Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 150 posts

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#91

Post by mturmon »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #88
mturmon wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Events like increased CO2 levels in the ocean should be seen as the way things are, rather than one-off catastrophes." This is a false dichotomy. Just because these events have happened regularly, on geological time scales, doesn't mean that it wouldn't be a one-off catastrophe from the point of view of homo sapiens. I'm not saying an extinction event, but it could be a catastrophic event. In other words, taking the…

> Just because these events have happened regularly, on geological time scales, doesn't mean that it wouldn't be a one-off catastrophe from the point of view of homo sapiens. I agree. Without the environment pressuring us back though, what would keep us from dumping CO2 in the atmosphere forever, or at increasing rates? We wouldn't even be discussing this. That's the whole point of my comment: why don't we see humans…

I understand the idea you're putting forward -- you have in fact repeated it three times.

I think the idea is less novel than you seem to. And more to the point, I don't think it provides guidance.

In a situation where we have no expectation of linearity, waiting for significant pressure back from the environment (as you say, "it might not be as catastrophical as the article pictures it") may prove very foolish.

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#92

Post by e12e »

marcosdumay wrote: post #62
jussij wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If things get too bad for too many, I suspect the result in an increase in war and conflict.

What will make things really bad, but for many less people. Confirming the GP's argument, that Nature wins in the end. Winning is easier when you are not fighting anything.

Keep in mind that the last world war resulted in nuclear attacks. I don't think we have any guarantee that "mutually assured destruction" will be enough to save us if there is another truly global war between the remaining super/nuclear powers.

And now we also have stuff like "depleted" uranium rounds which have pretty serious consequences on future generations.

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#93

Post by CamperBob2 »

prewett wrote: post #82
berntb wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you live, but the Swedish Green party still want to immediately start phasing out nuclear power. More CO2 for the world. (If the seas do have an ecological crash which makes the remaining eco systems go down, then any surviving Green party members will probably argue the advantage of this, pushing their carts down "The Road".) So, no hope. :-) :-(

I don't see nuclear power as a great solution. The waste contaminates the environment for thousands of years. And the system is not fault-tolerant, failing in ways which render the environment uninhabitable for who knows how long (Chernobyl, Fukushima). Yeah, it doesn't generate CO2. But at least you can live in a hotter world, can't live with nuclear waste/fallout. (Also, we don't know that a hotter climate is bad,…

It's not valid to judge the "fault tolerance" of nuclear power, or its safety in general, by Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#94

Post by SCAQTony »

Let's presume it is all true. Gizmag quoted a study that 15-container ships (just 15) dole out the same amount of pollution as 760-million cars. (I shit you not):

http://www.gizmag.com/shipping-pollution/11526/

God knows what coal and power plants produce but nonetheless, why does the IPSO and The Guardian have to scare the shit out of everyone instead of offering some sort of real, solution?

If this is all true and this is as dire as they say, one would think or suggest that the military take over the shipping duties of these 15-container-ships and use 15-nuclear-powered vessels instead? this would remove the carbon footprint of these polluting vessels and/or 750-million cars per day with way less waste?

Next, onto the power plants instead of the barbecues and lawn mowers?

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#95

Post by graycat »

Yup, why do I suspect that this article is more of the same from the big movement to claim that humans are evil, carbon is filthy, filthy humans are ruining the planet with evil carbon, or evil humans are ruining the planet with filthy carbon, and the only hope for the planet is massive, UN directed carbon cap and trade to send massive amounts of money from the evil, rich nations to the noble, poor nations, and that humans should junk their cars and either walk or use bicycles, and the rich nations should feel ashamed and guilty for their grossly excessive use of the finite resources of our pure, precious, pristine, delicate planet, right at the tipping point of total devastation?

Do I have that about right? Or we could borrow from the Mayans and kill people and pour their blood on a rock to keep the sun moving across the sky or, in this case, save the planet from filthy carbon from evil humans. Or, we need a boys' band complete with uniforms to counter the sin and corruption of a pool table in town. Let's have some more flim-flam, fraud scams!

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#96

Post by elwaz »

aaron695 wrote: post #52
efnx wrote: post #43

It's sad to me that this is not the top post. It seems that fact is a reflection of the problem at hand. We don't care about the oceans as much as we care about Twitter. :(

I find it incredibly sad it has made the top post. The article does not link to any peer review studies to prove it's point, which to me means it's probably bunk, taking a know issue and enlarging it to sensationalise. And it's sad people fall for this.

Not really sure what your point is here. But anyway, here is the link to the report: http://www.stateoftheocean.org/research.cfm

Listed in the Guardian's article. Peer reviewed source material is at the bottom of each of the reports.

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#98

Post by thaumasiotes »

jongraehl wrote: post #70
thaumasiotes wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what you're looking for is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%E2%80%93Volterra_equatio... A predator-prey model is essentially never just a stable population for both. Instead, you go through periods of increasing prey -> increasing predators -> decreasing prey -> decreasing predators. Here the prey would be atmospheric carbon dioxide and the predators would be the plankton.

So atmospheric carbon breeds?

Well, plankton does. Atmospheric carbon increases and (potentially) decreases, and the question I responded to wanted to know why plankton didn't respond to an increase in supply by having already come into existence in the past so that the atmospheric concentration never varied. It's because (just like the predator-prey model) it's difficult for the feeding population to respond in the present to an increased future supply of food.

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#99

Post by icegreentea »

SCAQTony wrote: post #94

Let's presume it is all true. Gizmag quoted a study that 15-container ships (just 15) dole out the same amount of pollution as 760-million cars. (I shit you not): http://www.gizmag.com/shipping-pollution/11526/ God knows what coal and power plants produce but nonetheless, why does the IPSO and The Guardian have to scare the shit out of everyone instead of offering some sort of real, solution? If this is all true and…

The study talks about other pollutants (like Sulfur Oxide and other particulates), but not CO2. The amount of CO2 emited by these ships is not stated in the article, but can be estimated from their rate of fuel consumption. That said, in general ships are more efficient than cars, especially at this scale. It's entirely likely that the CO2 per mass of freight per distance covered by container ship is of the order of magnitude, or lower than in a car.

Re: Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years

#100

Post by waps »

Demiurge wrote: post #97

Is there any reason no one is talking about terraforming seriously yet? What kind of technologies can be used to draw the CO2 out of the atmosphere, how much would it cost to make a difference?

Basic thermodynamics can provide a lower limit : at least 9x more energy than was gained by burning it (except for oil burned in power plants, where it'd be 6-7x, but that's not much).

That seems to mean that without massive expansions in nuclear power it's just not in the cards.

Post reply on HN