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Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

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Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#411

Post by kamaal »

mirimir wrote: post #404
mac01021 wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this a straw man? I don't think anyone really believes the giant ball of iron we live on is alive or can be killed. "Killing the planet" is shorthand for "making the planet inhospitable and causing harm to a majority of its living inhabitants" or something like that. So why do so many people feel compelled to derail conversations about global warming by pointing out at length that the earth itself is not litera…

No, it's not a straw man. Yes, many species will go extinct. Human civilization will probably collapse. Maybe the human species will go extinct. But life will go on, and within a billion years, who will care? We wouldn't be here, but for the last major extinction event. Anyway, I'm not arguing for inaction. But I do think that it's too late. Exponentials and positive feedback are full of surprises.

>>But I do think that it's too late.

Why?

It doesn't look like we are staring extinction right in the face.

Any talk of reasonable influence on climate is over a few centuries.

So why do do you its 'late'?

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#412

Post by pera »

tremon wrote: post #131
tobltobs wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the radioactive waste problem solved?

That waste problem was already theoretically solved in the 1950s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_breeder_reactor It is mostly because of military influences (proliferation risk) and environmental activism that these solutions have never been fully developed and deployed.

Are they wrong though? proliferation risk seems to me an important point. Also are risk of theft, attacks on facilities and transportation, leakage due to natural disasters, and of course: bad politicians doing "unavoidable" cuts. Moreover, even with FBRs you get Pu-contaminated MSO (http://e360.yale.edu/features/are_fast-breeder_reactors_a_nu...).

Once you take all these issues into consideration you just need to extrapolate and see how nuclear accidents will happen once in a while.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#413

Post by drjesusphd »

nonbel wrote: post #398
everyone wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sun is hotter now than it was at the PT event. There are serious climate scientists saying that, its possible that a greenhouse effect similar to the PT event happening now, could push earth into a Venus like state.

>"There are serious climate scientists saying that, its possible that a greenhouse effect similar to the PT event happening now, could push earth into a Venus like state." The Venus atmosphere is 50x thicker than Earth's, Venus is also ~1.4x closer to the sun. Where will all this extra atmospheric mass and incoming radiation come from?

Water is one of the strongest greenhouse gases around, and there's plenty of it in the oceans that can evaporate in a runaway process. Once that happens, we're the next Venus.

Reaching that tipping point is quite difficult though, and would require additional warming besides fossil fuels. Methane-based runaway warming maybe? Or even basic thermodynamic heat sink effects (which we'll reach in about 200 years at the current rate of growth in energy supply).

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#414

Post by abandonliberty »

delegate wrote: post #145

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…

We are the universe attaining self awareness. Unlike most other chemical and physical processes, we can contemplate its mortality. Heat death is all too imminent.

The forces that created us no longer drive us. Shackled by our biology we apply obsolete instincts to a novel problem. Unchecked, they will lead to our ruin.

Time is running out.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#415

Post by simopaa »

harwoodleon wrote: post #207

This is very simple, but something most of the HN people won't be able to do. STOP FLYING! Passenger numbers have gone up in a step change with CO2 count over the last 50 years, contrails compound the effect. The sad thing is - you will all look at this message and think. Why should I have to change? Why me, surely someone else must fix this? Don't wait for governments, don't wait for industry. Make individual choice…

I read in a local science magazine that (paraphrasing) no matter if all the cars were electric - as long as people keep flying, the amount of benzine produced would stay roughly the same, since making kerosene for the planes requires such huge amounts of raw oil. Benzine and other oil-based fuels were said to pretty much just a side product of kerosene production

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#416

Post by spangry »

virmundi wrote: post #359
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet the reality is self-actualisation / spirituality are as out of reach for many now as they were years ago when we were 'poorer'.

Self-actualization and spirituality seldom go hand in hand with wealth. Poor people have improved spirituality than wealthier people. Wealth draws your focus away from those things onto pleasures like sleeping around, or owning the latest i-device because it's the latest. Hence Jesus saying it's easier to thread a fishing line through a needle than for a wealthy person to find the Kingdom of Heaven.

If this is indeed the case, does that mean you feel pity for those born into well-off families, and feel happy for those born into abject poverty? The latter, of course, being more likely to live a spiritually fulfilled life?

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#417

Post by wiz21z »

doofus3 wrote: post #384
flukus wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pigs are actually a lot better than cows because they are monogastric. So we can cut CO2 emissions by eating more pork and less beef. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruminant#Ruminants_and_climate...

