Moderate
Eat less red meat
Food is ~26% of global emissions, and beef is the single most carbon-intensive food. Shifting to a plant-rich diet can cut your food footprint by up to ~50%.
The only home we’ve ever known
Our pale blue dot is dying,
and the data shows our fingerprints all over it.
Make people aware of how we are contributing to the death of our beautiful pale blue dot.
Why this exists & what it tracks →This is home
A four-and-a-half-billion-year-old world. The only one known to carry life.
Everyone you have ever heard of lived here, on this pale blue dot. It is not a metaphor. It is an address.
This is what we did
In one human lifetime, we changed the air itself.
316 → 427 ppmatmospheric CO₂, 1959 → 2025 (NOAA, measured)
Not modelled. Measured, every year, on a mountain in Hawaii — and never once, in 800,000 years of ice cores, was it this high before us.
And the planet noticed
The heat arrived. The wild world thinned.
+1.2 °C · −73% wildlifeglobal temperature (NASA, 2025) · monitored wildlife populations since 1970 (WWF/ZSL)
What follows is not a story. It is the instrument panel of the only home we have — every number below traces to a cited primary source. Keep scrolling.
Planetary vital signs · live
429.06 ppmCO₂, week of 5 Jul 2026+0.66 vs a year agoSource: NOAA GML — weekly Mauna Loa · as of 2026-07-05
- +1.19°Chotter than the mid-20th century
- 427 ppmatmospheric CO₂
- +23ocean heat (×10²² J) absorbed
- +227 mmhigher seas since 1880
- 4.3 M km²Arctic summer sea ice left
- −73%wild animal populations since 1970
- 80 µg/m³worst-air PM2.5 (Bangladesh)
Carl Sagan · 1994
A mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. … There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
In 1990, Voyager 1 turned back and photographed Earth from 6 billion kilometres away. It is a single, faint pixel. Everything below this page is the story of what we are doing to it.
Every year since 1880, painted by temperature
Source: NASA GISTEMP v4 · as of 20251880cool → hot · anomaly vs 1951–19802025 · +1.19°C
The state of our planet
22 of 30 vital signs we track are getting worse.
Across every cited series on this page — climate, oceans and ice, life, air and waste — we tallied which way each is actually trending. Only 4 are heading the right way. The rest is the planet's chart, and most of the lines are red.
22/30
vital signs getting worse
22 getting worse 4 improving — renewables, electric cars, protected land 4 roughly stable
Each dot is one real, cited series, classified by the direction of its recent trend. Two noisy or paradoxical metrics (total wildfire area, the annual forest-loss rate) are shown on the site but left out of this tally — see the methodology.
- Global temperature anomaly
- Atmospheric CO₂
- Atmospheric methane
- Atmospheric nitrous oxide
- Global fossil CO₂ emissions
- Greenhouse gases (fossil & industry)
- CO₂ emissions per person
- Fossil fuel production
- Global mean sea level
- Ocean heat content (0–700 m)
- Sea surface temperature
- Arctic sea ice (September)
- Antarctic sea ice (minimum)
- Mountain glacier mass
- Greenland ice sheet mass
- Antarctica ice sheet mass
- Ocean acidification (surface pH)
- Global plastic production
- Global forest area
- Living Planet Index
- Red List Index (extinction risk)
- Overexploited fish stocks
- Material footprint per person
- Fertilizer use
- Freshwater use
- Ozone-depleting substances
- Protected land
- Average PM2.5 exposure
- Renewable electricity share
- Electric car sales share
One lifetime
What we’ve done since you were born
The numbers on this page are easy to keep at arm’s length. So make them yours: enter the year you were born and watch a single human lifetime of change to the only world we have.
In a single lifetime — since 1990 — this is what we’ve done to the only home we have:
- +0.74°Chotter than your birth year
- +73 ppmmore CO₂ in the air you breathe
- +100 mmhigher seas
- −55%monitored wildlife populations
- -2.4 M km²change in Arctic summer sea ice
- +23more ocean heat (×10²² J)
Sources:Source: NASA GISTEMP v4 · as of 2025Source: NOAA GML / Scripps (Keeling Curve) · as of 2025Source: CSIRO (Church & White) reconstruction · as of 2019Source: WWF / ZSL Living Planet Report 2024 (via OWID) · as of 2020Source: NSIDC Sea Ice Index v4 · as of 2024Source: NOAA NCEI (Levitus et al.) · as of 2025
Your country
This is also about where you live
Global curves can feel far away. They aren’t. Pick your country — or let your browser guess — and see the same cited data anchored to home.
