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CO2 overload, detected in human blood, suggests toxic atmosphere within 50 years

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Re: CO2 overload, detected in human blood, suggests toxic atmosphere within 50 years

#61

Post by appreciatorBus »

jeffbee wrote: post #13
astro-lizard wrote: post #5

As a software engineer, what can we do to help with anthropogenic emissions? I want to know how I can use my critical thinking to protect the future for us.

The same thing anyone else can do: bomb an oil refinery.

Which will do nothing about demand from your fellow citizens to consumer refined oil products such as gasoline, so another refinery will be built and they will carry on as usual.

As long as it's free for individuals to pollute, we are going to demand polluting products & services without regard for the environment.

The solution is to price externalities, but your fellow citizens will vote out anyone who suggests those cuz they like polluting for free.

Collectivism will fare no better unless it's a dictatorship (which they all devolve to eventually, but putting that aside...) After the people's revolution they will demand the right to unlimited driving for $0 and stage a revolt should the vanguard elite suggest that unlimited driving for $0 might not be good thing.

Re: CO2 overload, detected in human blood, suggests toxic atmosphere within 50 years

#62

Post by [deleted] »

JMKH42 wrote: post #9
astro-lizard wrote: post #5

As a software engineer, what can we do to help with anthropogenic emissions? I want to know how I can use my critical thinking to protect the future for us.

Remember Jevon's Paradox: most of us instinctively look to improving efficiency. But when you do that, people just use more of the thing. Rewriting Python in Rust often won't mean less electricity used, it means your code will get run more. For example, none of the improvements in combustion engine efficiency over the last 40 years have results in less gasoline being used, it resulted in bigger, more powerful cars an…

[deleted]

Re: CO2 overload, detected in human blood, suggests toxic atmosphere within 50 years

#63

Post by cogman10 »

schainks wrote: post #49
boplicity wrote: post #40

Anyone else ever think of somehow building an at-home carbon-removal system, for lower carbon content in the air of your living spaces? I know it's a silly idea, but one that has occurred to me from time to time.

Uh, do you mean house plants? There is also a Ted talk about taking this to an extreme, which does seem to anecdotally work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmn7tjSNyAA&pp=ygURdGVkIGthb...

House plants do reduce the amount of CO2 in your home but not by as much as you'd hope.

The most efficient system is algae, but you require a pretty massive amount of it to compensate for the amount of CO2 a single person emits.

Re: CO2 overload, detected in human blood, suggests toxic atmosphere within 50 years

#64

Post by jandrewrogers »

astro-lizard wrote: post #5

As a software engineer, what can we do to help with anthropogenic emissions? I want to know how I can use my critical thinking to protect the future for us.

Any effective approach to atmospheric CO2 reduction on a timescale that matters will require extremely large quantities clean energy, far beyond current generation capacity. This will be the biggest bottleneck so start there.

Given that this is known required input, we can start by expediting the building this energy infrastructure with all due haste. This would require ignoring various activists with a litany of reasons for why deploying solar/wind/nuclear/geothermal at scale is stupid/immoral/unethical.

Re: CO2 overload, detected in human blood, suggests toxic atmosphere within 50 years

#65

Post by bottlepalm »

Historically levels were around 250 and now they're generally over 450. I wonder if I would feel a cognitive boost or just plain better in general if I were breathing 250. Do they sell home CO2 scrubbers? I can easily increase the CO2 in a room, but how about decreasing it?

Re: CO2 overload, detected in human blood, suggests toxic atmosphere within 50 years

#66

Post by strictnein »

boplicity wrote: post #40

Anyone else ever think of somehow building an at-home carbon-removal system, for lower carbon content in the air of your living spaces? I know it's a silly idea, but one that has occurred to me from time to time.

Yeah, too many homes were built without fresh air intakes into the HVAC systems. There are definitely reasons you don't want it always pulling in outside air (temp and humidity differences, for example), but it would be nice to have the option to do it once a day just to freshen things up.

Re: CO2 overload, detected in human blood, suggests toxic atmosphere within 50 years

#67

Post by UncleOxidant »

himata4113 wrote: post #58

Humans are extremely adaptable, for example there's people who work in extreme conditions underwater, what would be considered absolutely unbearable and torture is normal. More information on saturation diving: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfiHc_rh4EY We're already slowly adapting to higher CO2 levels by sitting mostly indoors that have elevated CO2 from 500 to 800 with ranges up to 1500 (taken from my measurement…

There's probably a lot of genetic variation. For some it could be detrimental in 50 years, for others not so much. And for some swath in the middle it could be less than ideal.

> We're already slowly adapting to higher CO2 levels by sitting mostly indoors that have elevated CO2 from 500 to 800 with ranges up to 1500 (taken from my measurements at home).

But won't that 1500 be even higher indoors as CO2 in the atmosphere increases?

Re: CO2 overload, detected in human blood, suggests toxic atmosphere within 50 years

#68

Post by UncleOxidant »

bottlepalm wrote: post #65

Historically levels were around 250 and now they're generally over 450. I wonder if I would feel a cognitive boost or just plain better in general if I were breathing 250. Do they sell home CO2 scrubbers? I can easily increase the CO2 in a room, but how about decreasing it?

> Do they sell home CO2 scrubbers?

They're called houseplants.

Re: CO2 overload, detected in human blood, suggests toxic atmosphere within 50 years

#69

Post by somenameforme »

boplicity wrote: post #40

Anyone else ever think of somehow building an at-home carbon-removal system, for lower carbon content in the air of your living spaces? I know it's a silly idea, but one that has occurred to me from time to time.

Makes one wonder about the absurdly large number of physiological and psychological changes we've seen in people since the 70s-80s when AC started becoming completely ubiquitous. Before that time, at least in warmer climates, you'd pretty much always have a window open. In some ways we've already been running a decades long high CO2 exposure experiment.

Re: CO2 overload, detected in human blood, suggests toxic atmosphere within 50 years

#70

Post by hogwasher »

strictnein wrote: post #11

"Toxic atmosphere" definitely implies something that I don't seem to be finding in the actual paper. We regularly sit in environments that are 2-3x the levels of atmospheric CO2. Also, was this paper AI written? > "There is now a considerable body of published data showing impacts at levels Which is followed by this, with the very AI "For example" that seems to mostly contradict that statement? > "For example, one st…

with the very AI "For example"??????????????????
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