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

Rising carbon dioxide levels now detected in human blood

phys.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 166 posts

Re: Rising carbon dioxide levels now detected in human blood

#71

Post by piloto_ciego »

This is actually my theory on why we're behaving so stupidly right now en masse.

I'm sure there's other papers out there, but this is the first one for this post: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036013232...

Anyway, CO2 levels rise on planet earth, which cause indoor levels to rise too. As it turns out, because of ventilation and such, indoor levels are always a bit higher than outdoor levels. We cross some critical threshold and it gets really hard for us to take on complex cognitive tasks and make good decisions. This effects everyone equally more or less a bit worse at planning, a bit worse at solving problems, a bit worse and making critical decisions.

In the long run, planners make worse decisions, governments make work decisions, voters make worse decisions, students perform more poorly... you get the picture. Over 20 or 30 years these bad decisions start to ramp up into meaningful impacts on the world. At risk of "post hoc ergo proctor hoc"-ing myself, the tipping point for this being somewhere close to 400ppm would make a lot of sense, because people seem to be noticeably dumber some time after 2014 ish? Hard to really pin it down though, but once CO2 levels started to routinely crest over that 1000ppm it seems to me that the world started to get a lot crazier.

Like, we can blame it on one politician we don't like or another, or on bad economic forecasting, or on the schools, or on latent racism / sexism / whatever-ism. To be clear, those are all legitimate concerns, but at the end of the day we're just animals more or less stuck on this orb zipping through the cosmos and if we're suddenly unable to do high level reasoning as well wouldn't you expect to see an increase in "dumb ideas" being accepted?

Re: Rising carbon dioxide levels now detected in human blood

#72

Post by pjc50 »

slibhb wrote: post #27
ThomW wrote: post #3

"Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.“

[flagged]

All these things can be true at the same time:

- fossil fuels have provided huge benefits

- the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is causing gradually increasing problems that will eventually become severe in some places

- a lot of people made a lot of money along the way

- at some point, some people chose to lie about the problems

- lying about the problems is morally wrong

- the transition off fossil fuels will be expensive

- that is not a sufficient reason not to do it

Re: Rising carbon dioxide levels now detected in human blood

#73

Post by ChromaticPanic »

slibhb wrote: post #60
microsoftedging wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Op was referencing a comic [0] Furthermore, yes, getting to the point where we're no longer starving and in thatched huts did require fossil fuels, but now we know what they do, and that they're actively having an effect on the environment, and clearly us, are we so stuck in our ways we can't change our actions to secure a life for those that come after? [0] https://www.bureauofinternetculture.art/memes/shareholder-v…

What difference does it make what they're referencing? I'm glad we agree that fossil fuels were necessary. It has nothing to do with "shareholder value" -- it has to do with minimizing human suffering. Also, it's noteworthy that US emissions peaked in 2007. We're down ~20% since then. The world is absolutely addressing climate change, and the worst case scenarios have already been avoided. Faster would be better but…

Consumerism is the problem. If fossil fuels were used on necessities sure. Single use plastics, individually packaged consumables, planned obsolescence are examples of things that are not necessary. These examples have all to do with shareholder value.

Re: Rising carbon dioxide levels now detected in human blood

#74

Post by chneu »

Reminder that an individual can cut their emissions by a staggering amount by just not eating meat/dairy.

Depending on how much you consume, you can cut your emissions by 50%!

Regenerative ranching is a lie and is more based in "vibes" and "energies" than science. Making beef production 0.01% more efficient then increasing consumption does not help. Meat is a "status symbol" food based in excess, grass fed beef is just another excuse to use more resources on a good to show how much of a status symbol it is. Grass fed beef is not good for environment. That's nonsense. It's less efficient beef called green. It's more expensive so people can claim superiority for buying it.

Our ego, pride, heritage, and machismo are used to manipulate us into beating our chests and consuming more protein, cuz winners eat 1.2g protein per kg and go to the gym. See how our health is used to manipulate us and justify excessive consumption in the form of "health and fitness"? Our colonist/conquerer society is dead set on us consuming more and more. We gotta buy more funco pops to keep up with social media influencers.

At the current point, the ONLY thing that makes sense is to cut your excessive consumption. We arent removing anything from the environment at this point and "recycling" and "regeneration" are meaningless.

We've blown past every milestone of destruction we have. We consistently increase our emissions and consumption. We are not doing anything to stop this.

Reduce and sacrifice is all that matters right now. Soon, a lot of this won't be an option for people, it'll be forced on them because of our selfishness today.

Our kids and grandkids have every reason to blame us. We are finding, creating and using every excuse we can for why this isn't our fault as we bite into a cheap burger.

