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It actually has a lot given that they are saying IF CO2 levels goes up to a certain level at the end of the century. They are using that graph as one of the rea

It actually has a lot given that they are saying IF CO2 levels goes up to a certain level at the end of the century. They are using that graph as one of the reasons for why it's likely to go up. This is their conclusion "We conclude that indoor CO2 levels may indeed reach levels harmful to cognition by the end of this century, and the best way to prevent this hidden consequence of climate change is to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Finally, we offer recommendations for a broad, interdisciplinary approach to improving such understanding and prediction." That's a big if especially since one of the reasons they believe it might increase to those levels is exactly this mix of averaged measurements and year over year. Keep in mind the IPCC models range for nothing to worry about to the world is going under. With regards to the CO2 levels having an impact on our cognitive abilities at the end of the century thats also a lot of speculation and a lot of assumptions. This is not science this is speculation. Interesting but so filled with assumptions and guesses and speculation about what might happen in 2100. And if that wasn't enough they just straight out claim the have the solution which is hindering fossil fuel. This is just activism put into research format from what I can see.

adrianN 6y ago
You're confusing the effects of CO2 on climate (which you might argue are not too bad if you enjoy playing russian roulette), with the concentration of CO2, which we can measure extremely accurately and for whose increase the mechanism is very well understood: We burn carbon, it ends up in the atmosphere as CO2, increasing the concentration there for a long time. We also understand the impact of CO2 on cognition very well, because we can simply run experiments.
- ThomPete 6y ago
  I don't think I am. The causality of the article is. Outdoor CO2 might be rising dramatically > dramatically rising outdoor CO2 leads to dramatically rising indoor CO2 > too high a concentration of indoor CO2 might have an impact on our cognitive abilities. That's not the worst part of that paper the worst part is that they then just throw in things like this: "The best way to prevent indoor CO2 levels from reaching levels harmful to cognition is through reduced fossil fuel emissions." What about better ventilation? Just like we do with a lot of other things today. But no instead they just go for the most extreme recommendation based on absolutely nothing. Keep in mind we are talking at the end of the century. I don't understand how anyone can read this and think this is quality research.
  - beefield 6y ago
    > Outdoor CO2 might be rising dramatically > dramatically rising outdoor CO2 leads to dramatically rising indoor CO2 > too high a concentration of indoor CO2 might have an impact on our cognitive abilities. Are you really claiming there is some uncertainty whether the burning of fossil fuels will actually raise CO2 levels of the atmosphere? I have thought that the discussion is whether the rising CO2 causes global warming or not. And if we agree that burning the fossil fuels increases CO2 in atmosphere (forget the damn global warming, we are not talking about that) Do you claim that there is no reason to believe that the indoor CO2 will also rise? I hope you understand that kind of claim to be so weird that I would expect you to elaborate a bit more why you think that would not be the case. Finally, whether the increased CO2 actually has any effect on cognitive capabilities, that is of course the main topic in the discussion here. I have no further comments on that one.
    - ThomPete 6y ago
      I am claiming that the research paper is not about cognitive capabilities (as that is taken for granted in the headline) but about fossil fuels effect on CO2 hence the title of the paper. "Fossil Fuel Combustion Is Driving Indoor CO2 Toward Levels Harmful to Human Cognition" If it was just about CO2 there would be no need to include fossil fuel combustion unless of course they know exactly how much CO2 is caused by fossil fuel combustion and how much is natural variation. There is no conclusion on that which is why you don't find an actual number of how much humans affect. It's one thing to talk about CO2 levels and it's affect on human cognition, even that is not conclusive as is also obvious when you read the paper. But they go way way further to conclude that if we want to avoid that we should decrease fossil fuel use. On what basis do they do that? No one knows how much is driven by humans and how much is natural Do they have any evidence that; 1) that's without consequences, 2) it's the only way to deal with increasing CO2 if if it is harmful. This is not research this is mixing together a bunch of different assumptions and using CO2 effect on cognitive abilities to talk about fossil fuel.
      - adrianN 6y ago
        It doesn't seem hard to me to get at least a good ballpark estimate on the amount of CO2 we put into the atmosphere, say in the last 50 years. We know roughly how much coal and oil and gas we've burnt so far. Calculating how much the atmospheric concentration changed from that amount is easy enough. I'm sure someone did the math and would've published a paper about it if it turned out that human activities don't account for most of the CO2 concentration change. That would be kind of a big deal.
IanCal 6y ago
I had thought that something pretty undeniable was that burning fossil fuels increases the CO2 in the atmosphere. Most climate arguments are around the level of impact, if there's impact, if it's worth the cost of mitigating or how to/who should actually make a change. I've never seen a disagreement on the point of "burning fossil fuels releases co2".
- ThomPete 6y ago
  Neither have i seen disagreement there. The point is that the graph is used to claim that we will get to these levels and that combustion is the reason we will reach them in 2100 and that the solution is to reduce fossil fuel combustion.

