{"id":246337,"date":"2026-11-02T02:09:44","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T08:09:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/collective-human-metabolism-produces-2-billion-metric-tons-of-co%e2%82%82-a-year-global-study-estimates"},"modified":"2026-11-02T02:09:44","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T08:09:44","slug":"collective-human-metabolism-produces-2-billion-metric-tons-of-co%e2%82%82-a-year-global-study-estimates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/collective-human-metabolism-produces-2-billion-metric-tons-of-co%e2%82%82-a-year-global-study-estimates","title":{"rendered":"Collective human metabolism produces 2 billion metric tons of CO\u2082 a year, global study estimates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A University of Bath\u2013led study has estimated that the carbon dioxide produced by humans as our bodies turn food into energy rose by 74% between 1985 and 2015, reaching 2.05 billion metric tons a year. Researchers say the findings could help scientists better understand where carbon comes from, where it goes and how human activity fits into the bigger picture.<\/p>\n<p>Crucially, the CO\u2082 people breathe out is not the same as emissions from burning fossil fuels. The carbon we exhale comes from the food we eat and is largely carbon that plants have recently taken from the atmosphere. Fossil fuels, by contrast, release carbon that has been stored underground for millions of years.<\/p>\n<p>Published in <i>The Lancet Planetary Health<\/i> and led by professor Javier Gonzalez, the <a href=\"https:\/\/linkinghub.elsevier.com\/retrieve\/pii\/S2542519626001191\" target=\"_blank\">study<\/a> found that the amount of CO\u2082 produced by people worldwide rose from 1.18 billion metric tons in 1985 to 2.05 billion metric tons in 2015. Population growth accounted for more than 60% of the increase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A University of Bath\u2013led study has estimated that the carbon dioxide produced by humans as our bodies turn food into energy rose by 74% between 1985 and 2015, reaching 2.05 billion metric tons a year. Researchers say the findings could help scientists better understand where carbon comes from, where it goes and how human activity [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1506,1495],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}