Where you live
The same cited data, anchored to your country.
Latest published year per country (shown beside each figure). See every country at once on the world map. Your choice stays on your device.
The Earth Midnight Clock
It is 4.6 minutes to midnight.
"Midnight" is the moment we exhaust the remaining carbon budget for 1.5 °C — the warming guardrail the world agreed not to cross. One remaining year of budget = one minute on this face. Move the slider to see how our choices push midnight away — or pull it closer.
today's path · 4.6 min to midnight
1.5 °C budget runs out
~2031
100% of today
Presets assume everyone on Earth emits at that per-capita level. The budget already spent is locked in; only emissions from here on move the clock.
- +1.5 °C — the Paris Agreement’s aspirational guardrail≈ 4 yr 8 mo left · budget gone ~2031
- +1.7 °C — reefs, ice sheets and coasts under far greater stress≈ 13 yr 1 mo left · budget gone ~2039
- +2.0 °C — the Paris Agreement’s upper limit≈ 25 yr 8 mo left · budget gone ~2052
We still emit about 41.6 Gt of CO₂ a year. On our current trajectory the 1.5 °C budget runs out around 2031 — but that number is ours to change. This is arithmetic, not prophecy.
CO₂ emitted · live
—
worldwide so far this year
—
since you opened this page
Climate
A warming world, in our own hand
The curves tell the story: we burn carbon, the air thickens with CO₂ and methane, and the planet heats. They move together because they are the same story — ours. Hover any chart to see its family light up.
Global temperature anomaly
The planet is running a fever it has never had in recorded history.
1.19°C
latest · 2025
Dashed: projected to 1.32 °C by 2030 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1880
-0.18 °C
change since
+761%
data table
Atmospheric CO₂
CO₂ is higher than at any point in at least 800,000 years — and still climbing.
427ppm
latest · 2025
Dashed: projected to 438 ppm by 2030 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1959
316 ppm
change since
+35%
data table
Atmospheric methane
Methane — ~80× more warming than CO₂ over 20 years — is climbing fast.
1936ppb
latest · 2025
Dashed: projected to 1966 ppb by 2030 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1984
1645 ppb
change since
+18%
data table
Atmospheric nitrous oxide
Nitrous oxide — ~270× the warming of CO₂ — keeps climbing, largely from fertiliser.
338.9ppb
latest · 2025
Dashed: projected to 343.2 ppb by 2030 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
2001
316.4 ppb
change since
+7%
data table
Global fossil CO₂ emissions
We still pump ~38 billion tonnes of CO₂ into the air every single year.
38.6Gt
latest · 2024
Dashed: projected to 41.1 Gt by 2029 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1950
5.9 Gt
change since
+551%
data table
Greenhouse gases (fossil & industry)
All warming gases from fossil fuels and industry keep climbing — over 43 Gt CO₂e a year.
43.7Gt CO₂e
latest · 2024
Dashed: projected to 45.1 Gt CO₂e by 2029 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1990
26.7 Gt CO₂e
change since
+64%
data table
Global tree cover loss
Every year the world loses an area of trees larger than England.
17.7M ha
latest · 2024
Dashed: projected to 17.3 M ha by 2029 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
2001
13.3 M ha
change since
+33%
data table
800,000 years, one vertical line
Atmospheric CO₂ from Antarctic ice cores, ending in today's measured air.
Eight ice ages never pushed CO₂ past ~300 ppm. We did — in a century.
Air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice preserve a sample of the actual atmosphere, year by year, back through 800,000 years and eight glacial cycles. Across all of it, CO₂ breathed slowly between about 170 and 300 ppm — each swing taking tens of thousands of years. The line at the far right is the industrial era: 427 ppm today, reached faster than any change in the entire record. On this axis, our whole story is a single vertical stroke.
The wildfire paradox
Global area burned per year, all land cover.
A falling line that is not good news.
The total area burned worldwide is trending down — but most of it is African savanna and grassland, much of it managed or cleared for farming, and that has shrunk. What is climbing is the part that matters for the climate: forest and boreal fires, their intensity, and the carbon they release. So a falling line here hides a worsening fire problem, not a solved one.