Or how about not eating animals at all, since it's cruel and unnecessary altogether? Difficult mental and emotional leap for most people, I know.

Or at least, we should teach butchery to kids. That way, they'd know what it means to actually kill to eat. The only thing I've ever killed is a lobster, and it helps a lot to relate to what you have on your plate...

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#418

Post by mac01021 »

mirimir wrote: post #404
mac01021 wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this a straw man? I don't think anyone really believes the giant ball of iron we live on is alive or can be killed. "Killing the planet" is shorthand for "making the planet inhospitable and causing harm to a majority of its living inhabitants" or something like that. So why do so many people feel compelled to derail conversations about global warming by pointing out at length that the earth itself is not litera…

No, it's not a straw man. Yes, many species will go extinct. Human civilization will probably collapse. Maybe the human species will go extinct. But life will go on, and within a billion years, who will care? We wouldn't be here, but for the last major extinction event. Anyway, I'm not arguing for inaction. But I do think that it's too late. Exponentials and positive feedback are full of surprises.

So what's your point?

Everyone knows that there will continue to be life on earth. Everyone knows that noone will care 1e9 years hence.

Are you suggesting we shouldn't care either?

Are you just trying to be "more correct" than other people by pointing out literal falsehoods in things that they've said even though noone is actually taking it literally? (That qualifies as a strawman argument)

Either way, your statement is not leaving anyone more informed than they were before, and carries an attitude of resignation/despair which is not helpful.

You're very right about positive feedback and it is almost certainly too late to avoid a ton of damage. But whether our children will be able to live healthy happy lives 80 years from now in the places they've grown up (or anywhere) is still an open question and could very well depend on how well we get our act together over the next decade. There is some urgency here, and we should strive as much as possible for our discourse on the topic to be productive.

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#419

Post by akvadrako »

ghouse wrote: post #10

It is less expensive (for society) to prevent the release of previously sequestered CO2 than it is to deal with the consequences of introducing the CO2 into the carbon cycle. Though since the costs of releasing sequestered CO2 are socialized, but the benefits are privatized, the US (at the federal level) continues to choose inaction.

Do you have an analysis to back up your point? You might be right, but it isn't obvious.

1. It's clear that preventing the release of significant amount of CO2 will be very costly. Even with massive lobbying costs, just keeping the emissions at current levels will be a great accomplishment.

2. Because the relationship between CO2 and warming is logarithmic, the more we release, the less good lowering emissions will do.

3. $1 now is worth more than $1 (+ inflation) 50 years from now

Re: Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards

#420

Post by hwillis »

mirimir wrote: post #287
delegate wrote: post #145

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…

Look, we're not "killing the planet". Humans are organisms like any other. Sure, human populations have spiked from millions to billions in recent millennia, and mean per capita resource utilization has increased dramatically. But that's just what organisms do. So anyway, the planet will be fine. Human civilization may collapse, given the risk of crop failure and war. But even humanity will survive. Edit: Many other…

>At present, the rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than the "base" or historically typical rate of extinction (in terms of the natural evolution of the planet) and also the current rate of extinction is, therefore, 10 to 100 times higher than any of the previous mass extinctions in the history of Earth.

From wikipedia, Holocene extinction. By what other metric could you possibly define "killing the planet" than killing the life on it?

I hate this argument because it feels like moving goalposts. For one thing, I don't think its hyperbolic to say that an uninhabitable planet is dead. It's dead as far as it matters to us. Moreover its so hard to read something like that and not feel like the message is "Don't worry, it'll be okay". If life is reduced back to single cells, is that okay? Will the planet still not be dead? If there is still water and organic molecules, so that life may evolve in the coming millions of years, is the planet still alive?

Due directly to human actions, species are dying faster than they ever have. Global warming has the potential to erase more species than ever before. Given the speed it's happening at, it may be a very real possibility that plants will not be able to adapt to changing conditions. Given that, it may be a very real possibility that the overwhelming death will cause runaway greenhouses faster than new plant and ocean life can reverse it, which would end all life on earth.

Life on earth would probably survive a nuclear holocaust. If you wanted to have the beast chance of permanently killing all life on this planet, this isn't far off from how you would do it. Push as much co2 as possible into the air as quickly as possible to change global conditions enough to kill all plants at the same time. If you just try to nuke everything, you'll leave a niche that other organisms will expand into. It's like antibiotics- you can't take just one huge pill, you need to keep taking them to make sure absolutely nothing survives.

Saying we aren't killing the earth is like watching someone that is getting stabbed repeatedly and saying he still has blood left.

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