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Record surge in atmospheric CO2 seen in 2016

174 points by betolink 9y ago

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Filligree 9y ago
A positive feedback loop through methane was always the nightmare scenario, and now it seems to be happening. It's probably too late to stop catastrophic warming simply by cutting emissions. We still need to do so, because it can always get worse, but it's time to look seriously at terraforming as well.
- ejolto 9y ago
  Do you mean terraforming Earth or Mars? Handling global warming will probably be easier than terraforming Mars.
  - leot 9y ago
    easier scientifically != easier politically
  - jackmott 9y ago
    just need to drop a few hundred thousand comets and asteroids and mars, and mar's moon, then float a few hundred thousand giant mirrors around it to warm it up a bit, seed it with plants, wait a few thousand years. no big deal!
    - lprubin 9y ago
      Don't forget solving the gravity disparity problem.
      - jackmott 9y ago
        dumping the comets and moons onto the surface is to help with that. But I've done some napkin math and it looks like we need ~40 billion commets to bring it halfway to earth mass...welp
        goatlover 9y ago
        Makes terraforming Venus look easy.
        ejolto 9y ago
        If you crash the entire asteroid belt into Mars, its mass will increase by half a percent.
        jackmott 9y ago
        a good start! you can get most of that half of a percent with just the 4 largest asteroids. maybe we need to sacrifice our own moon.
        ejolto 9y ago
        If we are moving the moon, we might as well just move the earth to a higher orbit further from the sun.
        AstralStorm 9y ago
        If we had access to this kind of energy, we'd be generating and treating copious amounts of antimatter and using it to power electrical CO2 sequestration devices.
      - Reason077 9y ago
        Mars gravity, 38% of Earth's, doesn't seem like all that much of problem. Sure, there are some health risks associated with being in a low gravity environment. But considering humans survive surprisingly well in micro-gravity in space, I'm sure we can adapt to the relatively strong gravity on Mars.
        jsjohnst 9y ago
        > But considering humans survive surprisingly well in micro-gravity in space Source for that claim? The number of studies I’ve read (as well as conversations I’ve had with astronauts) about the health impact on astronauts who’ve been on the ISS for extended periods seems to disagree.
        CyberDildonics 9y ago
        Is less gravity the only difference in being on earth and being on the ISS?
        jsjohnst 9y ago
        Google would've easily found a bunch of supporting articles to what I stated, but here: https://www.space.com/23017-weightlessness.html https://www.space.com/23017-weightlessness.html https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast02aug_1 https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/a... http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/20/health/your-body-in-space/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/20/health/your-body-in-space/inde... https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/bodyinspace https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/bodyinspace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_spaceflight_on_the_human_body#Weightlessness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_spaceflight_on_the_h... tl;dr version: > In space, without gravity, bones lose more than 1% of minerals and density per month. > Astronauts also experience blood volume loss, weakened immune systems and cardiovascular deconditioning since floating takes little effort and the heart doesn't have to work as hard to pump blood through your body > "It changes their visual acuity," Charles said. "They're not able to see things up close. It's like advanced aging. That sort of thing happens at a sort of an accelerated rate."
  - goatlover 9y ago
    Adapting to and/or fixing Earth's climate is easier than terraforming Mars by an enormous amount. Mars is more inhospitable to life than the center of Antarctica during the winter. Also, it's months away in a spaceship. There's no scenario in which Mars is a viable alternative for the human race this century.
  - Filligree 9y ago
    Earth. It's the same technology set, more or less, but aimed at cooling it down rather than heating up Mars. I suppose the best option would be carbon capture, if it isn't too expensive, but I rather suspect it would be.
    - AstralStorm 9y ago
      It is not too expensive if we were to use nuclear reactors to power it. (Yes, including hiked commissioning and decommissioning costs.) Combined with solar and wind for peak of course because why not. There are currently no other options. Renewables alone are not enough to even power civilization at current level. (They get somewhere shy of 60% in an impossible best case.)
- Roodgorf 9y ago
  Some sort of carbon capture and storage situation seems more likely at this point, though I haven't yet seen any proposals that I think would get the backing they need to be effective. Is this what you meant by terraforming, or something else entirely?
  - chewbacha 9y ago
    How about we grow corn (or other fast growing biomass like kelp) and bury it?
    - thinkling 9y ago
      I believe decaying plant matter generally emits green house gasses. (See for example emissions from biomass collecting behind dams; there were headlines about this in the past year.) So you'd have to bury the biomass to prevent rot and/or gas leaks. That means digging big holes and/or transporting biomass to the holes and/or fabricating/moving material to cover the biomass. All that work uses energy and thus produces GHG. It's probably hard to come out ahead.
      - chewbacha 9y ago
        The carbon it emits comes from carbon fixation from photosynthesis. So long as some carbon is sequestered in the soil, it’s net negative.
    - bluGill 9y ago
      it still decays to things that release that CO2, plus burying things uses a lot of energy. If this a serious proposal you should be thinking grow it, wait for it to dry out and burn it - the fire will not be hot enough to turn all the carbon into CO2, the remainder is elemental carbon (read charcoal) in a form not usable to life. That carbon is also biochar which is actually useful to improve the soil. This is most easily done in forest, but note that you need regular forest fires, otherwise the fire is hot enough to run all the carbon into CO2 and we didn't gain anything. Thus most of the forest fires you read about are bad - but if we change our policy after the fire and burn those forests often we can make them a net negative CO2.
- duozerk 9y ago
  And there are many, many such feedback loops, and not all of them linked to methane. For example, as the climate warms there are more and more wildfires, and those emits tons of carbon as well. Another example is the decrease in CO2 absoption by water as its temperature increases. There are tons of them that have not been modelled (if they even have been envisaged / discovered); mostly because they are very hard to estimate when it comes to their impact. As for your suggestion, I doubt this is even possible; we released millions of year worth of concentrated solar energy in the span of a century (edit: slightly misleading statement, see below). Scrubbing so much carbon from the atmosphere would take huge amounts of energy, and that energy needs to be clean or you're just adding to the issue. And all this needs to be done in a capitalistic system without any direct profit motive - good luck with that. The most "realistic" examples of geoengineering I have read about usually have downsides that end up killing most of us as well (such as a solar shield at L1 to decrease warming - the impact on plant life and as a result, food, would be pretty bad). Meanwhile we're still pretending less than 2C is possible, and even pretending that 2C is survivable as-is without profound changes to our way of lives. That being said, they mention that human CO2 emission have plateau-ed; I'm far from sure that this the case as a lot of it comes from self reporting and those numbers are likely heavily under reported (especially - but not only - from China). It should also be mentioned a lot of this could come from El Nino; but then again climate change is expected to impact that cycle and we may get stronger and/or longer El Nino periods - it may be partly consequence as well.
