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Is there any research on what the ideal co2 level is? I’m on the climate change team of course but is there a risk we overshoot and bring co2 too low? I’d jus

Is there any research on what the ideal co2 level is? I’m on the climate change team of course but is there a risk we overshoot and bring co2 too low? I’d just say we should know what we’re aiming for. I guess plants like some amount of extra co2 so we’d think about that. Should we also have some kind of buffer between a future ice age? Don’t get me wrong, I think bring the co2 level close to zero is a viable argument too.

GVIrish 6y ago
It's not really a mystery, we could just bring co2 levels back in line what they were at the beginning of the 20th century. Hell, even the 1950's levels of CO2 would be great. But right now the carbon capture discussions are simply trying to avert disaster. None of the potential carbon capture solutions can remove so much carbon that we'll have to worry about removing too much co2.
- jacobr1 6y ago
  > 1950's levels of CO2 would be great In absolute terms, but we have a lot more people now. It looks like the US is already back at 1950's levels (per-capita). https://eidclimate.org/u-s-per-capita-carbon-emissions-at-lowest-levels-since-1950-thanks-to-natural-gas/ https://eidclimate.org/u-s-per-capita-carbon-emissions-at-lo...
  - aqme28 6y ago
    He means 1950s level of atmospheric CO2, not emissions.
perfunctory 6y ago
> is there a risk we overshoot and bring co2 too low? I had to laugh really hard at this one. Sorry.
- Rua4yGUZ4lT1Bbv 6y ago
  Would you still be laughing if plants die off from lack of co2 and we stave?
  - perfunctory 6y ago
    I can't imagine what should happen for us to overshoot the co2 level and make it too low. We can't even slow down the increase of the global emissions, let alone freeze them at the current level, let alone reduce them to zero - which is the goal (I am talking about the emissions, not the concentration in the atmosphere). After the emissions are down to net zero, we need to start removing excess co2 from the atmosphere. So what is the risk of overshooting and bringing co2 level down too much? I think there is a higher risk of the universe spontaneously disintegrating before that happens.
    - Rua4yGUZ4lT1Bbv 6y ago
      Have you seen the movie Snowpiercer?
      - perfunctory 6y ago
        That’s a movie. You know, fiction.
martythemaniak 6y ago
There is no such thing as an ideal CO2 level. Life in general, and humans in particular, can exist in a world of far more or far less CO2. The problem is our modern, industrial civilization is built on the assumptions that future world is very much like the current world. Everything from houses to cities to nations are built around these long-term assumptions. The danger of climate change is that we erode the very foundations we've built our civilization on. The danger is not some arbitrary level, it is the rapid change to that level.
lozenge 6y ago
We have CO2 measurements going back to 1960 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeling_Curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeling_Curve Just going back to the CO2 level of 15 years ago " would be equivalent to the stone in 165,000 Empire State buildings or 66,000 Great Pyramids of Giza...a cost of $28 trillion for the United States, about $90,000 per individual" so there's no chance we'll accidentally remove too much! Source: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0081648#s6 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
- ip26 6y ago
  fwiw, this assumes a $500 price per ton to remove the carbon. Currently it sounds like several different technologies think they might be able to get it below $100/ton, which would significantly improve the cost outlook. Though, you are completely right, even then it's still far too expensive to accidentally remove way too much.
gpm 6y ago
The only way I see us overshooting is if CO2 suddenly becomes a valuable resource. The atmospheric CO2 concentration changes really slowly, at the rate of several ppm per year right now, just because there is so much of it. If/when we start bringing it down we will have plenty of time to stop. There is of course such a thing as too little, plants need some to survive. Something on the order of 150 to 300 ppm is the range it existed in for the last 800,000 years and probably a reasonable target. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Carbon_Dioxide_800kyr.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Carbon_D...
ph0rque 6y ago
If we approach that level, we can easily implement a mitigation: controlled burning (on a far greater scale than is currently practiced).

GVIrish 6y ago

It's not really a mystery, we could just bring co2 levels back in line what they were at the beginning of the 20th century. Hell, even the 1950's levels of CO2 would be great. But right now the carbon capture discussions are simply trying to avert disaster. None of the potential carbon capture solutions can remove so much carbon that we'll have to worry about removing too much co2.

jacobr1 6y ago
> 1950's levels of CO2 would be great In absolute terms, but we have a lot more people now. It looks like the US is already back at 1950's levels (per-capita). https://eidclimate.org/u-s-per-capita-carbon-emissions-at-lowest-levels-since-1950-thanks-to-natural-gas/ https://eidclimate.org/u-s-per-capita-carbon-emissions-at-lo...
- aqme28 6y ago
  He means 1950s level of atmospheric CO2, not emissions.

perfunctory 6y ago

> is there a risk we overshoot and bring co2 too low? I had to laugh really hard at this one. Sorry.

Rua4yGUZ4lT1Bbv 6y ago
Would you still be laughing if plants die off from lack of co2 and we stave?
- perfunctory 6y ago
  I can't imagine what should happen for us to overshoot the co2 level and make it too low. We can't even slow down the increase of the global emissions, let alone freeze them at the current level, let alone reduce them to zero - which is the goal (I am talking about the emissions, not the concentration in the atmosphere). After the emissions are down to net zero, we need to start removing excess co2 from the atmosphere. So what is the risk of overshooting and bringing co2 level down too much? I think there is a higher risk of the universe spontaneously disintegrating before that happens.
  - Rua4yGUZ4lT1Bbv 6y ago
    Have you seen the movie Snowpiercer?
    - perfunctory 6y ago
      That’s a movie. You know, fiction.

martythemaniak 6y ago

There is no such thing as an ideal CO2 level. Life in general, and humans in particular, can exist in a world of far more or far less CO2. The problem is our modern, industrial civilization is built on the assumptions that future world is very much like the current world. Everything from houses to cities to nations are built around these long-term assumptions. The danger of climate change is that we erode the very foundations we've built our civilization on. The danger is not some arbitrary level, it is the rapid change to that level.

lozenge 6y ago

We have CO2 measurements going back to 1960 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeling_Curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeling_Curve Just going back to the CO2 level of 15 years ago " would be equivalent to the stone in 165,000 Empire State buildings or 66,000 Great Pyramids of Giza...a cost of $28 trillion for the United States, about $90,000 per individual" so there's no chance we'll accidentally remove too much! Source: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0081648#s6 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

ip26 6y ago
fwiw, this assumes a $500 price per ton to remove the carbon. Currently it sounds like several different technologies think they might be able to get it below $100/ton, which would significantly improve the cost outlook. Though, you are completely right, even then it's still far too expensive to accidentally remove way too much.

gpm 6y ago

The only way I see us overshooting is if CO2 suddenly becomes a valuable resource. The atmospheric CO2 concentration changes really slowly, at the rate of several ppm per year right now, just because there is so much of it. If/when we start bringing it down we will have plenty of time to stop. There is of course such a thing as too little, plants need some to survive. Something on the order of 150 to 300 ppm is the range it existed in for the last 800,000 years and probably a reasonable target. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Carbon_Dioxide_800kyr.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Carbon_D...

ph0rque 6y ago

If we approach that level, we can easily implement a mitigation: controlled burning (on a far greater scale than is currently practiced).