Carbon Pollution Touched 800,000 Year Record in 2016, WMO Says (bloomberg.com) 354
Carbon dioxide levels surged to their highest level in at least 800,000 years because of pollution caused by humans and a strong El Nino event, according to the World Meteorological Organization. From a report: Concentrations of the greenhouse gas increased at a record speed in 2016 to reach an average of 403.3 parts per million, up from 400 parts per million a year earlier, the WMO said in a statement on Monday warning of "severe ecological and economic disruptions." The WMO said the last time the Earth had a comparable concentration of CO2s, the temperature of the planet was 2 degrees to 3 degrees Celsius warmer and sea levels were 10 meters to 20 meters higher than now.
800,000 years ago (Score:2)
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El Nino (Score:5, Funny)
That "El Nino" needs to be taxed so this doesn't happen again.
..and the deniers will keep on denying. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:..and the deniers will keep on denying. (Score:5, Insightful)
Face it: Whether or not it's human-caused, there is literally no downside to our species ceasing to dump unnecessary waste gasses and pollutants into our environment. Saying "it costs too much, it's too much of an economic burden!" is about as short-sighted as you can get. We, as a species, keep shitting all over the planet we live on, and through the magic of denial, expect there's going to be no consequences -- or worse, don't care because the consequences won't affect us, immediately, it'll affect future generations ("that's their problem, not ours, why should we care?"); reprehensible. We have the technology to move away from 100-year-old energy sources, why not use it?
This pretty much sums it up.
Even if it were true that the pollution isn't going to have catastrophic economic and migrant effects (which it isn't unless you watch Fox news) we can still make a better world.. so why not?
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Re:..and the deniers will keep on denying. (Score:5, Insightful)
Addressing the global warming problem doesn't stop anyone from addressing local pollution problems.
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Re:..and the deniers will keep on denying. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Also how do you know I'm not already 'bent', sweetie? xD xD xD (I'm not but I had to say it)
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It's your local (country / state / city / whatever) government responsibility to give incentives to address local pollution issues.
Also just because they are addressing other issues (poverty, defense, whatever) doesn't stop them from fighting local pollution either. But of course, choices have to be made. Money spent on defense doesn't help solving any pollution problem (either local or global).
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Er, yes. Do you have any point? My point is the focus on "climate change" is taking away from focus on an immediate problem. You know why Miami and Manhattan flood? It isn't global warming: it is the loss of local coastal buffer wetlands. Yet the blame is always "global warming" when the flooding happens.
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Local pollution problem need the Federal hammer (Score:2)
Case in Point:
Colorado Springs refuses to spend money to clean up a storm water problem because that dirty storm water just flows downstream to Pueblo via Fountain Creek. The attitude of Colorado Springs voters is it costs too much money and not my problem because it all washes downstream to somewhere else (Pueblo).
Pueblo sued and won but C\S continues to ignore the problem. The state ignores the problem because of 500,000 voter versus 50,000 voters. Look up TABOR to see how that matters to Colorado politi
It does actually (Score:2)
Money wasted trying to change the weather is money not available to invest in actual solution to the actual problem of pollution. Especially in developing countries.
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You don't get the issue if you mix weather and climate.
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so why not?
Because if it adds $5/year to a bill people will hate it, even if it saves then $500 in other ways.
Their electricity bill will say "$5 renewable energy fee", but their insurance premium won't say "$500 discount due to reduced coal power emissions".
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You can win any argument by fabricating numbers.
No, renewables do not "save $500 in other ways" for every "$5/year added to a bill". If they did, they would already be widely adopted.
Basic economics (Score:2)
No, renewables do not "save $500 in other ways" for every "$5/year added to a bill". If they did, they would already be widely adopted.
False understanding of economics. If $5 that you spend means that 10,000,000 people each save 0.005 cents (for a total savings of $500), then no, the solution wouldn't be "already widely implemented"-- even if you are one of those 10,000,000 people.
That's the generic problem when a cost is something that can be attributed to specific individuals, but the savings are distributed. You should have learned that in basic economics 101.