  - titzer 9y ago
    > we released millions of year of concentrated solar energy This seems like an overestimate of how much energy it would take to do capture and sequestration. The energy density of fossil fuels is nowhere near that high. A gallon of gasoline is ~33kwh of energy, which is about the same amount of energy that falls on a square meter of Earth's surface in about 22 hours. In terms of barrels of oil, with global consumption at 96 million barrels per day, assuming 12hrs of sunlight a day, I calculated 8600km^2 of Earth's surface, or a square about 93km on a side.
    - mikeash 9y ago
- nabla9 9y ago
  >but it's time to look seriously at terraforming as well. There are so many orders of magnitude differences between the two problems (budget, timescales and difficulty) that I'm not sure if this is sarcasm.
melling 9y ago
As we approach the third decade of the 21st Century, how is most electricity on the planet generated? Coal.
- jsight 9y ago
  As far as I know, that isn't really true. Isn't coal well under 50% now? I suspect that it would be below 40% by this point and dropping. It isn't really reasonable to expect it to disappear too quickly, though.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > Isn't coal well under 50% now? I suspect that it would be below 40% by this point and dropping Coal has remained around 29% of global primary energy consumption since 2005 [1]. I don't believe it's dropping. [1] https://www.worldenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/World-Energy-Resources-Full-report-2016.10.03.pdf https://www.worldenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/World... Figure 1, page 4
    - melling 9y ago
      You are saying something completely different. The discussion is not about all energy use but about the generation of electricity.
  - jackmott 9y ago
    Pounds of CO2 emitted per million British thermal units (Btu) of energy for various fuels: Coal (anthracite) 228.6 Coal (bituminous) 205.7 Coal (lignite) 215.4 Coal (subbituminous) 214.3 Diesel fuel and heating oil 161.3 Gasoline (without ethanol) 157.2 Propane 139.0 Natural gas 117.0 natural gas is a win over coal, but not a big one.
  - sologoub 9y ago
    There still appears to be net growth in Asia Pacific region: https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy/coal/coal-consumption.html https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/stat... and the interactive chart: http://tools.bp.com/energy-charting-tool#/st/coal/dt/consumption/unit/MTOE/region/NOA/SCA/EU/MIE/AFR/AP/view/area/ http://tools.bp.com/energy-charting-tool#/st/coal/dt/consump... That region is consuming more than 7x North American consumption and accounts for 73% of overall consumption. Unfortunately, it’s also the area seeing the least drop as a percentage. In other words, the rest of the world can completely get rid of coal and the total global coal emissions will still be higher than they were before 2003.
rybosome 9y ago
So how deep into the consequences are we going to get before the debate over its reality ends?
- amiramir 9y ago
  Apparently climate change is hard to reason about due to our cognitive biases. I know that Kaheman has lost a little luster of late I still buy this: "Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel prize in economics for his research on the psychological biases that distort rational decision- making. One of these is “loss aversion”, which means that people are far more sensitive to losses than gains. He regards climate change as a perfect trigger: a distant problem that requires sacrifices now to avoid uncertain losses far in the future. This combination is exceptionally hard for us to accept, he told me."[0] That said, I think that the thing that will make people change their behavior is not so much how bad it gets but the economics. If it's cheaper to use renewables than burning fuels then people will switch. Thinking about one's short-term economic choices ($1 < $2) is mostly simpler than thinking about global issues that are at odds with one's cognitive biases, and one's choices to ignore scientists. [0] https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329820-200-understand-faulty-thinking-to-tackle-climate-change/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329820-200-understa...
- czechdeveloper 9y ago
  Until it can be told that it's too late to do anything anyway.
  - jackmott 9y ago
    that argument started in early 2000 and continues to grow. it is a dumb argument but you can be sure that is where the rhetoric is heading.
    - tertius 9y ago
      Ah, the point of no return, i.e. the genesis of global warming alarmism. One of the biggest PR blunders for climate change. For all those who are pro-climate change, please stop saying "we've reached the point of no return." It doesn't help people change, which is what your goal should be. Shaming people is all good fun, but it doesn't help your end goal.
grandalf 9y ago
Are there plant species that might not really thrive in the current environment but will begin to thrive once the CO2 level increases a bit further?
- bluGill 9y ago
  Yes. I don't remember the search terms to find it, but I did read a paper (~10 years ago) that discussed this. The problem is most of them are plants we would consider weeds. This depends on where you are - in the desert plants are water limited, and no amount of CO2 will help. When not near the equator plants are also water limited in winter (at the extremes they are also sun limited). In some parts plants are nutrient limited (dumping iron into the oceans causes an algae bloom - which at least short term is CO2 negative - more research needed)
- computerwizard 9y ago
  I've thought the same thing. It would make sense but would be great if someone with real knowledge could respond.
  - Filligree 9y ago
    All forms of underwater plants will do better with more CO2, especially the ones that also grow above water. Perhaps not including seaweed. I don't know how much effect that will have, given seaweed is mostly it, but planted aquariums typically need to artificially inject CO2 into the water to get decent growth rates. The exchange rate with air is deeply unfavorable, so there'll be barely any CO2 in the water otherwise. The exchange rate also worsens as temperature increases. I'm not sure how it'd work out overall.
- kadal 9y ago
  Anecdata and not what you're asking but relevant. I saw a talk by David Battisti (Univ Washington professor). He had attended a FAO meeting about climate change and agriculture. It looks like it is increasingly hard to engineer wheat/rice varieties that can reach peak yield with rising temperatures. The outlook for say, Indian river production, is not good at all. From what I remember, we are currently in the temperature sweet spot for rice/wheat production. If someone knows a primary source for this kind of thing, please comment
Gustomaximus 9y ago
At the risk of being overly anecdotal, I find it interesting to see the evolution of people in my life who are anti clean energy movement. First they denied climate change. Then they moved to saying changes were happening but it was normal global fluctuations. Now they are telling me that increased carbon will stimulate growth and help feed the world. I find it amazing. I dont truly know if global warming is a thing as I'm not a scientist studying this. I do know the vast majority of scientists are screaming we are heading for trouble. Even if they are wrong, why would we take the chance. I find people fighting a change to improve carbon and other global warming causes dumbfounding. Even if the scientist are likely wrong, the downside/cost of pursuing green tech is reasonably limited and why would you take the chance on something so profound.
- Symmetry 9y ago
  If you look at the effects on carbon dioxide on plant life in isolation from everything else they're right. On the other hand higher temperatures will slow down growth leading to a small net positive or negative depending on which staple crop we're talking about. And on the gripping hand shifting patterns of rainfall are liable to totally screw everything up in a way that could be totally disastrous but which is very hard to predict. But a reluctance to admit that you're wrong is a big part of human politics. Maybe we can find some way to reframe the issue so that it doesn't seem like a retreat to them?
  - goatlover 9y ago
    And if the Amazon dried up considerably, we'd probably be looking at a big net loss.
    - Symmetry 9y ago
