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Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

nationalobserver.com

111–120 of 522 posts

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#111
post #43

Can someone explain: - since CO2 has a logarithmic effect on warming - the catastrophic climate prediction models have not proven effective at predicting climate - we should expect moderate increases in warming, which can be beneficial (livable climate, crops etc) - the unquestionable benefits of hydro carbon energy to bring people out of poverty and into modern prosperity (food, healthcare, modern technology) ..what…

> - since CO2 has a logarithmic effect on warming

Sources?

> - the catastrophic climate prediction models have not proven effective at predicting climate

What catastrophic models?

> - we should expect moderate increases in warming, which can be beneficial (livable climate, crops etc)

2C is not moderate

> - the unquestionable benefits of hydro carbon energy to bring people out of poverty and into modern prosperity (food, healthcare, modern technology)

Because renewable has not benefits? Isn't?

> Shouldn't we be happy that the alarmists were wrong and the threat has been overblown?

I don't know about alarmists, but IPCC has been spot on, if not optimistic with their models

> An alternative viewpoint:

Alex Epstein and WUWT? Really?

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#112
post #95

We have to expand nuclear power. Many don't like it but at this point we have no other choice. Let solar drive the phasing out of nuclear reactors instead of coal power plants! Sadly in my country (Sweden) nuclear is not only taboo but it's illegal to perform research of the subject.. Laws passed by a severely misinformed "green" movement...

Totally agree. But is this an issue in Sweden? I thought most of your electricity was from renewable energy already.

It's 45% nuclear and 45% hydro [0] according to Dagens Nyheter, an old and reliable news paper.

[0] - http://www.dn.se/ekonomi/vattenkraft-och-karnkraft-ger-sveri...

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#114
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> forbid any advertising for meat or meat-containing products Who needs that pesky First Amendment when there's dietary habits to tackle, right?

On the other hand, who needs nation-states when they're submerged under water and their populations decimated?

Keep in mind that it is a perfectly reasonable position to both:

a) agree with you and GP (though perhaps not to such a dramatic end), and

b) slap on the brakes when discussing constitutionally perilous endeavors that could ultimately harm us more than this discussion can forecast; what else can I forbid or do in the name of existential issues?

That I'm in the apparent minority here based on voting is far more alarming than I'd like it to be. Am I being interpreted as pro meat or something and riling the vegetarians? When I see the words "forbid" and "advertising" next to each other in such proximity I'm compelled to point out it's a bad idea. How am I the only one on this side? I'm all for evolving the Constitution, but fiddling with the First is not where I'd start and suppressing meat advertising has the potential to become much worse. That's my only point and I cannot express to you how alarmed I am that it's controversial.

If you're coming at me this hard that the First Amendment is malleable enough to save us from perceived world doom by forgetting it when it's convenient, let's turn around and have a conversation about the Second, then, shall we? Two can play that game. Either the Constitution is infallible or it isn't. Tell me which it is and I'll debate accordingly.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#115

Russians fail to manage their swamps and forests. They burn regularly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_wildfires I bet that contributed a lot to the 2010-s CO2.

Deforestation of Argentinian and Brazilian agriculture tops that any day. Phytoplankton loss does that too.

Plus the burning of forests in Indonesia to make room for farming palmoil. We're all in this together.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#116
post #75

I generally get funny looks and the feeling that people are imagining me with a toothbrush mustache and a comb-over when I suggest this: Wouldn't population control to an extent help slow the rate of emissions? Caps on births or higher taxes on family sizes, etc. I know political/moral/ethical issues would make it impractical but I don't think any potential solution is worth ignoring.

I recently read Dan Brown's Inferno - not a great reference work by any stretch, but some compelling arguments are made along the lines you suggest. I suspect there is a lot more to it than just limiting the numbers of babies born. If there are more resources per person (a consequence of fewer people) then we will likely see the resources used per person go up. Anecdotally - American cars are terribly inefficient wit…

Sadly, I agree that an "Oh, more for me!" mentality would probably be the prevailing sentiment.

Only a philosophical shift brought on by a serious downturn in circumstances would cause people to reconcile their presuppositions of reality with actual reality and by then who knows if the problem would be reversible.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#117

Russians fail to manage their swamps and forests. They burn regularly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_wildfires I bet that contributed a lot to the 2010-s CO2.

Burning renewables (wood) is fundamentally different than burning fossil fuels.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#118

Are we doomed and what would a world where greenhouse gases were going down look like? Would we still be able to fly internationally for example?

One return flight from Los Angeles to Europe creates as much CO2 as the rest of your life for a year, if you live reasonably eco friendly (still drive to work, but have solar panels for example)

Best to skype

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the high end of predictions aren't expecting an increase in intense weather events bigger than what you might get if you were a bit unlucky over the next century.

Love that spin. The low end of predictions is that the most stable of ecosystems will regularly experience the extreme weather previously reserved for "once-in-a-century" events in the most volatile regions. On the "high-end" is a drastic change in the Earth's shape due to gravity with a meter+ of sea level rise around the equator, runaway exponential heating feedback loops triggered in Siberia and like half the ocea…

Wrong. The low end is that extreme weather events get less frequent [1]. The high end is that they get more frequent -- but the amount is such that you're not going to get hit with more extreme weather over the next century than what you would get if you were a bit unlucky.

Your second paragraph isn't talking about weather events at all.

[1] https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-10-...

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#120
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily, those aren't mutually exclusive choices. And climate change potentially causes wars as countries are strapped for resources, so acting to fix climate change is a twofer. Also: you are understating the cost of climate change. These estimates are tricky to get right, but the IPCC estimates a ballpark figure of 1-4% of GDP for a 4 degrees C increase in global mean temperature. That puts the cost on the order of…

4 degrees C is an absolute upper bound in the temperature predictions. The kind of thing you'd get if the world attempted to explicitly maximize CO2 output, instead of only pretending to minimize. And then imagine if they did that for the next 80 years. We are not going to climate change tomorrow, but I'd be awfully surprised if we haven't made some very good progress in the next 2 decades. Solar prices have somethin…

Capitalistic efforts fueled and steered by taxes and subsidies. Do you really think there would have been anywhere near this progress if market forces would have left on their own?
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