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Hum... Surely the immense mass of burned oil does much BUT in the past humans heat their homes en mass with wood and coal, I doubt these emissions count such li

by kkfx 3y ago

Hum... Surely the immense mass of burned oil does much BUT in the past humans heat their homes en mass with wood and coal, I doubt these emissions count such little amount. Aside if you tell me that burning oil is far more polluting than burning wood that's another story, but in formal CO₂ terms...

TheSmiddy 3y ago
The population right now is 4x what it was 100 years ago which itself was 2x what it was 100 years before that. so even if our per capita emissions haven't grown (they have, drastically) the graph of total emissions would still be stacked towards the present.
jvm___ 3y ago
The wood you burn was grown within your lifetime, your parents lifetime, or maybe their parents. Coal and gas are millions of years old. We wouldn't have a problem of we only burnt wood for energy, but we wouldn't have our modern society either.
virgildotcodes 3y ago
The scale of our consumption and emissions as an industrialized global society of 8 billion dramatically outpaces our consumption and emissions as a pre industrial society of far fewer people.
Hikikomori 3y ago
There's a lot more people now.
daemonologist 3y ago
As has been pointed out, there are a lot more people (and therefore a lot more houses, offices, etc.) now than even 30 years ago. Per-capita emissions are also much higher - US, China, and UK emissions per capita since 1751: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Historical-CO2-per-capita-emissions-in-tons-in-the-UK-the-USA-and-China-1751-2012_fig1_327586945 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Historical-CO2-per-capit... (data: https://data.ess-dive.lbl.gov/view/doi:10.3334/CDIAC/00001_V2017 https://data.ess-dive.lbl.gov/view/doi:10.3334/CDIAC/00001_V... ) This is unsurprising - though heating and cooking require a significant amount of energy even in the modern day, they only account for 23% of global energy usage (https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2019/heat https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2019/heat). The largest energy user is transportation (35%) followed by manufacturing (20%) (https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/largest-end-uses-of-energy-by-sector-in-selected-iea-countries-2019 https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/largest-end-u...), neither of which were probably much of a factor in the pre-industrial world.
ianburrell 3y ago
Everyone has pointed out the scale but there are two other reasons why is different. First, burning wood is carbon neutral. The tree pulled it from the air and burning returns to the air. Second, there are natural processes that absorb carbon and keep system in a balance. Trees are one, plankton is another, and longer term is rock weathering. Even if the ancestor were using coal, the absorption processes could keep up with the small amount.
- el_don_almighty 3y ago
  Burning oil is what? CO2 time travel from the past?

by kkfx 3y ago

TheSmiddy 3y ago

The population right now is 4x what it was 100 years ago which itself was 2x what it was 100 years before that. so even if our per capita emissions haven't grown (they have, drastically) the graph of total emissions would still be stacked towards the present.

jvm___ 3y ago

The wood you burn was grown within your lifetime, your parents lifetime, or maybe their parents. Coal and gas are millions of years old. We wouldn't have a problem of we only burnt wood for energy, but we wouldn't have our modern society either.

virgildotcodes 3y ago

The scale of our consumption and emissions as an industrialized global society of 8 billion dramatically outpaces our consumption and emissions as a pre industrial society of far fewer people.

Hikikomori 3y ago

There's a lot more people now.

daemonologist 3y ago

As has been pointed out, there are a lot more people (and therefore a lot more houses, offices, etc.) now than even 30 years ago. Per-capita emissions are also much higher - US, China, and UK emissions per capita since 1751: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Historical-CO2-per-capita-emissions-in-tons-in-the-UK-the-USA-and-China-1751-2012_fig1_327586945 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Historical-CO2-per-capit... (data: https://data.ess-dive.lbl.gov/view/doi:10.3334/CDIAC/00001_V2017 https://data.ess-dive.lbl.gov/view/doi:10.3334/CDIAC/00001_V... ) This is unsurprising - though heating and cooking require a significant amount of energy even in the modern day, they only account for 23% of global energy usage (https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2019/heat https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2019/heat). The largest energy user is transportation (35%) followed by manufacturing (20%) (https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/largest-end-uses-of-energy-by-sector-in-selected-iea-countries-2019 https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/largest-end-u...), neither of which were probably much of a factor in the pre-industrial world.

ianburrell 3y ago

Everyone has pointed out the scale but there are two other reasons why is different. First, burning wood is carbon neutral. The tree pulled it from the air and burning returns to the air. Second, there are natural processes that absorb carbon and keep system in a balance. Trees are one, plankton is another, and longer term is rock weathering. Even if the ancestor were using coal, the absorption processes could keep up with the small amount.

el_don_almighty 3y ago
Burning oil is what? CO2 time travel from the past?