Oceans & Ice
Rising seas, vanishing ice, souring water
As the planet warms, ice melts and water expands. The seas creep higher up every coastline on Earth, the Arctic's summer ice disappears, Greenland bleeds billions of tonnes of land-ice into the sea, and the ocean turns acidic as it swallows our carbon.
Global mean sea level
The oceans have risen ~25 cm since 1880 — and the rate is accelerating.
227mm
latest · 2019
Dashed: projected to 225 mm by 2024 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1880
-30 mm
change since
+850%
data table
Ocean heat content (0–700 m)
The ocean has absorbed over 90% of global warming — and it is still heating.
22.8×10²² J
latest · 2025
Dashed: projected to 24.4 ×10²² J by 2030 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1955
-3.2 ×10²² J
change since
+813%
data table
Sea surface temperature
The ocean’s surface is running hotter than at any point in the instrumental record.
1.10°C
latest · 2025
Dashed: projected to 1.22 °C by 2030 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1850
-0.03 °C
change since
+3767%
data table
Arctic sea ice (September)
The Arctic has lost roughly 40% of its summer ice cover since 1979.
4.35M km²
latest · 2024
Dashed: projected to 4.25 M km² by 2029 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1979
7.05 M km²
change since
-38%
data table
Antarctic sea ice (minimum)
Antarctic summer sea ice fell off a cliff in 2023 — to the lowest on record.
2.22M km²
latest · 2025
Dashed: projected to 1.34 M km² by 2030 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1979
3.14 M km²
change since
-29%
data table
Mountain glacier mass
The world’s reference glaciers have thinned by ~33 metres of water equivalent since 1950 — and the loss is accelerating.
-28.1m w.e.
latest · 2025
Dashed: projected to -32.4 m w.e. by 2030 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1950
5.4 m w.e.
change since
-622%
data table
Greenland ice sheet mass
Greenland has shed nearly 5,000 billion tonnes of ice into the sea since 2002.
-4899Gt
latest · 2020
Dashed: projected to -6174 Gt by 2025 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
2002
-194 Gt
change since
-2425%
data table
Antarctica ice sheet mass
Antarctica is losing ice too — about 2,700 billion tonnes gone since 2002.
-2746Gt
latest · 2020
Dashed: projected to -3461 Gt by 2025 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
2002
-49 Gt
change since
-5504%
data table
Ocean acidification (surface pH)
As the sea absorbs our CO₂ it turns acidic — dissolving the shells of life itself.
8.04pH
latest · 2024
Dashed: projected to 8.03 pH by 2029 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1989
8.11 pH
change since
-1%
data table
The reefs are running a fever
Share of the world's reefs hit by bleaching-level heat stress, in each global mass-bleaching event.
- 1st global event199821%
- 2nd global event201037%
- 3rd global event2014–201768%
- 4th global event2023–202584%
Each global event coincided with a strong El Niño — and each was worse than the last. The most recent, 2023–2025, hit 84%of the world's reefs, the largest on record. This is satellite heat-stress data, not a count of reported sightings, so the rise is real reef area — not just more scientists watching.
The ocean is losing its breath
−2%
open-ocean oxygen since 1960
The open ocean has lost about 2% of its oxygen since 1960 — and the volume of water with no oxygen at all has more than quadrupled.
Shown as a single cited figure, not a chart: there is no clean public annual series for global ocean oxygen — we won't draw a line we can't source point by point.
Life
The web of life is unravelling
It is not only ice and air. The wild abundance of the living world — the fish, birds, mammals and amphibians we share the planet with — is collapsing. The Living Planet Index tracks the average change across thousands of monitored populations — though one bright spot is pushing back.
Living Planet Index
Monitored wildlife populations have collapsed by ~73% in a single human lifetime.
27index (1970=100)
latest · 2020
Dashed: projected to 19 index (1970=100) by 2025 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1970
100 index (1970=100)
change since
-73%
data table
Red List Index (extinction risk)
The world’s species are sliding toward extinction — the survival index falls every year.
0.72index
latest · 2024
Dashed: projected to 0.70 index by 2029 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1993
0.82 index
change since
-12%
data table
Protected land
One bright spot: about a sixth of the world’s land is now under some form of protection.
16.4%
latest · 2024
Dashed: projected to 16.7 % by 2029 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
2013
15.0 %
change since
+9%
data table
Then vs now
Drag to feel the change
Two real readings of the same measure — one from decades ago, one from today, on the same scale. Drag the handle across each to see what a lifetime of change actually looks like.
