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We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

scientificamerican.com

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Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#101

Post by ythn »

lurker456 wrote: post #71
ythn wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The overwhelming consensus of experts is that its going to have an enormous impact. How soon? Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" predicted apocalyptic consequences in as few as 10 years. 10 years later and it turns out the documentary had tons of erroneous assumptions. Oops. > That's akin to demanding that all engineers accurately predict which piece of the roof will collapse first, where the pieces will hit the flo…

>How soon? In a couple of lifetimes, which is still too soon, as reversing the trend will likely take far more effort. For a graphic description of how far we're venturing out of what we're used to as a species, see https://xkcd.com/1732/ > If your model has poor predictive power, it's not a complete model - for example whether a building will be able to withstand shear wind forces. To continue with the analogy, we k…

Well, here's my prediction: climate change is real, but 100 years from now it won't turn out to be as apocalyptic as the experts claimed it will be. People will start reducing waste once they start seeing real consequences and technological solutions will emerge as exponentially more people start thinking about the problem each year.

In the meantime, other factors will contribute to our downfall much faster than climate change ever could such as increasing societal divisiveness over politics, decline in nuclear families as the basic societal unit, selfishness, and abandonment of religion.

Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#102

Post by pvnick »

chongli wrote: post #60
JshWright wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know much about climate science ... I'm just skeptical that the rising CO2 level is as dangerous as it's made out to be. Respectfully, is this a mindset you apply to other aspects of your life? Let's say you leased an apartment in a large building, and after an inspection, numerous structural engineers said the building was in danger of collapse. Would you say "I don't know much about engineering, but I'm s…

Let's say you leased an apartment in a large building, and after an inspection, numerous structural engineers said the building was in danger of collapse. Would you say "I don't know much about engineering, but I'm skeptical it's that bad", or would you demand the building management take steps to correct the issues? I like this analogy because it highlights the wrongheadedness of climate change denial. There is a ke…

> Stopping -- let alone reversing -- climate change is orders of magnitude more difficult than that. It involves the coordination of billions of people in a task that goes against their short-term, individual interest.

It is also extremely dangerous. Most folks engaging in the climate change debate are implicitly doing a cost-benefit analysis of action vs non-action (action implying governmental action). Non-action may involve rising temperatures and extreme weather. Or perhaps extreme whether has nothing to do with carbon emissions - consensus doesn't yet exist on that point. Or clean energy innovation like solar will become more cost effective and the problem will solve itself. Action on curbing emissions - e.g. carbon tax - could mitigate the problem. Or perhaps climate change inertia is too strong for anything less than complete ban of CO2 emissions to make any sort of dent. And instead something like a carbon tax could, for example, 1) slow down economies in developed nations, which means 2) lower purchasing power for people in those countries, leading to 3) fewer imports from developing countries, which further leads to 4) lower standard of living for folks in developing countries, including people starving to death.

So "climate change denial" is a strawman. Skepticism is not a monolith. These are complex issues.

Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#103

Post by refurb »

JshWright wrote: post #37
shouldbworking wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your point. To me it's like numerous engineers are warning me that the temperature of the building is going up quickly. When I ask any of them what to do they say we should stop producing heat. I ask whats going to happen when the building gets hotter quickly and get 10 different answers. Somebody tells me the building has been much hotter in the past, but this is the fastest its heated up before. I ask if it's…

I think you're stretching the analogy a bit too far there... We know that increasing atmospheric levels of CO2 will result in higher temperatures (the mechanism is well understood, and the IPCC models have done a good job of predicting that over the past couple decades), we also know rising temperatures will result in rising sea levels (again, we have empirically observed this happening at rates consistent with our u…

the IPCC models have done a good job of predicting that over the past couple decades

That's not my understanding. We had a warming "pause" from 2000 to 2010 (approximately). That was certainly not predicted.

Then scientists went back to look for an explanation of the "pause". Ocean temperature data was then incoporated, other data adjusted and the "pause" was no more.

I would characterize the climate modelling as constantly evolving. We don't have it nailed yet.

Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#104

Post by tzs »

acabal wrote: post #42

Does anyone have ideas on how a mid-career software developer can switch gears into the clean energy/climate change industry, to do something to help? I've come to think that climate change will be humanity's defining moment, and that we'll all be suffering greatly come mid-to-late-century. I want to do what I can to put my professional skills to use in helping. But I'm not sure where to even begin.

If in the US I'd suggest getting politically active. It will take long enough even according to the pessimistic models (assuming we don't hit some doomsday scenario like the clathrate gun) for things to actually get noticeably bad [1] that a lot of people will choose short term profit over long term fixing the climate.

That means that to seriously get things done soon is going to require government action, and that means politics.