      Or the Gulf Stream shutting down and Europe freezing. Or any of a dozen other things. And the Sahara greening wouldn't make up for it because nobody lives there to farm it.
- jackmott 9y ago
PatientTrades 9y ago
> It is urgent that we follow the Paris agreement and switch rapidly away from fossil fuels I think everyone, even skeptics deep down agree that climate change is real. However, giving billions, if not trillions of dollars to an international climate fund run by who the hell knows is definitely not the correct approach. Businesses and people need short term incentives to switch, not just mandates. Until scientists further develop not only cheaper, but more convenient and efficient energy solutions, fossil fuels will continue to be used.
- BEEdwards 9y ago
  If surviving as a species isn't enough of an incentive I'm not sure that the government can promise much.
- sacheendra 9y ago
  Scientists don't work in a vacuum. They do need resources to do their work. As long as they don't get them and research funding keeps getting slashed, the scientists cannot do much. They are already trying their best with the available resources. Climate change can only be solved by political means. Hoping someone will make a breakthrough that will make the problem go away is not realistic.
- Pxtl 9y ago
  The problem is that the options being presented politically are a) Support the international movement to fight climate change, or b) Do nothing > Until scientists further develop not only cheaper, but more convenient and efficient energy solutions, fossil fuels will continue to be used. That is utter cowardice. Imagine if WW2 had happened and the USA had stayed out saying "we're not participating until scientists invent ray-guns". There are conservative, anti-globalist options to fighting climate change. Carbon taxes encourage the market to develop solutions, and could be done in a revenue-neutral fashion which would mean it's a tax cut for green citizens. Tariff countries with bad climate records and encourage trade with countries that are doing their part to fight climate change. Block expansion of the coal industry. None of these would be contrary to conservative, market-oriented values. None of these require funnelling billions into international climate funds. But instead, the North American right is keeping their heads firmly planted in the sand.
nakedrobot2 9y ago
Hey! Billionaires of the world - there are now 1400 of you [1]. How much would it cost to, say, A) buy the entire amazon rainforest, so that it doesn't get chopped down anymore? (Yes, it's not just that easy, needs monitoring and patrol, etc.) B) Solve nuclear fusion, C) build massive arrays of solar panels (or fusion reactors) in order to desalinate water and eventually reforest the deserts of africa? Once I'm a billionaire myself I hope to help with at least one of those three things. Until then, we must ask them nicely to act, rather than just watch their capital asexually reproduce. [1] https://boingboing.net/2017/10/27/new-gilded-age.html https://boingboing.net/2017/10/27/new-gilded-age.html
- JPLeRouzic 9y ago
  I upvoted you because I agree with the "spirit" of what you wrote, but something is nagging me: Once free energy (in the form of massive solar panel fields or nuclear fusion) is available, would not it be actually worse? - True we would (in theory) no more need coal/oil, but that would be useless for most transport means as we would have pollution made by producing batteries as well as with old abandonned leaking electric cars? - For the Amazon rainforest, I learnt that it is something that came and went several times during the hundred of millenia since it exists. Why do you expect it to have an impact on CO2 rate or the climate? After all if the problem is the Co2 we could attack it directly by transforming it in food for example. - There is at least an ongoing project in Sahel to create a long wall of trees, but the main problem is that people burn bush/trees for cooking and they raise goats. Goats tear off grass, on contrary to other cattle. Those two reasons explain well the desert progression, in Sahara at least. Another problem is that the West of Sahara is infested with personal mines. What I would propose (actually I proposed it in the Global challenges shape prize [0]) is for UNHCR to create artificial towns in those areas. It not only would provide work and wealth to people there but it would change their way of living. This is not a pipe dream, China is already implementing a similar policy. [0] https://globalchallenges.org/en/our-work/the-new-shape-prize https://globalchallenges.org/en/our-work/the-new-shape-prize
  - nakedrobot2 9y ago
    Oh! That's an interesting idea. I hadn't considered providing additional population / infrastructure, as an economic incentive to "regreen" an area. You would still need some massive efforts around planting / watering the new vegetation though. So these "new towns" would be in addition to newly forested+grass areas?
tehabe 9y ago
I feel really helpless, one person alone is essentially powerless, only governments and corporations are big enough to make a difference but they don't because they don't "believe" it or have no incentives to do anything. (And no, boycotts are pointless). So essentially we are screwed and the people who will come after us will either have to come up with a technology to get CO2 out of the atmosphere back to 290-300 ppm or will have to live with a much more hostile environment than today. I'm extremely pessimistic right now.
- J-dawg 9y ago
  Recently I've been reading various books about how to avoid and control excessive anxiety. One piece of advice that I keep seeing is that I should not worry about things outside of my direct control. This idea is also a central component of stoicism. How then, should one process terrible news like this? One the one hand, the world is not thinking about climate change enough (certainly politicians aren't). But on the other hand, it seems impossible to maintain good mental health if one spends too much time thinking about these things. Part of me wants to stick my head in the sand and just get on with life (which seems to be what many people do anyway). How can I read news like this yet remain optimistic and positive? Maybe global warming deniers, rather than being stupid or brainwashed, are just instinctively better at protecting their own mental health?
  - tehabe 9y ago
    I'm screwed!
    - J-dawg 9y ago
      I didn't mean to make you feel like that. My reply was trying to say, I feel the same as you, and I'm curious to know how other people manage to be fully aware of climate change yet remain positive and happy. Diederich's reply to your comment seems to be a good start!
      - tehabe 9y ago
Cacti 9y ago
> 2016 saw average concentrations of CO2 hit 403.3 parts per million, up from 400ppm in 2015... "The largest increase was in the previous El Niño, in 1997-1998 and it was 2.7ppm and now it is 3.3ppm, it is also 50% higher than the average of the last ten years." It sounds a lot less alarmist when you put it this way. We're talking like 0.6 part per million. If you look at the graph in the article, it's basically in-line with the past 60 years.
- pizza 9y ago
  Yeah, 0.6 ppm may sound like a very small amount, but I thought the problem is that the effect over time / harm as a function of concentration levels is convex; i.e. +0.6ppm today means a huge difference 10 years from now.
- cryptoz 9y ago
  > We're talking like 0.6 part per million You dismiss this increase as if the small percentage of the total atmosphere that CO2 makes up is a relevant statistic. It's not - you're using big numbers not related to make it sound like the situation is smaller than it is. Are you expecting it to get to 1 part per thousand, or something? That's not the risk area - the risk area is here, at ~400ppm. > If you look at the graph in the article, it's basically in-line with the past 60 years. Actually it looks like a steep increase to me from the last 60 years. Also, these are numbers we'd like to be doing down, not increasing even faster. The situation is dire.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- guelo 9y ago
  Here's my attempt at visually extrapolating from that graph. If it's a new trend it looks like a very significant change to me. https://imgur.com/fys3MqG https://imgur.com/fys3MqG
zargath 9y ago
