Increased levels of CO2 may directly harm our ability to think and plan ahead
Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations can significantly reduce our basic decision-making ability and complex strategic thinking, according to a new study led by a team at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), US. The study also found that people could be exposed to indoor CO2 levels up to 1400 parts per million (ppm) – more than three times today’s outdoor levels – by the end of the century.
When we breathe air with high CO2 levels, the CO2 levels in our blood rises, reducing the amount of oxygen that reaches our brains; which, in turn, causes sleepiness, anxiety and impairs cognitive function.Generally, CO2 concentrations are higher indoors than outdoors, and outdoor CO2 in urban areas is higher than in pristine locations. The CO2 concentrations in buildings are a result of both the gas that is in equilibrium with the outdoors and the gas generated by building occupants as they exhale.
“It’s amazing how high CO2 levels get in enclosed spaces,” said Kris Karnauskas, an Associate professor at CU Boulder. Karnauskas and his colleagues developed a comprehensive model of the relationship between indoor and outdoor CO2 levels and its impact on human cognition. They found that if the outdoor CO2 concentrations rose to 930 ppm, the indoor concentrations would similarly rise to a harmful level of 1400 ppm.In fact, at 1400 ppm, CO2 concentrations may cut our basic decision-making ability by 25% and complex strategic thinking and planning by around a surprising 50%.
“It appears that high level cognitive domains are especially susceptible to increasing CO2 concentrations,” said Anna Schapiro, Assistant professor of psychology at the neighbouring University of Pennsylvania, who contributed to the study.
Atmospheric CO2 levels have been rising since the Industrial Revolution, but if people on Earth do not reduce greenhouse gas/fossil fuel emissions, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts outdoor CO2 levels could reach 930 ppm by 2100, with urban areas having a higher reading than this background.
The CU Boulder team said that “there may be ways to adapt to higher indoor CO2 levels” which includes globally-adopted mitigation strategies such as those set forth by the Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
“This is not just a matter of predicting global (outdoor) CO2 levels – it is a complex problem, and our study is at the beginning,” Karnauskas concluded.
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