — next time it’s a hot day, instead of saying “hot enough for you?” to a stranger at a bus stop or grocery store queue, say instead, “Enough Keeling Curve for you?”
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.