I am a computer engineer so I know nothing of nature :) But, it boggles my mind why so many people don't believe global warming can be man-made. I know you can have disagreements, scientists can be wrong, a lot of things can contribute to things heating up, an so forth. But to be 100% sure that its not man-made, I dont get it. Is it because these deniers grow up in a eco system so large that they dont sense human interference, is it pure denial or ?
- eru 9y ago
  Most people don't engage with the science directly. I know I don't. And your beliefs about climate change don't make a difference in daily life one way or another. Thus what you get is stated beliefs being entirely driven by appeals to authority and tribal affiliation. As a small experiment for how hard it is: come up with some good arguments to convince me that earth is actually roughly spherical--without resorting to appeals to authority. Just using observations and little experiments available to the common layman it's doable, but way harder than you think. And now just extrapolate how much harder climate change is to argue about.
  - titzer 9y ago
    It's not that hard. Watch a lunar eclipse. Watch the sun rise, follow an arc, set, and then watch the stars rise, follow their arcs, and then set. Then travel to a few degrees south and see the whole thing again, except the pole around which everything revolves shifts by exactly the amount you moved south.
    - eru 9y ago
      Yes, that's good evidence. Though I think the flat earthers had some convoluted explanation for it, too. What's also easy to do in today's world is calling up someone in a different time zone that you trust, and ask them for when their sunset is. (The interactive calling is important, so that it's harder to have a conspiracy delay your messages or fake some news.)
      - 9y ago
mariushn 9y ago
Most comments say we must cut down our emissions, but will YOU do anything different after this article? I'm honestly asking how can I help? * I'm already a minimalist. Small apartment, no useless crap around (decorations, lots of clothes, printed books...), which require energy to produce & transport * Can't convince friends to do the same * Work from home * No car, using public transport & Uber when needed * Voting has no effect So, what exactly can we do this week, besides just saying "Yep", and just go on until it breaks? Genuine question.
- dietdrb 9y ago
  You can join an advocacy group such as Citizens' Climate Lobby and build political will for a livable world. CCL has been incredibly successful by, for example, creating the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, which counts among its membership 30 Republican members of Congress. CCL is effective and is volunteer driven, so the chapter in your area needs you. https://citizensclimatelobby.org/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=9oyguP4nLv0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=9oyguP4nLv0
- shaunxcode 9y ago
  Not to be controversial but honestly maybe add mindful consumption of food. Start doing the actual math on the entire supply chain from growth to harvest/picking/slaughter, shipping, manufacturing, distribution. Am I suggesting we apply what we know about distributed systems to food? Hell yes. Why do we not have neighborhood hydroponic gardens we all invest in together? The thing is these are start up ideas or political things we need to wait to vote on. We can start today.
- throwaway5752 9y ago
  You can stop saying, "Voting has no effect". It has a large effect. You can attribute a large chunk of global warming in the past two decades to ~500 votes in Florida. There are huge, quantitative differences between the two main parties in the worlds largest CO2 polluter per capita/2nd largest overall.
- OisinMoran 9y ago
  To those feeling powerless about this, http://worrydream.com/#!/ClimateChange http://worrydream.com/#!/ClimateChange is one of the most well-researched, well-written, and inspiring pieces written on this exact problem--"what can a technologist do about climate change?".
yters 9y ago
Why such focus on CO2 when it is a small proportion of the greenhouse effect? Water vapor is much more significant.
thriftwy 9y ago
How is that solar shade coming along?
alistproducer2 9y ago
>"Today's CO2 concentration of around 400 ppm exceeds the natural variability seen over hundreds of thousands of years,"[0] That's the part that opens and shut's the "debate" surrounding human-cause climate change. When you have that much data, combined with the fact that we build and use machines that spew carbon there can not be any other explanation for the Co2 levels. Case closed. [0]: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/carbon-dioxide-co2-atmosphere-environment-climate-change-global-warming-un-a8026931.html http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/carbon-dioxide-co2-...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- aidenn0 9y ago
  Except there has been a huge amount of effort of discrediting geological data. On the most extreme, 10% of the population of the US believes the earth to be on the order of 10k years old, which immediately makes the entire geologic record suspect. On lesser extremes, there are arguments that for much of the Phanerozoic. CO2 concentrations were much, much higher, and a lot of money was spent pushing the idea that returning to such levels would be benign.
- dwaltrip 9y ago
  More importantly, we know with a high degree of certainty that human global emissions tip the earth's overall carbon output/downtake balance to net output (by a few dozen gigatons, I believe), which the models say is enough to trigger the increase to 400ppm over the past century or so.
  - acqq 9y ago
    And we know it's humans who made the increase of CO2 from the measurements of the carbon isotopes in the ice cores, which stored the state of the air from the earlier times. Human burning of the fossil fuels changes the isotope ratio exactly: it is certain that just humans, burning the fossil fuels, are those who change the CO2 concentration through the years.
chiefalchemist 9y ago
It might be a good time to reiterate that fracking (in the USA) hockeystick'ed in the last 5 - 10 years. That, naturally, drove down the cost of oil, which naturally helped to not deter (pardon the double negative) oil consumption. Cheap energy was great for the ailing economy, but it mortgaged Mother Nature's future.
gdubs 9y ago
Frustrated with lack of government action, I became a vegetarian. Technically, pescatarian – but very rarely, because overfishing, mercury, etc. We need government action on this, and I don't have illusions that my vegetarianism will make a dent in the problem. But, I believe in taking the actions you can. I've also become an advocate for permaculture food production. I will talk at length about it to anyone who will listen. [1]. We waste a ton of carbon making food. Even if you just cut down on meat consumption, you'd be reducing your carbon footprint pretty significantly. But it's not just meat vs vegetables. It's also the way we've centered our food production around monocultures. Or how we demand fruit that's out of season in January, that gets shipped and trucked across the globe. (Again, guilty – I have kids and sometimes you just need to convince them to eat anything besides pasta, but that's another story.) Maybe for you it's not vegetarianism, but something else you can change in your own life. We may not fix the problem with our individual changes alone – but I do believe our individual efforts can create positive momentum towards progress. 1: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16441733-restoration-agriculture https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16441733-restoration-agr...
- hinkley 9y ago
  If nothing else you are voting with your wallet, and perhaps being a role model or peer pressure for others.
- kaiku 9y ago
  I agree with you about government action. That said, if you work for a company, rally together with your like-minded coworkers to push for change within your organization. Even small companies can have an outsized impact on both mindshare and environmental direction. I belong to a group broadly devoted to environmentalism where I work, and we push on things from renewables; having less meat and more vegetables at lunch and dinner (we're very lucky to have catered food); and bringing in guest speakers.
simonsarris 9y ago
Developing transportation beyond oil is a moral imperative. How long will it take us? https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/the-moral-technology-6413ca8449c9 https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/the-moral-technology-6413ca...

