Carbon dioxide concentrations have recently become a big issue, and for good reason. Not only has it been proven that even moderate levels of carbon dioxide can lead to decreased cognitive performance and drowsiness, but it's also been found that carbon dioxide levels can be a proxy for the risk of COVID-19 transmission.

This has led to a big trend in individuals purchasing carbon dioxide monitors and taking them into various environments to test the local air quality. Many threads on Twitter have emerged of people taking their monitors into cafes, libraries, public transport, and even on flights.

This new attention has also led to many libraries around the U.S and Canada lending carbon dioxide monitors to visitors. If you are curious about the CO2 levels encountered in your daily life, it's worth checking your local library to see if they have monitors you can check out.

However, it can be hard to monitor carbon dioxide levels if you don't live next to one of the participating libraries. While monitors are more accessible than ever, they are still cost-prohibitive for many people. The issue is without a monitor, there's no way we can monitor the indoor air quality of venues we visit.

Well, that was the case until recently. Raven recently released a community-powered map that allows users with CO2 monitors to upload their results wherever they are. If you live in an area such as Toronto, there is likely already a lot of data you can check!

Unfortunately, for many other areas, data is still lacking. Since the map is community-powered and requires contributors to both have a CO2 monitor and actively contribute, data is limited in many areas. That said, more people are joining the map daily, and we hope this results in more results being available shortly.

If you want to check the CO2 concentrations of libraries, cafes, cinemas, and even public transport, RavenApp is worth checking out - if you don't already have your own CO2 monitor. If you do, we recommend checking it out all the same - you might even want to contribute and help others around you.