In practical terms, increased commodity production demands that greater levels of carbon dioxide (or CO2) be emitted into the biosphere via fossil fuel consumption.
[5] However, some argue that the capitalist mode of production is at fault for the emission of greenhouse gas and that solutions must be found to this issue before climate change itself can be addressed.
In 2014, fossil fuel consumption resulted in nearly 36 billion metric tons of CO2 finding its way into natural sinks such as the atmosphere, land, and oceans.
[4] This transfer of carbon from the burning of fossil fuels into the biosphere is the primary human-driven cause of greenhouse gas emissions and is closely related to the unchecked behavior of capitalism.
Deforestation can both be tied to having large effects on greenhouse gas emissions (specifically, carbon dioxide)[3] and to capitalism's continual disregard for its use of the truly limited resource represented by the forests.
In the United States, the right end of the political spectrum tends to either deny/downplay climate change or attribute it to non-human causes, while people on the left stress the dangerous effects it has on the planet and society.
While geoengineering is still in the development stage as both a topic and solution to climate change, the December 2015 Paris Agreement highlighted “negative emissions technologies”.
[12] These technologies aim to either “remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere” or “reduce the amount of solar radiation that hits the earth’s surface.
A notable individual that believes that climate change and human carbon emissions are unrelated is Patrick Moore, of Greenpeace fame.