adrianN 6y ago

You're confusing the effects of CO2 on climate (which you might argue are not too bad if you enjoy playing russian roulette), with the concentration of CO2, which we can measure extremely accurately and for whose increase the mechanism is very well understood: We burn carbon, it ends up in the atmosphere as CO2, increasing the concentration there for a long time. We also understand the impact of CO2 on cognition very well, because we can simply run experiments.

ThomPete 6y ago
I don't think I am. The causality of the article is. Outdoor CO2 might be rising dramatically > dramatically rising outdoor CO2 leads to dramatically rising indoor CO2 > too high a concentration of indoor CO2 might have an impact on our cognitive abilities. That's not the worst part of that paper the worst part is that they then just throw in things like this: "The best way to prevent indoor CO2 levels from reaching levels harmful to cognition is through reduced fossil fuel emissions." What about better ventilation? Just like we do with a lot of other things today. But no instead they just go for the most extreme recommendation based on absolutely nothing. Keep in mind we are talking at the end of the century. I don't understand how anyone can read this and think this is quality research.
- beefield 6y ago
  > Outdoor CO2 might be rising dramatically > dramatically rising outdoor CO2 leads to dramatically rising indoor CO2 > too high a concentration of indoor CO2 might have an impact on our cognitive abilities. Are you really claiming there is some uncertainty whether the burning of fossil fuels will actually raise CO2 levels of the atmosphere? I have thought that the discussion is whether the rising CO2 causes global warming or not. And if we agree that burning the fossil fuels increases CO2 in atmosphere (forget the damn global warming, we are not talking about that) Do you claim that there is no reason to believe that the indoor CO2 will also rise? I hope you understand that kind of claim to be so weird that I would expect you to elaborate a bit more why you think that would not be the case. Finally, whether the increased CO2 actually has any effect on cognitive capabilities, that is of course the main topic in the discussion here. I have no further comments on that one.
  - ThomPete 6y ago
    I am claiming that the research paper is not about cognitive capabilities (as that is taken for granted in the headline) but about fossil fuels effect on CO2 hence the title of the paper. "Fossil Fuel Combustion Is Driving Indoor CO2 Toward Levels Harmful to Human Cognition" If it was just about CO2 there would be no need to include fossil fuel combustion unless of course they know exactly how much CO2 is caused by fossil fuel combustion and how much is natural variation. There is no conclusion on that which is why you don't find an actual number of how much humans affect. It's one thing to talk about CO2 levels and it's affect on human cognition, even that is not conclusive as is also obvious when you read the paper. But they go way way further to conclude that if we want to avoid that we should decrease fossil fuel use. On what basis do they do that? No one knows how much is driven by humans and how much is natural Do they have any evidence that; 1) that's without consequences, 2) it's the only way to deal with increasing CO2 if if it is harmful. This is not research this is mixing together a bunch of different assumptions and using CO2 effect on cognitive abilities to talk about fossil fuel.
    - adrianN 6y ago
      It doesn't seem hard to me to get at least a good ballpark estimate on the amount of CO2 we put into the atmosphere, say in the last 50 years. We know roughly how much coal and oil and gas we've burnt so far. Calculating how much the atmospheric concentration changed from that amount is easy enough. I'm sure someone did the math and would've published a paper about it if it turned out that human activities don't account for most of the CO2 concentration change. That would be kind of a big deal.

IanCal 6y ago

I had thought that something pretty undeniable was that burning fossil fuels increases the CO2 in the atmosphere. Most climate arguments are around the level of impact, if there's impact, if it's worth the cost of mitigating or how to/who should actually make a change. I've never seen a disagreement on the point of "burning fossil fuels releases co2".

ThomPete 6y ago
Neither have i seen disagreement there. The point is that the graph is used to claim that we will get to these levels and that combustion is the reason we will reach them in 2100 and that the solution is to reduce fossil fuel combustion.