CO2 levels reached their highest point in human history this week

Truly worrying news.

The Washington Post report that CO2 levels are the highest they've ever been since recording of the levels begun. This weekend, it was found that certain parts of the planet were recording a "concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that eclipsed 415 parts per million for the first time in human history". What part of the planet might that be in, you could be asking? Well, it was in a town in northern Russia, where it was also recorded that the temperature was 84 degrees Fahrenheit (around 29 degrees Celsius). Just to clarify, this town is right on the edge of Arctic circle, and an average at this time of year would normally be around 54 degrees Fahrenheit (12 degrees Celsius). With 18 of the 19 hottest years in recorded history having occurred since the year 2000, and the massive increase in the greenhouse gas CO2 - which the same report claims are at their highest in at least 800,000 years! - it is becoming increasingly clear that more needs to be done by governments around the world to massively reduce these emissions. However, just this week, after Ireland recently became only the second country in the world to declare a state of climate emergency, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar indicated that the declaration was "symbolic" and "a gesture",  comments which did not go down well. The most recent episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver took a look at some of the ways in which this situation can be stopped and hopefully reversed, and why it is that governments around the world are so slow to act: Clip via LastWeekTonight