To understand why carbon removal is essential, we first need to understand what carbon actually is – and where it belongs.
Carbon is the building block of all life on Earth. Every living organism – from the smallest bacteria to the largest trees, from ocean plankton to humans – is built from carbon. It’s in our DNA, our proteins, our bones, and every cell in our bodies. Without carbon, life as we know it wouldn’t exist.
Carbon isn’t harmful. Carbon isn’t the problem. The issue is simply that carbon has ended up in the wrong place.
For millennia, carbon has cycled naturally between the atmosphere, oceans, soil, and living organisms in a balanced system. What we’ve done through burning fossil fuels is take carbon that was stored underground for millions of years and rapidly release it into the atmosphere.
Our atmosphere currently contains approximately 420 parts per million (ppm) of CO₂ compared to pre-industrial levels of around 280 ppm. The acceleration of carbon levels has been dramatic:
The critical safe threshold, identified by climate scientists, is 350 ppm. But we passed that point permanently in the late 1980s. In less than 40 years since crossing that threshold, we’ve added another 70 ppm on top – an unprecedented rate of change.
To understand how extraordinary our current situation is, we need to look back – way back.
The last time CO₂ levels were consistently at 420 ppm was approximately 14 million years ago during the Miocene epoch, long before modern humans existed. At that time:
Modern humans (Homo sapiens) emerged only around 300,000 years ago, when CO₂ levels were stable at 270-280 ppm. Our entire civilization – agriculture, cities, writing, everything we consider “human history” – developed during the remarkably stable climate of the last 10,000 years, with CO₂ never exceeding 280 ppm.
Until now.
Want to see what CO₂ levels were when you were born? Visit: Carbon Levels by Birth Year Calculator
Carbon removal isn’t about eliminating carbon – it’s about correcting the displacement. We’re returning carbon to where it can be safely stored back in the ground, in soils, in forests, and in geological formations where it was stable for millions of years.
Think of it as a restoration project. We’ve accidentally moved carbon from underground storage into the atmosphere. Now we need to put it back, restoring the natural balance that allowed human civilization to flourish.
It’s also worth noting that while CO₂ is the primary greenhouse gas we focus on, other gases like methane and nitrous oxide also contribute to warming. However, CO₂ is the largest contributor and remains in the atmosphere for centuries, which is why removal technologies primarily target it – we’re quite literally putting the displaced carbon back where it came from.
Next in the series: Discover why 350 ppm is the magic number for climate stability – and where Carbon 350 gets its name.