Living Planet Index
-73% since 1970Living Planet Index: 100 index (1970=100) in 1970 versus 27 index (1970=100) in 2020, a change of -73%.
2020 · now27index (1970=100)
1970 · then100index (1970=100)
Drag the handle — 1970 on the left, 2020 on the right.
Arctic sea ice (September)
-38% since 1979Arctic sea ice (September): 7.05 M km² in 1979 versus 4.35 M km² in 2024, a change of -38%.
2024 · now4.35M km²
1979 · then7.05M km²
Drag the handle — 1979 on the left, 2024 on the right.
Renewable electricity share
+62% since 1985Renewable electricity share: 21% in 1985 versus 34% in 2025, a change of +62%.
2025 · now34%
1985 · then21%
Drag the handle — 1985 on the left, 2025 on the right.
Waste & Plastic
A throwaway world
We now make more than 460 million tonnes of plastic a year — and only a sliver of it is ever recycled. But plastic is one thread of a bigger story: the raw materials, fertiliser and freshwater we draw from the planet to feed a throwaway economy.
Global plastic production
From 2 to 460 million tonnes a year — most of it used once, then discarded.
460Mt
latest · 2019
Dashed: projected to 451 Mt by 2024 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1950
2 Mt
change since
+22900%
data table
Material footprint per person
Each person now draws down about 12 tonnes of raw materials a year.
12.3t per person
latest · 2022
Dashed: projected to 12.1 t per person by 2027 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
2000
9.3 t per person
change since
+32%
data table
Fertilizer use
Synthetic fertiliser use has multiplied sixfold since 1961, overloading rivers and seas with nutrients.
183Mt
latest · 2023
Dashed: projected to 193 Mt by 2028 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1961
28 Mt
change since
+554%
data table
Freshwater use
Humanity now withdraws about six times more freshwater than a century ago.
3986km³
latest · 2014
Dashed: projected to 4126 km³ by 2019 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1901
671 km³
change since
+494%
data table
Where the world’s plastic waste ends up
2019 end-of-life shares.
- Landfilled50%
- Mismanaged22%
- Incinerated19%
- Recycled9%
reaching the ocean
1.7 Mt / year
The richer we get, the more we throw away
The world generates 2,010 million tonnes of municipal waste a year — projected to hit 3,400 Mt by 2050. A person in a high-income country bins 1.57 kg every day.
Low income0.43 kg/day
Lower-middle0.61 kg/day
Upper-middle0.69 kg/day
High income1.57 kg/day
Air
The air billions of us breathe
The WHO says annual PM2.5 above 5 µg/m³ is unsafe. In the worst-hit countries, people breathe air more than fifteen times dirtier than that — day in, day out. But the air holds one of our clearest victories too: the ozone layer is healing.
Annual average PM2.5 by country (2023). Bars in red exceed 35 µg/m³ — seven times the WHO limit.
?
42.4µg/m³
annual PM2.5
8.5×
the WHO safe limit (5 µg/m³)
#9
most polluted of 17 tracked
▏WHO 5worst: Bangladesh 80
Average PM2.5 exposure
The average person breathes air about six times dirtier than the WHO safe limit — though it has begun to fall.
31.3µg/m³
latest · 2020
Dashed: projected to 35.5 µg/m³ by 2025 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1990
39.7 µg/m³
change since
-21%
data table
Ozone-depleting substances
The Montreal Protocol worked: the chemicals destroying the ozone layer are down ~99% since 1986.
1.3% of 1986
latest · 2021
Dashed: projected to -0.2 % of 1986 by 2026 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1986
100.0 % of 1986
change since
-99%
data table
The wound we are healing
Antarctic ozone hole, annual maximum extent.
We have repaired a planetary wound before. Once.
In the 1980s the hole tore open in a decade. Then the world signed the Montreal Protocol (1987), every country on Earth ratified it, and the chemicals responsible fell ~99% — the curve above. The hole stopped growing around 2000; it heals slowly because CFCs linger for decades, and its size still jumps year to year with stratospheric weather. The WMO/UNEP 2022 assessment expects Antarctic ozone back at 1980 levels around 2066. This is what the CO₂ curves look like when humanity decides to bend them.
The safe operating space
We have crossed 6 of 9 planetary boundaries.
