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CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions
- ralusek 7y agoClimate aside, doesn't the increase of CO2 from 280PPM to 400PPM not have a substantial impact on the respiration of trees and animals? 42% increase of poison to animals has no meaningful impact?
- village-idiot 7y agoI'm not sure about other animals, but 400ppm is a long way away from toxic for humanity. Poorly ventilated indoor environments can easily hit 1200-1500ppm. You've got to hit 70,000 to 100,000 ppm before you start running the risk of coma and death. Interestingly some studies indicate that 1200ppm and higher might confer some mild cognitive impairment, even if it's a long way away from fatal. This has been used glibly to explain the poor decisions made in office rooms, but one does wonder what happens to humanity if global emissions make us slightly dumber.
- perfunctory 7y agoThat's why they are called "poorly ventilated" and you are not supposed to stay in them 24/7. Indeed, adverse effects begin before coma and death.
- NotPaidToPost 7y agoCO2 is not 'poison' and the concentration increase actually makes plants grow bigger. Let's not go over the top and let's stick to facts. Overall it's good for plants though this is more than offset by the downsides.
- jlarocco 7y agoPhrasing it that way is a little misleading. At 400 ppm CO2 is only 0.04% of the total atmosphere. Increasing from 0.028% to 0.04% is a 42% increase, but 0.04% is too low to directly poison plants. The climate change effects will be a problem long before plants and animals start getting poisoned by it.
- ralusek 7y agoIt doesn't poison plants, they rely on CO2 in much the same way that animals rely on O2. I know that it's a negligible part of the atmosphere, but a 42% increase on the primary mechanism for plant respiration, which is also a poison for animals, seems like it would have a meaningful impact.
- yboris 7y agoOurWorldInData is one of my favorite resources now for finding out about the world ️
- ForHackernews 7y ago> 1.5°C consistent: there are a range of emissions pathways that would be compatible with limiting average warming to 1.5°C by 2100. However, all would require a very urgent and rapid reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. Is this polite data analyst-speak for "We're fucked"?
- mikelyons 7y agoIt's polite data analyst speak for, "We need immediate and globally-coordinated _radical_ action" (action being the key term) Edit: We're not fucked yet. Apotheosis of hope.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoI'd say at this point, "radical" is the key term here.
- mikelyons 7y agoPragmatically its more a return to old-style living in many ways but will seem radical to groups addicted to modern lifestyles.
- pif 7y agoPragmatically, it's a non starter. Global warming is here to stay: better learn to cope with it!
- coldtea 7y agoA, don't worry about it. After the first hundred million corpses, tons of measures will be taken, very pragmatically...
- adrianN 7y agoNo, return to old style living won't save us, because the planet can't sustain our current population levels with old-style living. Unless you want to trigger civil unrest and kill many people, the solution has to be technological. Renewable energy and improved energy efficiency can do it, it just needs a few trillion dollars of investment.
- frankbreetz 7y agoIt is always interesting to see graphs like this, I am curious how much something like a new green deal would move the 2100 temperature line. A common argument against it is that everything depends on China and India. I don't suspect this is true. The USA is one of the highest per capita emitters, it doesn't seem right that we would get to live like that while we take away resources from these other countries who are not as capable of switching over. At least we should get to a point where we all have equal per capita emitters, preferably we should be investing in the technology that would allow them to never have to use carbon-emitting technologies and even potentially profit off them.
- perfunctory 7y agoAnd since we outsourced our industry to China, a fair share of China's emissions are also our emissions.
- legitster 7y agoAccording to the data, consumer electrical demand is a larger and faster growing source of emissions.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- black6 7y ago> I am curious how much something like a new green deal would move the 2100 temperature line The Green New Deal ( at least in the USofA ) is a resolution, not a law or spending appropriation, and contains no action items. It’s a feel-good set of “Rah! Rah! We should do <something>.” And as such, I do not see it moving the line at all.
- frankbreetz 7y agoI was under the impression the new green deal included something like going carbon neutral in the next ten years.
- fearai 7y agothe people pushing the green new deal are doomsday Sayers predicting "crisis" in 12 years. they are more religious than some religious people about their science. however their 6000 scientists don't appear to look at satellite imagery, or choose not to: "The world is literally a greener place than it was 20 years ago, and data from NASA satellites has revealed a counterintuitive source for much of this new foliage: China and India." source: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/human-activity-in-china-and-india-dominates-the-greening-of-earth-nasa-study-shows https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/human-activity-in-china-an...
