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Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

nationalobserver.com

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Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#181

The message I"m getting is not that I have to prepare for something or change energy sources , it's that "our lifestyle is killing the planet much faster than we thought". CO2 levels is just one of a myriad of indicators that are off the scale now. By lifestyle I mean supermarkets and restaurants and iPhones and planes ... all the stuff that we're so proud of as a society. Winning, getting ahead, being number one, ou…

Its the "economy" and the lack of vision and vigor of politicians to change it. As long as our policies and laws are still in favor of the economy we are doomed.

Do we have an alternative working model? What we have now, works to a certain extent, but is perhaps not sustainable. The risks, the potential cost of (radical?) changes is to high.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#182

The message I"m getting is not that I have to prepare for something or change energy sources , it's that "our lifestyle is killing the planet much faster than we thought". CO2 levels is just one of a myriad of indicators that are off the scale now. By lifestyle I mean supermarkets and restaurants and iPhones and planes ... all the stuff that we're so proud of as a society. Winning, getting ahead, being number one, ou…

> By lifestyle I mean supermarkets and restaurants and iPhones and planes ... all the stuff that we're so proud of as a society. Winning, getting ahead, being number one, outcompeting, etc. All those ego-centric values that are the basis of our socio-economic systems - focused on disconnecting the `self` from `other` - are wrong on a fundamental level. By 'spirituality' I mean the deep realisation of the larger context in bio-space and bio-time that I as a creature exist in

Man this pseudo spiritual hippie bullshit annoys me to no end. This philosophical shift toward absurdism is infuriating and every time I read something like this my blood boils. I have nothing against you personally but lets be honest here; the ONLY reason you can say this crap is simply because people competed, lost, got ahead and in process elevated your living standard so much that you can now sit behind a computer screen today and be pretentious and ungrateful about what society have achieved so far.

You being an observer of what is does not lead to anything meaningful. And if you find meaning in that, then great. More power to you! But to claim that iPhones, planes and supermarkets are not things to be proud of is a sign of nothing other than ignorance. You clearly can't see the level of pain and suffering that had to be endured for us as a species to get to this point. That's why you can make such claims. You simply lack perspective.

If overcoming your own biological limitations (flying) is not enough of a miracle for you, then... I dunno wtf is.

Edit:

Just take a look at the replies below to see what I mean. People lack perspective. Most haven't read enough history to understand that we are making one of the BEST trade-offs humanity has ever seen. The question never was IF environmental degradation is okay, which they think it is. Instead, the question has always been HOW MUCH is okay and what do we get back in return?

In these people's minds, virtue signaling far outweighs the alleviation of human suffering. They do not understand that the trade-offs we are making is what allows them the freedom to speak their mind and gives them the ability to effectively communicate using the medium they are currently utilizing. Rather than focusing on solving a problem, they instead praise mushroom eating as the way forward.

The problem with the green movement as a whole is that they do not understand economics or trade-offs. If they could communicate and argue from a reasonable and realistic position, there is no doubt in my mind that the green movement would have been embraced by all.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#183
post #125
post #38

That's scary. I guess we all ought to go vegetarian, and protest those coal power plants.

Being vegetarian is easy and healthy. I recommend it. If nothing else, buy a nice cookbook and make it a habit to cook nice non-meat food one night a week. Make it a date with your partner!

It's worth reiterating that there's a whole continuum between eating meat and eating no meat called "eating less meat". Always amazes me how people overlook this when writing off reduced meat consumption as not for them.

Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison is a great way to start down this path.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#184
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wait for the free market fairies to magically fix climate change decades from now, when we can tax and mitigate the pollution that's destroying other people's lives and property right now? That's a well understood solution within the scope of already known science, and economics can easily predict what happens when you tax something: use of it goes down.

The free market fairies can, and already ARE fixing the problem. It is thanks to them that we got our 30X decrease in solar prices, and made it even plausible to run the world on renewables. But sure, do a carbon tax and externalize the externalities. I am all in favor of making people pay for the damage that they cause, directly proportional to the cost of the damage. That is the most free market solution there is.…

I don't think you deserve the downvotes, and I agree with you that using taxes to price in the externalities of releasing carbon will help contribute to a solution. That said, I think you might be underestimating the problem. We've been trying for decades to get it under control, and as the article shows, the problem is rapidly accelerating, not improving, or even worsening at a steady rate.

We also don't know what the effect of a rapid multi-degree temperature increase will be. It's possible that it could set off positive feedback loops that will make the problem much worse. Maybe it won't, but it would be nice not to take the risk.

I agree that CO2 is very unlikely to end human civilization. But it could certainly make things much less pleasant than they need to be for a long time. In my opinion it's worth a significant amount of short-term pain to rein it in as much as possible.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1950 global population was 2.5 billion people, now 7.5. That's 3x in 67 years. Technological advances can help us increase the amount of people we can sustain, but eventually there is going to be a limit. The limit will not only be because of CO2. There are other situations that need to be managed. Population is increasing, and the lifestyle of individuals is rising, making each person have a larger cost on the en…

The increase in global population is not necessarily exponential. A lot of it can be explained by increases in life expectancy, and those increases seem to have - for now - a relatively fixed limit. Longer life expectancy does not increase the number of children each person has (for the most part, leaving ageing rock stars to one side). Greater wealth seems to also have discourage people from having children if the b…

I did not say growth was exponential, I only pointed out what growth has been in the last years.

It is reasonable to expect growth rate will decline. Right now a billion people is predicted to be added every ~13 years. Even if the growth rate declines, population cannot continue to grow forever.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-...

As far as I can tell the link you provide argues exactly the opposite of what you're saying:

> In a warmer future climate, there will be an increased risk of more intense, more frequent and longer-lasting heat waves.

