Atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa

Atmospheric CO2 and choking deaths on food have risen together with a correlation of 0.995, which is the kind of number that climate change deniers and food safety advocates have both failed to weaponize, possibly because the connection between greenhouse gases and esophageal obstruction is too absurd even for the internet. Both metrics go up every single year. Neither has ever gone down. The atmosphere heats, the food lodges, and the chart approaches perfection with the serenity of two trends that have found their rhythm and intend to maintain it indefinitely.

CO2 at Mauna Loa rose from about 380 ppm to over 420 ppm between 2005 and 2021, on the same relentless upward curve that has defined atmospheric carbon since the Industrial Revolution. Choking deaths rose as the population aged. Both metrics are perfectly monotonic: CO2 has not declined in a single year since measurements began in 1958, and choking deaths have not declined in a single year since the baby boomers started turning 65. Two perfect upward lines produce a perfect correlation, and the coefficient is a monument to the mathematical certainty of shape, not substance.

A correlation of 0.995 between CO2 and choking deaths belongs in the same category as the CO2-bed-fall correlation (0.999): a number so high it becomes its own punchline. The atmosphere warms, the population ages, and the chart produces a coefficient that means nothing about either and everything about the tyranny of monotonic trends. The carbon accumulates. The risk accumulates. The correlation accumulates. None are connected.