Climate change is a naturally occurring event. Many of the gasses we categorize as emissions are released naturally through a number of events and this has been the case since the beginning of time. The climate crisis however is something completely man made and ice tells us how long we’ve been spitting out emissions.

Ice traps air and allows scientists to “see” the atmosphere from centuries ago by examining ice cores. These are long tubes that are made by drilling into ice. To the naked eye, they’re long tubes of ice but with some specialized equipment, we can take a look at what the air was like in a time before, well, today.

There was sharp rise in emissions in the 1870s which coincides with our use of fossil fuels. The numbers grow higher as the years do, providing some data on how big of an impact our practices had on the atmosphere. Even though the planet natural releases emissions, it really has been pushed beyond natural limits by our technology.