174 points by betolink 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

A positive feedback loop through methane was always the nightmare scenario, and now it seems to be happening. It's probably too late to stop catastrophic warming simply by cutting emissions. We still need to do so, because it can always get worse, but it's time to look seriously at terraforming as well.

ejolto 9y ago
Do you mean terraforming Earth or Mars? Handling global warming will probably be easier than terraforming Mars.
- leot 9y ago
  easier scientifically != easier politically
- jackmott 9y ago
  just need to drop a few hundred thousand comets and asteroids and mars, and mar's moon, then float a few hundred thousand giant mirrors around it to warm it up a bit, seed it with plants, wait a few thousand years. no big deal!
  - lprubin 9y ago
    Don't forget solving the gravity disparity problem.
    - jackmott 9y ago
      dumping the comets and moons onto the surface is to help with that. But I've done some napkin math and it looks like we need ~40 billion commets to bring it halfway to earth mass...welp
      - goatlover 9y ago
        Makes terraforming Venus look easy.
      - ejolto 9y ago
        If you crash the entire asteroid belt into Mars, its mass will increase by half a percent.
        jackmott 9y ago
        a good start! you can get most of that half of a percent with just the 4 largest asteroids. maybe we need to sacrifice our own moon.
        ejolto 9y ago
        If we are moving the moon, we might as well just move the earth to a higher orbit further from the sun.
        AstralStorm 9y ago
        If we had access to this kind of energy, we'd be generating and treating copious amounts of antimatter and using it to power electrical CO2 sequestration devices.
    - Reason077 9y ago
      Mars gravity, 38% of Earth's, doesn't seem like all that much of problem. Sure, there are some health risks associated with being in a low gravity environment. But considering humans survive surprisingly well in micro-gravity in space, I'm sure we can adapt to the relatively strong gravity on Mars.
      - jsjohnst 9y ago
        > But considering humans survive surprisingly well in micro-gravity in space Source for that claim? The number of studies I’ve read (as well as conversations I’ve had with astronauts) about the health impact on astronauts who’ve been on the ISS for extended periods seems to disagree.
        CyberDildonics 9y ago
        Is less gravity the only difference in being on earth and being on the ISS?
        jsjohnst 9y ago
        Google would've easily found a bunch of supporting articles to what I stated, but here: https://www.space.com/23017-weightlessness.html https://www.space.com/23017-weightlessness.html https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast02aug_1 https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/a... http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/20/health/your-body-in-space/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/20/health/your-body-in-space/inde... https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/bodyinspace https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/bodyinspace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_spaceflight_on_the_human_body#Weightlessness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_spaceflight_on_the_h... tl;dr version: > In space, without gravity, bones lose more than 1% of minerals and density per month. > Astronauts also experience blood volume loss, weakened immune systems and cardiovascular deconditioning since floating takes little effort and the heart doesn't have to work as hard to pump blood through your body > "It changes their visual acuity," Charles said. "They're not able to see things up close. It's like advanced aging. That sort of thing happens at a sort of an accelerated rate."
- goatlover 9y ago
  Adapting to and/or fixing Earth's climate is easier than terraforming Mars by an enormous amount. Mars is more inhospitable to life than the center of Antarctica during the winter. Also, it's months away in a spaceship. There's no scenario in which Mars is a viable alternative for the human race this century.
- Filligree 9y ago
  Earth. It's the same technology set, more or less, but aimed at cooling it down rather than heating up Mars. I suppose the best option would be carbon capture, if it isn't too expensive, but I rather suspect it would be.
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    It is not too expensive if we were to use nuclear reactors to power it. (Yes, including hiked commissioning and decommissioning costs.) Combined with solar and wind for peak of course because why not. There are currently no other options. Renewables alone are not enough to even power civilization at current level. (They get somewhere shy of 60% in an impossible best case.)
Roodgorf 9y ago
Some sort of carbon capture and storage situation seems more likely at this point, though I haven't yet seen any proposals that I think would get the backing they need to be effective. Is this what you meant by terraforming, or something else entirely?
- chewbacha 9y ago
  How about we grow corn (or other fast growing biomass like kelp) and bury it?
  - thinkling 9y ago
    I believe decaying plant matter generally emits green house gasses. (See for example emissions from biomass collecting behind dams; there were headlines about this in the past year.) So you'd have to bury the biomass to prevent rot and/or gas leaks. That means digging big holes and/or transporting biomass to the holes and/or fabricating/moving material to cover the biomass. All that work uses energy and thus produces GHG. It's probably hard to come out ahead.
    - chewbacha 9y ago
      The carbon it emits comes from carbon fixation from photosynthesis. So long as some carbon is sequestered in the soil, it’s net negative.
  - bluGill 9y ago
    it still decays to things that release that CO2, plus burying things uses a lot of energy. If this a serious proposal you should be thinking grow it, wait for it to dry out and burn it - the fire will not be hot enough to turn all the carbon into CO2, the remainder is elemental carbon (read charcoal) in a form not usable to life. That carbon is also biochar which is actually useful to improve the soil. This is most easily done in forest, but note that you need regular forest fires, otherwise the fire is hot enough to run all the carbon into CO2 and we didn't gain anything. Thus most of the forest fires you read about are bad - but if we change our policy after the fire and burn those forests often we can make them a net negative CO2.
duozerk 9y ago
And there are many, many such feedback loops, and not all of them linked to methane. For example, as the climate warms there are more and more wildfires, and those emits tons of carbon as well. Another example is the decrease in CO2 absoption by water as its temperature increases. There are tons of them that have not been modelled (if they even have been envisaged / discovered); mostly because they are very hard to estimate when it comes to their impact. As for your suggestion, I doubt this is even possible; we released millions of year worth of concentrated solar energy in the span of a century (edit: slightly misleading statement, see below). Scrubbing so much carbon from the atmosphere would take huge amounts of energy, and that energy needs to be clean or you're just adding to the issue. And all this needs to be done in a capitalistic system without any direct profit motive - good luck with that. The most "realistic" examples of geoengineering I have read about usually have downsides that end up killing most of us as well (such as a solar shield at L1 to decrease warming - the impact on plant life and as a result, food, would be pretty bad). Meanwhile we're still pretending less than 2C is possible, and even pretending that 2C is survivable as-is without profound changes to our way of lives. That being said, they mention that human CO2 emission have plateau-ed; I'm far from sure that this the case as a lot of it comes from self reporting and those numbers are likely heavily under reported (especially - but not only - from China). It should also be mentioned a lot of this could come from El Nino; but then again climate change is expected to impact that cycle and we may get stronger and/or longer El Nino periods - it may be partly consequence as well.
- titzer 9y ago
  > we released millions of year of concentrated solar energy This seems like an overestimate of how much energy it would take to do capture and sequestration. The energy density of fossil fuels is nowhere near that high. A gallon of gasoline is ~33kwh of energy, which is about the same amount of energy that falls on a square meter of Earth's surface in about 22 hours. In terms of barrels of oil, with global consumption at 96 million barrels per day, assuming 12hrs of sunlight a day, I calculated 8600km^2 of Earth's surface, or a square about 93km on a side.
  - mikeash 9y ago
nabla9 9y ago
>but it's time to look seriously at terraforming as well. There are so many orders of magnitude differences between the two problems (budget, timescales and difficulty) that I'm not sure if this is sarcasm.

