It's all about carbon dioxide - its excess interferes with making decisions and planning
You've probably noticed that you literally go crazy if you spend a long time in a crowded room. By the end of the day, in a stuffy office, you think worse. At the institute, after a couple in an audience full of students, I no longer want to memorize and write down anything. And at a meeting that has dragged on beyond measure, successful decisions are rarely made. It's simple: your brain does not have enough oxygen, and you literally go dumb.
CO2 interferes with thinking
But about the same thing happens on a planetary scale. The level of carbon dioxide on Earth is increasing. And if earlier the negative consequences of an increase in the content of CO2 in the air were more associated with the greenhouse effect, now scientists are finding side effects. For example, a research team led by the University of Colorado at Boulder studied how rising carbon dioxide levels affect human cognition.
The conclusion, published by AGU GeoHealth magazine, turned out to be disappointing. If CO2 emissions are the same, then humanity by the end of this century will become much stupid. Scientists claim that basic decision-making skills can be reduced by about 25 percent, and complex strategic thinking can be reduced by 50 percent.
Sleepiness, anxiety and dullness
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Now the level of CO2 has already reached the highest level in the last 800 thousand years, the study notes. If in the pre-industrial era somewhere in the middle of the 19th century, when there were no factories, factories and other steamships, it was 280 ppm (that is, 280 parts per million), in February 2020 the concentration of CO2 is already 414 ppm. By 2100, scientists say, outdoor carbon dioxide levels could rise to 930 ppm. And indoors it is even 1400 ppm.
With this CO2 content, people feel constant sleepiness and anxiety. But most importantly, they become stupid.
"The research has shown strong evidence of significant cognitive impairment," said study co-author Anna Shapiro, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. “Decision-making and planning were particularly sensitive to CO2 increases.”
We must hurry
Thus, people's ability to make decisions will decrease by a quarter. Mankind will be half as bad in planning its future. Although it would seem much worse. So there are two ways - to reduce the CO2 level or to ventilate the premises more often. Well, or somehow in another way to solve this problem.
But we must hurry. Because the further we go, the more we get dumber. And the more we get dumb, the more difficult it will be to find a solution.
ANDREY VDOVIN