> In a warmer future climate, most Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models project increased summer dryness and winter wetness in most parts of the northern middle and high latitudes. Summer dryness indicates a greater risk of drought. Along with the risk of drying, there is an increased chance of intense precipitation and flooding due to the greater water-holding capacity of a warmer atmosphere.

> In concert with the results for increased extremes of intense precipitation, even if the wind strength of storms in a future climate did not change, there would be an increase in extreme rainfall intensity.

> There is evidence from modelling studies that future tropical cyclones could become more severe, with greater wind speeds and more intense precipitation. Studies suggest that such changes may already be underway; there are indications that the average number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes per year has increased over the past 30 years. Some modelling studies have projected a decrease in the number of tropical cyclones globally due to the increased stability of the tropical troposphere in a warmer climate, characterised by fewer weak storms and greater numbers of intense storms. A number of modelling studies have also projected a general tendency for more intense but fewer storms outside the tropics, with a tendency towards more extreme wind events and higher ocean waves in several regions in association with those deepened cyclones.

How do you get from that to your statement: 'The low end is that extreme weather events get less frequent'?

You are also simply repeating your assertion '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', citing no evidence.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#187
One problem with the section on Canada is that they look at CO2 extraction. Canada looks like a big contributor here because it's a net exporter of fossil fuels. However, focusing on supply hasn't worked at any point to date and isn't likely to work at any point in the future. As long as people are buying fossil fuels, extractors are going to produce them and find (less efficient/more dangerous) ways to get them to market if infrastructure like pipelines are blocked. The only efforts that have ever successfully curbed fossil fuel production temporarily were OPEC's self-imposed caps, which were entirely motivated towards maintaining high oil prices and not reducing CO_2 emissions.

It seems logical to address the demand instead, but this is hard too. EV's are a promising technology, but have next to no impact at present. A few of the richer people in the richest nations on Earth can afford them, but that's it. We need to find ways to curb fossil fuel consumption by typical drivers in places like Mumbai and Shanghai. The problem is, battery technology just isn't getting cheap enough fast enough. If we could produce a sub $5000 compact EV today, it would still take several decades for them to replace the majority of cars currently in use. EV's also need to be able to compete in agriculture, where vehicles need to be capable of endurance well beyond road cars.

If we want to get CO_2 levels under control quickly we're basically going to have to tax gasoline to the point where people are forced to drive less and pay more for everything that uses fossil fuels in their production, including food. We might even need a mileage tax that scales with income so that the rich are forced to drive less too. Unfortunately, this basically means asking politicians around the world to fall on their swords and take one for the planet.

If we can't address supply or demand, all we can really hope for is to develop the technology to get us out of this bind. Either a magical battery/capacitor technology, scalable carbon sinks, or some kind of geoengineering project like a space-sunshade to partially block the sun. It's risky to wait for tech to be developed, and perhaps even riskier to engage in geoengineering projects that may have unintended side-effects. I like the sunshade idea[1] because it's easily reversible, but it's still risky and nobody is seriously working on the idea as far as I know. However, it seems as though putting payload into orbit might become radically cheaper before EV's have a global impact. This option may be more attractive in a decade or so, and may be a more important use of commercial spaceflight capability than starting a colony on Mars.

A lot of people are against any form of geoengineering because they believe it will give people hope for an easy solution without the need to curb our use of fossil fuels. The problem is, people are already hoping that easy solutions, like EV's, will enable them to carry on as usual without serious sacrifice. Given the global lack of will to sacrifice quality of life for the good of the environment, we need to have other options available.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#188

The message I"m getting is not that I have to prepare for something or change energy sources , it's that "our lifestyle is killing the planet much faster than we thought". CO2 levels is just one of a myriad of indicators that are off the scale now. By lifestyle I mean supermarkets and restaurants and iPhones and planes ... all the stuff that we're so proud of as a society. Winning, getting ahead, being number one, ou…

More simplistically we have to care about things beyond our most immediate surroundings. The extent of that concern has always been something that people argue about, just look at how the left and right view "community" differently. But it is essentially a moral question more than a practical or scientific one. Making people aware of the ethical dimension of their actions is worthwile. It is just difficult to do that without being annoying and preachy!

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#189
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.

You're right, it would help. Unfortunately, probably the most effective method [0] of achieving population control (short of actively killing people) is accelerating economic and social development in poorer countries. At the moment, economic development seems to be correlated with increased co2 emissions intensity.

The insane optimist in me tends to think that as we develop cost-effective methods of generating electricity without the co2 we will also have greater capacity to aid economic development in third-world countries. So on the upside, there seems to be a 'virtuous cycle' in here somewhere.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#190

The message I"m getting is not that I have to prepare for something or change energy sources , it's that "our lifestyle is killing the planet much faster than we thought". CO2 levels is just one of a myriad of indicators that are off the scale now. By lifestyle I mean supermarkets and restaurants and iPhones and planes ... all the stuff that we're so proud of as a society. Winning, getting ahead, being number one, ou…

> By lifestyle I mean supermarkets and restaurants and iPhones and planes ... all the stuff that we're so proud of as a society. Winning, getting ahead, being number one, outcompeting, etc. All those ego-centric values that are the basis of our socio-economic systems - focused on disconnecting the `self` from `other` - are wrong on a fundamental level. By 'spirituality' I mean the deep realisation of the larger conte…

The assertion is that, as cool as iPhones and flying are, this lifestyle may or may not be sustainable, e.g. regarding the CO2 levels.

Leaving aside your silly anger about "hippie bullshit" (really?) and regardless of our history of "competing, losing, getting ahead", what would you propose? Are we just going to brace for pain, and then compete over diminishing ressources?

Consider: all of environment protection legislation that we take for granted now was once "hippie bullshit".

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