Regardless of whether you lean to the left or the right, register as a Republican and participate in the Republican primaries or caucuses for your local, state, and national offices supporting those Republicans who acknowledge that climate change is a series problem and that the government needs to play an active role in slowing, stopping, or reversing it.

I say register as a Republican, even if you would normally be something more to the left, because right now the Democrats are much more likely to nominate candidates that acknowledge climate change and the need for strong government action. The Republicans do have some people who believe that, but they currently rarely get nominated.

What we need to see is general elections where it is both the Democrat and the Republican that are on the right side of climate change so that no matter which party wins the election we get a government that will do something about the problem.

[1] Generally what most places will see is that bad things that already happen there will very slowly happen a little more often, and get a little more bad. But in many places there will also be good things that start happening a little more often and get a little bit better. It will take a generation or two before these changes have become big enough and frequent enough in most places that it will really be noticeable to the people there that yup, their climate has changed.

Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#105

Post by gshubert17 »

An error in the third paragraph, which states:

It stood at 280 ppm when record keeping began at Mauna Loa in 1958.

CO2 was 280 ppm at the beginning of the industrial revolution.

"The first monthly average carbon dioxide reading at Mauna Loa was 315.7 parts per million (ppm) in March 1958." [0]

[0] https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2015/06/02/am...

Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#106

Post by btdiehr »

cardamomo wrote: post #72
btdiehr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me get this straight, you're saying that people should purposefully mislead the public?

To be clear, I'm talking about this specific headline and trying to make a case for using the word "threshold" to capture attention. It's (mostly) a semantic issue. I do not advocate misstating scientific findings.

That's good to hear, because whether people want to admit it or not, journalists misreporting studies constantly is one of the reasons why trust has eroded.

Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#107

Post by r3bl »

cardamomo wrote: post #31
gjm11 wrote: post #12

This is very bad (albeit completely unsurprising) news, but I really don't see that the word "threshold" is appropriate. Is there some special bad thing that happens once 410ppm is reached, that's qualitatively different from 400ppm? Nope. The article itself is quite clear about this: e.g., it quotes one climate scientist as saying "These milestones are just numbers, but they give us an opportunity to pause and take…

How we communicate climate science and its relevance to our world is just as important as the science itself. In my opinion, if labeling it a threshold in media intended for non-scientist audiences captures attention and calls readers to action, great! Frankly, we need to be "overexcited" about CO2 and stop sitting on our assess.

> if labeling it a threshold in media intended for non-scientist audiences captures attention and calls readers to action, great!

There's not a lot of things that I could personally do, and that really bums me out. While my life choices already contributed to at least one person not polluting the planet a lot (as an example, I don't drive a car and I don't use gas for heating), I don't see much more I can do about it.

I know I get my electricity from a coal plant, and I can't really save on electricity more than I am now. Recycling is something I'm doing as thoroughly as I can, but it's a bitch in a city where there are only two locations where I can dispose a recyclable waste.

I can't really do much more, and I'm not even reducing the waste at all. I'm just living my life avoiding to pollute the earth even more.

Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#108

Post by trentmb »

acabal wrote: post #42

Does anyone have ideas on how a mid-career software developer can switch gears into the clean energy/climate change industry, to do something to help? I've come to think that climate change will be humanity's defining moment, and that we'll all be suffering greatly come mid-to-late-century. I want to do what I can to put my professional skills to use in helping. But I'm not sure where to even begin.

Stay where you are, command a higher salary, donate to environmental causes.

Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#109

Post by gooserock »

acabal wrote: post #42

Does anyone have ideas on how a mid-career software developer can switch gears into the clean energy/climate change industry, to do something to help? I've come to think that climate change will be humanity's defining moment, and that we'll all be suffering greatly come mid-to-late-century. I want to do what I can to put my professional skills to use in helping. But I'm not sure where to even begin.

> Does anyone have ideas on how a mid-career software developer can switch gears into the clean energy/climate change industry, to do something to help

It's easy.

- Stop flying.

- Eat less meat.

- Buy less stuff.

- Use less energy.

Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#110

Post by JshWright »

ythn wrote: post #101
lurker456 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How soon? In a couple of lifetimes, which is still too soon, as reversing the trend will likely take far more effort. For a graphic description of how far we're venturing out of what we're used to as a species, see https://xkcd.com/1732/ > If your model has poor predictive power, it's not a complete model - for example whether a building will be able to withstand shear wind forces. To continue with the analogy, we k…

Well, here's my prediction: climate change is real, but 100 years from now it won't turn out to be as apocalyptic as the experts claimed it will be. People will start reducing waste once they start seeing real consequences and technological solutions will emerge as exponentially more people start thinking about the problem each year. In the meantime, other factors will contribute to our downfall much faster than clim…

> Well, here's my prediction: climate change is real, but 100 years from now it won't turn out to be as apocalyptic as the experts claimed it will be.

What evidence are you basing that on?

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