Scientists define nine limits that together keep the Earth system in the stable state that let civilisation arise. Stay inside them and we have a safe operating space. We are now outside six — and pushing harder on each.
6/9
boundaries transgressed
6 boundary crossed 1 approaching the limit 2 still within safe limits
The lone bright spot — stratospheric ozone — is recovering because the world acted, on the Montreal Protocol. Proof the lines can move back.
Source: Richardson et al. (2023), Science Advances · as of 2023- Climate change
CO₂ and radiative forcing are well past the safe range; the transgression keeps growing.
- Biosphere integrity
Extinction rates and the collapse of natural ecosystem function run far above the boundary.
- Land-system change
Forests — especially tropical — have been cleared past the limit for a stable biosphere.
- Freshwater change
Both blue (rivers, groundwater) and green (soil) water cycles are now disrupted worldwide.
- Biogeochemical flows
Nitrogen and phosphorus from fertiliser flood rivers and seas far beyond safe levels.
- Novel entities
Plastics and synthetic chemicals are released faster than we can assess their harm.
- Ocean acidification
Not yet transgressed but close — surface oceans are acidifying toward the boundary.
- Atmospheric aerosols
Within the global boundary, though regional air pollution still exceeds it badly.
- Stratospheric ozone
The one clear recovery — the ozone layer is healing after the Montreal Protocol.
Who caused it
The few caused it. Everyone pays.
Because CO₂ lingers for centuries, what warms the planet is the total ever emitted — and that history is starkly unequal. A handful of nations account for most of it; the people who did least to cause the crisis bear the worst of it.
Share of all CO₂ ever emitted (fossil & industry, since 1750)
- United States24.3%
- China14.4%
- Russia6.8%
- Germany5.3%
- United Kingdom4.5%
- Japan3.9%
- India3.4%
- Everyone else37.4%
≈3%
of all historical CO₂ came from the whole of Africa — home to many of the people the IPCC ranks among the most exposed to climate harm, and the least able to adapt.
This is why fairness sits at the heart of every climate negotiation: responsibility and harm point in opposite directions. Naming it honestly is part of telling the truth about the pale blue dot.
See how the 100 biggest companies scorePoints of no return
5 climate tipping points are already within reach.
Some thresholds, once crossed, don't reverse on any timescale that matters to us — ice sheets collapse, rainforests die back, ocean currents stall. Here is where scientists put each one, on a shared warming scale, against the line we are already standing on.
1°C2°C3°C4°C5°C
- Warm-water coral reefspossible now1.5°C
Mass die-off of the reefs that feed and shelter hundreds of millions and a quarter of marine life.
- Greenland Ice Sheetpossible now1.5°C
Eventual near-total melt commits the world to roughly 7 m of sea-level rise over centuries.
- West Antarctic Ice Sheetpossible now1.5°C
Irreversible collapse adds around 5 m of sea-level rise, redrawing every coastline.
- Abrupt permafrost thaw1.5°C
Frozen ground collapses and releases CO₂ and methane — a feedback that warms the planet further.
- Barents Sea icepossible now1.6°C
Abrupt winter sea-ice loss in the Arctic’s Atlantic gateway, accelerating regional warming.
- Labrador–Irminger Sea convectionpossible now1.8°C
Collapse of deep-water formation would cool north-west Europe and unsettle weather worldwide.
- Mountain glaciers2°C
The frozen "water towers" that feed rivers for billions of people shrink past recovery.
- East Antarctic subglacial basins3°C
Vulnerable basins of the largest ice sheet begin an irreversible, multi-metre contribution to the sea.
- Amazon rainforest3.5°C
The world’s largest rainforest flips toward dry savanna, releasing vast carbon and erasing species.
- Atlantic overturning (AMOC)4°C
A shutdown of the Atlantic conveyor would drastically shift rainfall, monsoons and temperatures.
we are here (~1.5°C) Ice Life Ocean & atmosphereSource: Armstrong McKay et al. (2022), Science · as of 2022Source: WMO State of the Global Climate 2024 · as of 2024
Thresholds are global warming above pre-industrial (1850–1900) — a different, higher baseline than the temperature anomaly charted elsewhere on this page, which is measured against the mid-20th century. Ranges reflect genuine scientific uncertainty; the dot is the best estimate.
What each degree means
Every half-degree is a different planet
Warming targets sound abstract — 1.5 °C, 2 °C — but the science is specific about what each one locks in. The IPCC compared the two directly. The gap between them is measured in reefs, species and hundreds of millions of people.
