by Daniel Costello

One indicator that didn't fall in 2009: global carbon dioxide levels.

According to the Global Carbon Project, a group that provides policymakers with annual global carbon dioxide level estimates, each person on the planet produced 1.3 tons of carbon last year—an all-time high despite a global recession that slowed the growth of fossil fuel emissions for the first time this decade. Emissions grew 2 percent last year, to total 8.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels now average 385 parts per million, a 38 percent increase from preindustrial levels. While emissions grew at an average rate of 1 percent a year in the 1990s, the rate jumped to 3.6 percent a year this decade, as the developing world grew and produced more manufactured goods for developed nations.