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Could you elaborate on the extinction-level problems? I hear this a lot, but it's almost always nonspecific and hand-wavy. Do you mean the potential mass releas

Could you elaborate on the extinction-level problems? I hear this a lot, but it's almost always nonspecific and hand-wavy. Do you mean the potential mass release of hydrogen sulfide into the atmosphere, or a runaway effect increasing CO2 levels to deadly amounts, or something else?

cammikebrown 4y ago
The acidification of the oceans could easily kill plankton and crustaceans, destroying the food chain and leading to a mass extinction event.
- origin_path 4y ago
  Scientific paper on ocean acidification, which takes the reader through the chemistry: https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2015-Cohen-Happer-Fundamentals-of-Ocean-pH.pdf https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2015-Coh... It states in summary that: "doubling atmospheric CO2 from the current level of 400 ppm to 800 ppm only decreases the pH of ocean water from about 8.2 to 7.9. This is well within the day-night fluctuations that already occur because of photosynthesis by plankton" "doubling atmospheric CO2 from the current level of 400 ppm to 800 ppm only decreases the carbonate-ion concentration, [CO2−3], by about 30%. Ocean surface waters are already supersaturated by several hundred per cent for formation of CaCO3 crystals from Ca2+ and CO2−3. So scare stories about dissolving carbonate shells are nonsense." "Over most of the Phanerozoic, the past 550 million years, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have been measured in thousands of parts per million, and life flourished in both the oceans and on land. This is hardly surprising, given the relative insensitivity of ocean pH to large changes in CO2 concentrations that we have discussed above, and given the fact that the pH changes that do occur are small compared to the natural variations of ocean pH in space and time" "This minimalist discussion already shows how hard it is to scare informed people with ocean acidification, but, alas, many people are not informed." If you or anyone else thinks this paper's calculations are wrong, then that would be interesting to learn why.
  - deepdriver 4y ago
    The "past 550 million years" includes the Permian-Triassic Extinction, or Great Dying, of 251 million years ago. Do they refer to the million-year death zone after this event as a period when "[CO2 was] measured in thousands of parts per million"? Seems like an incomplete analysis. Wikipedia claims, "[the] trigger for these mass extinctions appears to be a warming of the ocean caused by a rise of carbon dioxide levels to about 1000 parts per million": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event#Atmospheric_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event#Atmospheric_effec... Here's the Scientific American article they cited: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/impact-from-the-deep/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/impact-from-the-d...
ncmncm 4y ago
Probably no matter what happens, unless the cobalt bombs go off, a few million people will survive, here and there. The most likely final outcome of full-flowered climate catastrophe is global thermonuclear war. Before that happens, we will probably have two billion people starve. After, another five billion. The ocean will cease to be a reliable source of protein, and whatever sea life survives acidification will be fished out at an increasingly frantic pace.
- junofan 4y ago
  Mass murder will begin well before 7 billion starve. We can slash global emissions using weapons without affecting our lives too much. I’m surprised this isn’t discussed more.
  - cammikebrown 4y ago
    “Our” lives? I assume you mean rich Westerners? If you’re getting bombed, it’s gonna affect your life quite a bit.
    - junofan 4y ago
      Yep. The ones with the weapons.
      - deepdriver 4y ago
        Which includes Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and probably Iran and Japan soon. Any one country could reach for the nukes first, or any small group could attempt a Sum of All Fears scenario.
      - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
        I mean China is one of the countries with weapons and probably the most likely place you would want to decrease emissions if you were in the West and didn't want to decrease your own. So there's no way that would go well.
- 4y ago
bryanrasmussen 4y ago
I'm not really one of the people who believes in the extinction models (though no some people do), my thinking on that matter though is, lots of species will probably go extinct from this, if industrial level civilization cannot be maintained during climate change crisis then there is no specific reason why the human species would not be one of the species going extinct, we're smart, but without the delicate and hard to maintain infrastructure of technology it seems unlikely we would be able to leverage that intelligence to keep ourselves alive. My personal fear though is more the model of large parts of earth's surface unlivable by humans, humanity down to a few million living near the poles. Although both of the two you mention of course also strike me as potential catastrophic scenarios.