melling 9y ago

As we approach the third decade of the 21st Century, how is most electricity on the planet generated? Coal.

jsight 9y ago
As far as I know, that isn't really true. Isn't coal well under 50% now? I suspect that it would be below 40% by this point and dropping. It isn't really reasonable to expect it to disappear too quickly, though.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > Isn't coal well under 50% now? I suspect that it would be below 40% by this point and dropping Coal has remained around 29% of global primary energy consumption since 2005 [1]. I don't believe it's dropping. [1] https://www.worldenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/World-Energy-Resources-Full-report-2016.10.03.pdf https://www.worldenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/World... Figure 1, page 4
  - melling 9y ago
    You are saying something completely different. The discussion is not about all energy use but about the generation of electricity.
- jackmott 9y ago
  Pounds of CO2 emitted per million British thermal units (Btu) of energy for various fuels: Coal (anthracite) 228.6 Coal (bituminous) 205.7 Coal (lignite) 215.4 Coal (subbituminous) 214.3 Diesel fuel and heating oil 161.3 Gasoline (without ethanol) 157.2 Propane 139.0 Natural gas 117.0 natural gas is a win over coal, but not a big one.
- sologoub 9y ago
  There still appears to be net growth in Asia Pacific region: https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy/coal/coal-consumption.html https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/stat... and the interactive chart: http://tools.bp.com/energy-charting-tool#/st/coal/dt/consumption/unit/MTOE/region/NOA/SCA/EU/MIE/AFR/AP/view/area/ http://tools.bp.com/energy-charting-tool#/st/coal/dt/consump... That region is consuming more than 7x North American consumption and accounts for 73% of overall consumption. Unfortunately, it’s also the area seeing the least drop as a percentage. In other words, the rest of the world can completely get rid of coal and the total global coal emissions will still be higher than they were before 2003.

rybosome 9y ago

So how deep into the consequences are we going to get before the debate over its reality ends?

amiramir 9y ago
Apparently climate change is hard to reason about due to our cognitive biases. I know that Kaheman has lost a little luster of late I still buy this: "Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel prize in economics for his research on the psychological biases that distort rational decision- making. One of these is “loss aversion”, which means that people are far more sensitive to losses than gains. He regards climate change as a perfect trigger: a distant problem that requires sacrifices now to avoid uncertain losses far in the future. This combination is exceptionally hard for us to accept, he told me."[0] That said, I think that the thing that will make people change their behavior is not so much how bad it gets but the economics. If it's cheaper to use renewables than burning fuels then people will switch. Thinking about one's short-term economic choices ($1 < $2) is mostly simpler than thinking about global issues that are at odds with one's cognitive biases, and one's choices to ignore scientists. [0] https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329820-200-understand-faulty-thinking-to-tackle-climate-change/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329820-200-understa...
czechdeveloper 9y ago
Until it can be told that it's too late to do anything anyway.
- jackmott 9y ago
  that argument started in early 2000 and continues to grow. it is a dumb argument but you can be sure that is where the rhetoric is heading.
  - tertius 9y ago
    Ah, the point of no return, i.e. the genesis of global warming alarmism. One of the biggest PR blunders for climate change. For all those who are pro-climate change, please stop saying "we've reached the point of no return." It doesn't help people change, which is what your goal should be. Shaming people is all good fun, but it doesn't help your end goal.

grandalf 9y ago

Are there plant species that might not really thrive in the current environment but will begin to thrive once the CO2 level increases a bit further?

bluGill 9y ago
Yes. I don't remember the search terms to find it, but I did read a paper (~10 years ago) that discussed this. The problem is most of them are plants we would consider weeds. This depends on where you are - in the desert plants are water limited, and no amount of CO2 will help. When not near the equator plants are also water limited in winter (at the extremes they are also sun limited). In some parts plants are nutrient limited (dumping iron into the oceans causes an algae bloom - which at least short term is CO2 negative - more research needed)
computerwizard 9y ago
I've thought the same thing. It would make sense but would be great if someone with real knowledge could respond.
- Filligree 9y ago
  All forms of underwater plants will do better with more CO2, especially the ones that also grow above water. Perhaps not including seaweed. I don't know how much effect that will have, given seaweed is mostly it, but planted aquariums typically need to artificially inject CO2 into the water to get decent growth rates. The exchange rate with air is deeply unfavorable, so there'll be barely any CO2 in the water otherwise. The exchange rate also worsens as temperature increases. I'm not sure how it'd work out overall.
kadal 9y ago
Anecdata and not what you're asking but relevant. I saw a talk by David Battisti (Univ Washington professor). He had attended a FAO meeting about climate change and agriculture. It looks like it is increasingly hard to engineer wheat/rice varieties that can reach peak yield with rising temperatures. The outlook for say, Indian river production, is not good at all. From what I remember, we are currently in the temperature sweet spot for rice/wheat production. If someone knows a primary source for this kind of thing, please comment

Gustomaximus 9y ago

At the risk of being overly anecdotal, I find it interesting to see the evolution of people in my life who are anti clean energy movement. First they denied climate change. Then they moved to saying changes were happening but it was normal global fluctuations. Now they are telling me that increased carbon will stimulate growth and help feed the world. I find it amazing. I dont truly know if global warming is a thing as I'm not a scientist studying this. I do know the vast majority of scientists are screaming we are heading for trouble. Even if they are wrong, why would we take the chance. I find people fighting a change to improve carbon and other global warming causes dumbfounding. Even if the scientist are likely wrong, the downside/cost of pursuing green tech is reasonably limited and why would you take the chance on something so profound.

Symmetry 9y ago
If you look at the effects on carbon dioxide on plant life in isolation from everything else they're right. On the other hand higher temperatures will slow down growth leading to a small net positive or negative depending on which staple crop we're talking about. And on the gripping hand shifting patterns of rainfall are liable to totally screw everything up in a way that could be totally disastrous but which is very hard to predict. But a reluctance to admit that you're wrong is a big part of human politics. Maybe we can find some way to reframe the issue so that it doesn't seem like a retreat to them?
- goatlover 9y ago
  And if the Amazon dried up considerably, we'd probably be looking at a big net loss.
  - Symmetry 9y ago
    Or the Gulf Stream shutting down and Europe freezing. Or any of a dozen other things. And the Sahara greening wouldn't make up for it because nobody lives there to farm it.
jackmott 9y ago

PatientTrades 9y ago

> It is urgent that we follow the Paris agreement and switch rapidly away from fossil fuels I think everyone, even skeptics deep down agree that climate change is real. However, giving billions, if not trillions of dollars to an international climate fund run by who the hell knows is definitely not the correct approach. Businesses and people need short term incentives to switch, not just mandates. Until scientists further develop not only cheaper, but more convenient and efficient energy solutions, fossil fuels will continue to be used.