Re: Rising carbon dioxide levels now detected in human blood

#75

Post by chneu »

zug_zug wrote: post #12

> Humans evolved in an atmosphere containing roughly 280–300 ppm of CO₂. The average annual increase over the past decade has been about 2.6 ppm per year, with 2024 recording a 3.5 ppm rise. So currently we're at 428 with 3.5 increase per year, yeah, that's scary if it doesn't slow down soon. Makes you wonder about what indirect health side-effects that could have on us.

When the wildfires during COVID hit some folks did some work to figure out how much of a cognitive effect wildfire smoke has on the brain. Its pretty staggering.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9196888/

Essentially, this affects every person and animal on the planet.

Re: Rising carbon dioxide levels now detected in human blood

#76

Post by DoctorOW »

slibhb wrote: post #60
microsoftedging wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Op was referencing a comic [0] Furthermore, yes, getting to the point where we're no longer starving and in thatched huts did require fossil fuels, but now we know what they do, and that they're actively having an effect on the environment, and clearly us, are we so stuck in our ways we can't change our actions to secure a life for those that come after? [0] https://www.bureauofinternetculture.art/memes/shareholder-v…

What difference does it make what they're referencing? I'm glad we agree that fossil fuels were necessary. It has nothing to do with "shareholder value" -- it has to do with minimizing human suffering. Also, it's noteworthy that US emissions peaked in 2007. We're down ~20% since then. The world is absolutely addressing climate change, and the worst case scenarios have already been avoided. Faster would be better but…

> It has nothing to do with "shareholder value"

The reason other countries are able to move so much faster than the U.S. is because parties that have power in the U.S. push back with economic concerns. The distance between "shareholder value" and "stock market performance" is miniscule.

Re: Rising carbon dioxide levels now detected in human blood

#77

Post by ceejayoz »

lapcat wrote: post #56
knowaveragejoe wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do the people causing this problem a great service with false equivocations like this. It is clear one group would prefer us to ignore the problem and do nothing at all - in fact encourage the problematic behavior - and the other would very much like to take action on the issue if they had the political power.

> the other would very much like to take action on the issue if they had the political power. They had political power! During the Biden administration, during the Obama administration, during the Clinton administration. Al Gore is a famous environmentalist... for making a movie after he was out of power. What the hell did he do for the environment when he was literally in the Oval Office, at the side of the Presiden…

> What the hell did he do for the environment when he was literally in the Oval Office, at the side of the President?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_activism_of_Al_G...

Guy tried.

Re: Rising carbon dioxide levels now detected in human blood

#78

Post by slibhb »

ChromaticPanic wrote: post #73
slibhb wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What difference does it make what they're referencing? I'm glad we agree that fossil fuels were necessary. It has nothing to do with "shareholder value" -- it has to do with minimizing human suffering. Also, it's noteworthy that US emissions peaked in 2007. We're down ~20% since then. The world is absolutely addressing climate change, and the worst case scenarios have already been avoided. Faster would be better but…

Consumerism is the problem. If fossil fuels were used on necessities sure. Single use plastics, individually packaged consumables, planned obsolescence are examples of things that are not necessary. These examples have all to do with shareholder value.

Consumerism is not the problem. Human beings don't stop wanting to improve their lives once they have the bare necessities and there is nothing wrong with this.

We can have our cake and eat it, we just need to transition to cleaner forms of energy. Which we are doing.

Re: Rising carbon dioxide levels now detected in human blood

#79

Post by api »

gcanyon wrote: post #5

Higher carbon dioxide makes us dumber: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7229519/ I wonder how long before in-home CO2 extraction becomes a thing.

This is honestly much, much scarier than climate change. We can adapt to a changing climate but not if we're losing IQ and focus.

Re: Rising carbon dioxide levels now detected in human blood

#80

Post by embedding-shape »

lapcat wrote: post #25
embedding-shape wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the politicians are absolutely trying to roll back the clock, push dirty tech, eliminate all environmental protections and regulations Yes, in one country who seems hellbent on destroying itself. But looking globally, more and more countries seems to get it at this point, and at least move in the right direction, compared to others. The others will make themselves irrelevant faster than the others can reach a f…

> Yes, in one country who seems hellbent on destroying itself. One of the largest countries in the world, measured by size, population, economy, and military. If you hadn't noticed, the US can do a lot of damage to the rest of the world all by itself. And pollution does not respect borders. Global warming does not respect borders.

Right, but again, it'll matter less and less as the US hegemony is dying and other countries will pick up the torch, and the ones who are taking over seem to be a bit more willing to both commit and execute on plans to reduce pollution and global warming in general.
Post reply on HN