cammikebrown 4y ago

The acidification of the oceans could easily kill plankton and crustaceans, destroying the food chain and leading to a mass extinction event.

origin_path 4y ago
Scientific paper on ocean acidification, which takes the reader through the chemistry: https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2015-Cohen-Happer-Fundamentals-of-Ocean-pH.pdf https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2015-Coh... It states in summary that: "doubling atmospheric CO2 from the current level of 400 ppm to 800 ppm only decreases the pH of ocean water from about 8.2 to 7.9. This is well within the day-night fluctuations that already occur because of photosynthesis by plankton" "doubling atmospheric CO2 from the current level of 400 ppm to 800 ppm only decreases the carbonate-ion concentration, [CO2−3], by about 30%. Ocean surface waters are already supersaturated by several hundred per cent for formation of CaCO3 crystals from Ca2+ and CO2−3. So scare stories about dissolving carbonate shells are nonsense." "Over most of the Phanerozoic, the past 550 million years, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have been measured in thousands of parts per million, and life flourished in both the oceans and on land. This is hardly surprising, given the relative insensitivity of ocean pH to large changes in CO2 concentrations that we have discussed above, and given the fact that the pH changes that do occur are small compared to the natural variations of ocean pH in space and time" "This minimalist discussion already shows how hard it is to scare informed people with ocean acidification, but, alas, many people are not informed." If you or anyone else thinks this paper's calculations are wrong, then that would be interesting to learn why.
- deepdriver 4y ago
  The "past 550 million years" includes the Permian-Triassic Extinction, or Great Dying, of 251 million years ago. Do they refer to the million-year death zone after this event as a period when "[CO2 was] measured in thousands of parts per million"? Seems like an incomplete analysis. Wikipedia claims, "[the] trigger for these mass extinctions appears to be a warming of the ocean caused by a rise of carbon dioxide levels to about 1000 parts per million": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event#Atmospheric_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event#Atmospheric_effec... Here's the Scientific American article they cited: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/impact-from-the-deep/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/impact-from-the-d...

ncmncm 4y ago

Probably no matter what happens, unless the cobalt bombs go off, a few million people will survive, here and there. The most likely final outcome of full-flowered climate catastrophe is global thermonuclear war. Before that happens, we will probably have two billion people starve. After, another five billion. The ocean will cease to be a reliable source of protein, and whatever sea life survives acidification will be fished out at an increasingly frantic pace.

junofan 4y ago
Mass murder will begin well before 7 billion starve. We can slash global emissions using weapons without affecting our lives too much. I’m surprised this isn’t discussed more.
- cammikebrown 4y ago
  “Our” lives? I assume you mean rich Westerners? If you’re getting bombed, it’s gonna affect your life quite a bit.
  - junofan 4y ago
    Yep. The ones with the weapons.
    - deepdriver 4y ago
      Which includes Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and probably Iran and Japan soon. Any one country could reach for the nukes first, or any small group could attempt a Sum of All Fears scenario.
    - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
      I mean China is one of the countries with weapons and probably the most likely place you would want to decrease emissions if you were in the West and didn't want to decrease your own. So there's no way that would go well.
4y ago

bryanrasmussen 4y ago

I'm not really one of the people who believes in the extinction models (though no some people do), my thinking on that matter though is, lots of species will probably go extinct from this, if industrial level civilization cannot be maintained during climate change crisis then there is no specific reason why the human species would not be one of the species going extinct, we're smart, but without the delicate and hard to maintain infrastructure of technology it seems unlikely we would be able to leverage that intelligence to keep ourselves alive. My personal fear though is more the model of large parts of earth's surface unlivable by humans, humanity down to a few million living near the poles. Although both of the two you mention of course also strike me as potential catastrophic scenarios.