We are already at ~1.5 °C above pre-industrialSource: WMO State of the Global Climate 2024 · as of 2024
current policies point to ~3.1 °C by 2100Source: UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2024 · as of 2024
Impactat 1.5 °Cat 2 °C
- 70–90% lost>99% lost
Coral reefs
Half a degree is the difference between badly damaged reefs and virtually none at all.
- 14% of humanity37% of humanity
People hit by severe heatwaves
Share of the world’s population exposed to a severe heatwave at least once every five years.
- 6% of species18% of species
Insects losing half their range
Tripling the share of insects — the base of food webs and pollination — that lose most of their habitat.
- 8% of species16% of species
Plants losing half their range
The share of plant species projected to lose over half their climatically suitable range doubles.
- 4% of species8% of species
Vertebrates losing half their range
Mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians squeezed out of half their range — doubled at 2 °C.
- about once a centuryat least once a decade
Ice-free Arctic summers
A blue-ocean Arctic goes from a rare event to a near-regular one.
- ≈0.40 m≈0.46 m
Sea-level rise by 2100
The extra ~10 cm at 2 °C exposes roughly 10 million more people to coastal flooding.
- −1.5 million t−3 million t
Annual marine fisheries catch lost
The projected loss in the global catch that billions rely on for protein doubles.
- ≈4.8 million km²≈6.6 million km²
Permafrost thawed
Frozen ground holds vast carbon; ~1.5–2.5 million km² more thaws at 2 °C, releasing more of it.
Projected impacts at each warming level — cited science, not observations. °C above pre-industrial (1850–1900), a higher baseline than the temperature charts elsewhere on this site (vs 1951–1980).
Source: IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C (2018), SPM · as of 2018The race we can still win
Some lines are bending the right way
The clock and the boundaries are the warning. This is the hope: the technologies that replace fossil fuels are growing fast — exponentially in places. If we push the pace, the crossings below come sooner.
Renewables in our electricity
33.8%in 2025
On the recent pace, it reaches half of all power around ~2061.
Source: Our World in Data (Ember; Energy Institute) · as of 2025Electric share of new cars
25.0%in 2025
On the recent pace, it reaches half of new cars around ~2034.
Source: IEA Global EV Outlook (via OWID) · as of 2025Crossing years are a render-time straight-line projection of the recent trend — a sense of pace, not a forecast. Real adoption often follows an S-curve (faster, then saturating); these are deliberately simple.
What you can do
Small changes, real curves bent
Despair changes nothing; choices do. None of us can fix this alone — but each of these habits measurably nudges the very trends you just saw. Start with one.
Proof the curves can bend the right way.
Two trends are already moving fast in the right direction — clean electricity and electric cars. Each went from a sliver to a serious share in barely a decade. Every choice below adds to a wave already in motion.
Renewable electricity share
A third of the world’s electricity is now renewable — the one curve finally bending up.
34%
latest · 2025
Dashed: projected to 31 % by 2030 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
1985
21 %
change since
+62%
data table
Electric car sales share
A quarter of new cars sold are now electric — up from almost none a decade ago.
25%
latest · 2025
Dashed: projected to 33 % by 2030 if the recent trend holds (not a forecast).
2010
0 %
change since
—
data table
Committed
Fly less, and offset what you must
One round-trip transatlantic flight emits ~1.6 t CO₂ per passenger — about a year of a low-carbon lifestyle. Swapping one flight for rail or a call is one of the biggest single cuts you can make.
Easy
Refuse single-use plastic
Only ~9% of all plastic ever made has been recycled. A reusable bottle, cup and bag removes hundreds of single-use items from the waste stream every year.
Easy
Switch to a green electricity tariff
Electricity and heat are the largest emitting sector. Moving your home to certified renewables can cut household power emissions to near zero overnight.
Easy
Waste less food
Roughly a third of all food is wasted; if it were a country it would be the 3rd-largest emitter. Planning meals and using leftovers cuts both your bin and your footprint.
Committed
Drive electric — or don’t drive
Transport is ~16% of emissions. Walking, cycling or an EV for short trips cuts both CO₂ and the PM2.5 that pollutes the air we breathe.
Not sure where you stand?
Estimate your own footprint from four quick choices — then ask the Earth guide, which reads the same real data, how to bend your curve most.