- aplummer 7y ago> they are more religious than some religious people about their science. There is no correlation between people concerned about high estimated damage using the current best effort science (warming of 3-4'C) and dogma without evidence. If you have evidence to the contrary you will have definitely earned that Nobel prize and million bucks.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- fearai 7y agowhat type of data do you prefer? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/21/climate-crisis-more-politically-polarizing-than-abortion-for-us-voters-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/21/climate-cris... also we are supposed to be "sceptics" in the science community but your scientists like to manipulate language for political reasons and call sceptics "deniers", a very religious move: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/17/why-the-guardian-is-changing-the-language-it-uses-about-the-environment https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/17/why-the-...
- baron_harkonnen 7y agoYou can watch the Arctic melt before your eyes[1] and we will very likely see an ice free Arctic for the first time in at least 100,000 years in our lifetime. Claiming that isn't happening isn't "skepticism" it is denying what you can easily verify with your own eyes. But let me ask you a very important question that will easily settle where the dogma lies. What would convince you that climate change is happening? Because there is apple evidence all around us and yet you seem determined not to see it, so what would change you mind? If nothing then there's really no point having a discussion. [1]. https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/ https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/
- jwr 7y agoThese are fantastic charts. The problem is that most people will look at them, quickly find "another" large source of CO2 emissions (be it another country, another industry), point fingers and say "it's them!" without doing anything else. Which in the long term (as in, our children and grandchildren will suffer) will destroy our planet.
- war1025 7y agoA thought I had the other day, that sort of fits in the context of what you're saying, but probably not completely: It's interesting to step back and consider how the current Climate Change narrative is similar to the universal theme of "We offended God, so now he is punishing us." Not really sure what the implications of that are, but seems like something that could be harnessed either for good or ill.
- usrusr 7y agoWhat happened in 1600 that made CO2 levels drop? Natural reforestation after European germs wiped out agricultural civilizations in the Americas?
- roter 7y agoCarbon dioxide and temperature are linked. 1650 was the height of the Little Ice Age [0]. Lots of interesting theories and research, e.g. [1], for the specific carbon dioxide drop. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2769 https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2769
- usrusr 7y agoThe link from CO2 to temperature is well discussed. But carbon does not randomly disappear from the atmosphere, so either the trigger must have been something on the ground/at sea or there's also a reverse causal link from temperature to CO2 (so it could be triggered by something sun activity), which would imply a terribly unstable system. A very interesting topic indeed. Could variations in the amount of living biomass (which temporarily binds carbon to be released after death unless buried into isolation) make that much of a dent in atmospheric carbon concentration? My gut feeling says atmospheric carbon far outweighs biologically bound (and is in turn dwarfed by geologically bound, until we have dug it all up), but that's really just a guess.
- legitster 7y agoIt's super depressing to see the acceleration of coal energy in 2000. Despite the rise of renewables, they haven't even been able to keep up with the rise of coal! And the vast majority of it comes from energy production! Electric cars don't solve the problem if we are switching from high-efficiency gas engines to coal-fired electric.
- minikites 7y agoYou mentioned electric cars, but Bitcoin deserves much of the blame: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/17/bitcoin-electricity-usage-huge-climate-cryptocurrency https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/17/bitcoin-e... >Bitcoin’s electricity usage is enormous. In November, the power consumed by the entire bitcoin network was estimated to be higher than that of the Republic of Ireland. Since then, its demands have only grown. It’s now on pace to use just over 42TWh of electricity in a year, placing it ahead of New Zealand and Hungary and just behind Peru, according to estimates from Digiconomist. That’s commensurate with CO2 emissions of 20 megatonnes – or roughly 1m transatlantic flights.
- coldtea 7y agoCurrencies based on "hard cpu work" should be forbidden for that alone...
- adrianN 7y agoI'd rather see a global tax on carbon. Suddenly Bitcoins mined with coal are no longer profitable.
- mikepurvis 7y agoIsn't that kind of what agreements like the Paris accord are supposed to accomplish? Individual nations retain sovereignty and can set their own precise laws, but as long as everyone's above some baseline you can't arbitrage by moving the polluting part of your business to Asia or Africa.
- temp99990 7y agoUtterly depressing to see how much damage we can cause in 30-40 years, basically only since older “millennials” were born.