BEEdwards 9y ago
If surviving as a species isn't enough of an incentive I'm not sure that the government can promise much.
sacheendra 9y ago
Scientists don't work in a vacuum. They do need resources to do their work. As long as they don't get them and research funding keeps getting slashed, the scientists cannot do much. They are already trying their best with the available resources. Climate change can only be solved by political means. Hoping someone will make a breakthrough that will make the problem go away is not realistic.
Pxtl 9y ago
The problem is that the options being presented politically are a) Support the international movement to fight climate change, or b) Do nothing > Until scientists further develop not only cheaper, but more convenient and efficient energy solutions, fossil fuels will continue to be used. That is utter cowardice. Imagine if WW2 had happened and the USA had stayed out saying "we're not participating until scientists invent ray-guns". There are conservative, anti-globalist options to fighting climate change. Carbon taxes encourage the market to develop solutions, and could be done in a revenue-neutral fashion which would mean it's a tax cut for green citizens. Tariff countries with bad climate records and encourage trade with countries that are doing their part to fight climate change. Block expansion of the coal industry. None of these would be contrary to conservative, market-oriented values. None of these require funnelling billions into international climate funds. But instead, the North American right is keeping their heads firmly planted in the sand.

nakedrobot2 9y ago

Hey! Billionaires of the world - there are now 1400 of you [1]. How much would it cost to, say, A) buy the entire amazon rainforest, so that it doesn't get chopped down anymore? (Yes, it's not just that easy, needs monitoring and patrol, etc.) B) Solve nuclear fusion, C) build massive arrays of solar panels (or fusion reactors) in order to desalinate water and eventually reforest the deserts of africa? Once I'm a billionaire myself I hope to help with at least one of those three things. Until then, we must ask them nicely to act, rather than just watch their capital asexually reproduce. [1] https://boingboing.net/2017/10/27/new-gilded-age.html https://boingboing.net/2017/10/27/new-gilded-age.html

JPLeRouzic 9y ago
I upvoted you because I agree with the "spirit" of what you wrote, but something is nagging me: Once free energy (in the form of massive solar panel fields or nuclear fusion) is available, would not it be actually worse? - True we would (in theory) no more need coal/oil, but that would be useless for most transport means as we would have pollution made by producing batteries as well as with old abandonned leaking electric cars? - For the Amazon rainforest, I learnt that it is something that came and went several times during the hundred of millenia since it exists. Why do you expect it to have an impact on CO2 rate or the climate? After all if the problem is the Co2 we could attack it directly by transforming it in food for example. - There is at least an ongoing project in Sahel to create a long wall of trees, but the main problem is that people burn bush/trees for cooking and they raise goats. Goats tear off grass, on contrary to other cattle. Those two reasons explain well the desert progression, in Sahara at least. Another problem is that the West of Sahara is infested with personal mines. What I would propose (actually I proposed it in the Global challenges shape prize [0]) is for UNHCR to create artificial towns in those areas. It not only would provide work and wealth to people there but it would change their way of living. This is not a pipe dream, China is already implementing a similar policy. [0] https://globalchallenges.org/en/our-work/the-new-shape-prize https://globalchallenges.org/en/our-work/the-new-shape-prize
- nakedrobot2 9y ago
  Oh! That's an interesting idea. I hadn't considered providing additional population / infrastructure, as an economic incentive to "regreen" an area. You would still need some massive efforts around planting / watering the new vegetation though. So these "new towns" would be in addition to newly forested+grass areas?

tehabe 9y ago

I feel really helpless, one person alone is essentially powerless, only governments and corporations are big enough to make a difference but they don't because they don't "believe" it or have no incentives to do anything. (And no, boycotts are pointless). So essentially we are screwed and the people who will come after us will either have to come up with a technology to get CO2 out of the atmosphere back to 290-300 ppm or will have to live with a much more hostile environment than today. I'm extremely pessimistic right now.

J-dawg 9y ago
Recently I've been reading various books about how to avoid and control excessive anxiety. One piece of advice that I keep seeing is that I should not worry about things outside of my direct control. This idea is also a central component of stoicism. How then, should one process terrible news like this? One the one hand, the world is not thinking about climate change enough (certainly politicians aren't). But on the other hand, it seems impossible to maintain good mental health if one spends too much time thinking about these things. Part of me wants to stick my head in the sand and just get on with life (which seems to be what many people do anyway). How can I read news like this yet remain optimistic and positive? Maybe global warming deniers, rather than being stupid or brainwashed, are just instinctively better at protecting their own mental health?
- tehabe 9y ago
  I'm screwed!
  - J-dawg 9y ago
    I didn't mean to make you feel like that. My reply was trying to say, I feel the same as you, and I'm curious to know how other people manage to be fully aware of climate change yet remain positive and happy. Diederich's reply to your comment seems to be a good start!
    - tehabe 9y ago

Cacti 9y ago

> 2016 saw average concentrations of CO2 hit 403.3 parts per million, up from 400ppm in 2015... "The largest increase was in the previous El Niño, in 1997-1998 and it was 2.7ppm and now it is 3.3ppm, it is also 50% higher than the average of the last ten years." It sounds a lot less alarmist when you put it this way. We're talking like 0.6 part per million. If you look at the graph in the article, it's basically in-line with the past 60 years.

pizza 9y ago
Yeah, 0.6 ppm may sound like a very small amount, but I thought the problem is that the effect over time / harm as a function of concentration levels is convex; i.e. +0.6ppm today means a huge difference 10 years from now.
cryptoz 9y ago
> We're talking like 0.6 part per million You dismiss this increase as if the small percentage of the total atmosphere that CO2 makes up is a relevant statistic. It's not - you're using big numbers not related to make it sound like the situation is smaller than it is. Are you expecting it to get to 1 part per thousand, or something? That's not the risk area - the risk area is here, at ~400ppm. > If you look at the graph in the article, it's basically in-line with the past 60 years. Actually it looks like a steep increase to me from the last 60 years. Also, these are numbers we'd like to be doing down, not increasing even faster. The situation is dire.
deleted 9y ago
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guelo 9y ago
Here's my attempt at visually extrapolating from that graph. If it's a new trend it looks like a very significant change to me. https://imgur.com/fys3MqG https://imgur.com/fys3MqG

zargath 9y ago

I am a computer engineer so I know nothing of nature :) But, it boggles my mind why so many people don't believe global warming can be man-made. I know you can have disagreements, scientists can be wrong, a lot of things can contribute to things heating up, an so forth. But to be 100% sure that its not man-made, I dont get it. Is it because these deniers grow up in a eco system so large that they dont sense human interference, is it pure denial or ?

eru 9y ago
Most people don't engage with the science directly. I know I don't. And your beliefs about climate change don't make a difference in daily life one way or another. Thus what you get is stated beliefs being entirely driven by appeals to authority and tribal affiliation. As a small experiment for how hard it is: come up with some good arguments to convince me that earth is actually roughly spherical--without resorting to appeals to authority. Just using observations and little experiments available to the common layman it's doable, but way harder than you think. And now just extrapolate how much harder climate change is to argue about.
- titzer 9y ago
  It's not that hard. Watch a lunar eclipse. Watch the sun rise, follow an arc, set, and then watch the stars rise, follow their arcs, and then set. Then travel to a few degrees south and see the whole thing again, except the pole around which everything revolves shifts by exactly the amount you moved south.
  - eru 9y ago
    Yes, that's good evidence. Though I think the flat earthers had some convoluted explanation for it, too. What's also easy to do in today's world is calling up someone in a different time zone that you trust, and ask them for when their sunset is. (The interactive calling is important, so that it's harder to have a conspiracy delay your messages or fake some news.)
    - 9y ago

mariushn 9y ago

Most comments say we must cut down our emissions, but will YOU do anything different after this article? I'm honestly asking how can I help? * I'm already a minimalist. Small apartment, no useless crap around (decorations, lots of clothes, printed books...), which require energy to produce & transport * Can't convince friends to do the same * Work from home * No car, using public transport & Uber when needed * Voting has no effect So, what exactly can we do this week, besides just saying "Yep", and just go on until it breaks? Genuine question.

dietdrb 9y ago
You can join an advocacy group such as Citizens' Climate Lobby and build political will for a livable world. CCL has been incredibly successful by, for example, creating the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, which counts among its membership 30 Republican members of Congress. CCL is effective and is volunteer driven, so the chapter in your area needs you. https://citizensclimatelobby.org/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=9oyguP4nLv0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=9oyguP4nLv0
shaunxcode 9y ago
Not to be controversial but honestly maybe add mindful consumption of food. Start doing the actual math on the entire supply chain from growth to harvest/picking/slaughter, shipping, manufacturing, distribution. Am I suggesting we apply what we know about distributed systems to food? Hell yes. Why do we not have neighborhood hydroponic gardens we all invest in together? The thing is these are start up ideas or political things we need to wait to vote on. We can start today.
throwaway5752 9y ago
You can stop saying, "Voting has no effect". It has a large effect. You can attribute a large chunk of global warming in the past two decades to ~500 votes in Florida. There are huge, quantitative differences between the two main parties in the worlds largest CO2 polluter per capita/2nd largest overall.
OisinMoran 9y ago
To those feeling powerless about this, http://worrydream.com/#!/ClimateChange http://worrydream.com/#!/ClimateChange is one of the most well-researched, well-written, and inspiring pieces written on this exact problem--"what can a technologist do about climate change?".

yters 9y ago

Why such focus on CO2 when it is a small proportion of the greenhouse effect? Water vapor is much more significant.

thriftwy 9y ago

How is that solar shade coming along?

alistproducer2 9y ago

>"Today's CO2 concentration of around 400 ppm exceeds the natural variability seen over hundreds of thousands of years,"[0] That's the part that opens and shut's the "debate" surrounding human-cause climate change. When you have that much data, combined with the fact that we build and use machines that spew carbon there can not be any other explanation for the Co2 levels. Case closed. [0]: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/carbon-dioxide-co2-atmosphere-environment-climate-change-global-warming-un-a8026931.html http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/carbon-dioxide-co2-...

deleted 9y ago
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aidenn0 9y ago
Except there has been a huge amount of effort of discrediting geological data. On the most extreme, 10% of the population of the US believes the earth to be on the order of 10k years old, which immediately makes the entire geologic record suspect. On lesser extremes, there are arguments that for much of the Phanerozoic. CO2 concentrations were much, much higher, and a lot of money was spent pushing the idea that returning to such levels would be benign.
dwaltrip 9y ago
More importantly, we know with a high degree of certainty that human global emissions tip the earth's overall carbon output/downtake balance to net output (by a few dozen gigatons, I believe), which the models say is enough to trigger the increase to 400ppm over the past century or so.
- acqq 9y ago
  And we know it's humans who made the increase of CO2 from the measurements of the carbon isotopes in the ice cores, which stored the state of the air from the earlier times. Human burning of the fossil fuels changes the isotope ratio exactly: it is certain that just humans, burning the fossil fuels, are those who change the CO2 concentration through the years.

chiefalchemist 9y ago

It might be a good time to reiterate that fracking (in the USA) hockeystick'ed in the last 5 - 10 years. That, naturally, drove down the cost of oil, which naturally helped to not deter (pardon the double negative) oil consumption. Cheap energy was great for the ailing economy, but it mortgaged Mother Nature's future.

gdubs 9y ago

Frustrated with lack of government action, I became a vegetarian. Technically, pescatarian – but very rarely, because overfishing, mercury, etc. We need government action on this, and I don't have illusions that my vegetarianism will make a dent in the problem. But, I believe in taking the actions you can. I've also become an advocate for permaculture food production. I will talk at length about it to anyone who will listen. [1]. We waste a ton of carbon making food. Even if you just cut down on meat consumption, you'd be reducing your carbon footprint pretty significantly. But it's not just meat vs vegetables. It's also the way we've centered our food production around monocultures. Or how we demand fruit that's out of season in January, that gets shipped and trucked across the globe. (Again, guilty – I have kids and sometimes you just need to convince them to eat anything besides pasta, but that's another story.) Maybe for you it's not vegetarianism, but something else you can change in your own life. We may not fix the problem with our individual changes alone – but I do believe our individual efforts can create positive momentum towards progress. 1: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16441733-restoration-agriculture https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16441733-restoration-agr...

hinkley 9y ago
If nothing else you are voting with your wallet, and perhaps being a role model or peer pressure for others.
kaiku 9y ago
I agree with you about government action. That said, if you work for a company, rally together with your like-minded coworkers to push for change within your organization. Even small companies can have an outsized impact on both mindshare and environmental direction. I belong to a group broadly devoted to environmentalism where I work, and we push on things from renewables; having less meat and more vegetables at lunch and dinner (we're very lucky to have catered food); and bringing in guest speakers.

simonsarris 9y ago

Developing transportation beyond oil is a moral imperative. How long will it take us? https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/the-moral-technology-6413ca8449c9 https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/the-moral-technology-6413ca...