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"Affluent"
Yeah LOL sure thing I'm so FUCKING affluent!
No savings. No retirement. Living paycheck to paycheck. One emergency away from bankruptcy -- yet I still see that we HAVE TO GIVE A DAMN ABOUT WHAT WE'RE DOING TO OUR WORLD!
Get correct.
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Even if it were true that the pollution isn't going to have catastrophic economic and migrant effects (which it isn't unless you watch Fox news) we can still make a better world.. so why not?
Contrary to what politicians might tell you (or rather lie to you) about how green they are, eliminating pollution is not a matter of simply standing up, and proudly proclaiming you're going to "make the world better". Transportation, developing nations, manufacturing, and shipping is where emissions come from. No amount of carbon credits or treaties will stop China from polluting. They will gladly lie through their teeth, sign BS 'agreements' like the Paris Climate Accords, and continue polluting. The only
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China isn't the only one that doesn't give a hoot for the rest of the world he says while whistling in the wind about all those atmospheric nuclear test the United States conducted in the South Pacific.
Re:..and the deniers will keep on denying. (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember when I was young we had a paper mill that every time the weather held the smell in you'd nearly gag on it. Huge polluter. Now it still runs, bigger than ever, and not a sniff from it. I see that all over. Cement company used to leave dust everywhere and now there's none. We've made great strides in the last 5 decades and will continue to make more. Electric cars will be here soon and more alternative energy is going it. Saying we're not doing anything is a lie. Maybe not enough to satisfy you but it is and will continue to improve.
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Face it: Whether or not it's human-caused, there is literally no downside to our species ceasing to dump unnecessary waste gasses and pollutants into our environment.
That depends on how you define "unnecessary". I save quite a bit of money and do less to support fracking by using wood heat instead of propane. But that has negative effects on air quality...
Re:..and the deniers will keep on denying. (Score:5, Insightful)
We have the technology to move away from 100-year-old energy sources, why not use it?
We will. We will definitely move to renewable energy. But first, the people in power and the rich have too much of their wealth tied to fossil fuels. They need to divest, dump it into the market while they exit. They use all the propaganda to make sure the market does not suddenly collapse for them. Once the rich have fully divested, and all these chumps who trust their leaders shouting "drill, baby drill", "dig, baby dig" own the stocks, that market will collapse.
Already in the coal mines, all those companies that were planning to mine for decades have sold out to shorter term companies. They raided the pension funds, rights of way, railroad rolling stock etc, and cashed out. The next round of buyers picked the bones more. Waterway access, scenic lodges, etc were stripped out. The next round of owners decided to sacrifice all maintenance and safety and expansion, use local tax abatements and other tax payer supported incentives milk them all dry. They see no new coal fired power plant is opening, dirty coal is more expensive than natural gas, which is getting to be more expensive than wind and solar for new installations. They are dumping coal companies.
The coal miners and their communities that deserve to be taken care of by rest of the nation are being abandoned. They bite the hand that reaches out to them, and they trust the people who stab them in their back. Very sorry for them.
So eventually, in twenty or thirty years, when history books are written the descendants of these coal miners will read how their grand parents were taken for a ride.
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We have the technology to move away from 100-year-old energy sources, why not use it?
We already are moving to solar based power generation. Last year worldwide generation increased by 50% more than the prior year [theguardian.com]. Why interfere with the market when it's already moving in the direction we'd like it to?
"Globally there is now 305GW of solar power capacity, up from around 50GW in 2010 and virtually nothing at the turn of the millennium."
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This.
And solar panels have been showing the same exponential decrease in cost as nearly all technologies. We have finally reached a crossover point where solar is becoming cheaper than building a power plant to make steam, then fueling it and maintaining all the equipment. It is quickly becoming a fool's errand to build a coal fired (or nuclear) power plant. You won't hear a new reporter proclaiming it, but the day is quickly approaching where a financier will look at the person applying for funding of a
This time it actually worked (Score:2)
And all without any laws or government intervention.
Yeah, anonymous coward above actually has it right (for a change): there were tremendous government incentives and government development programs and government demonstration projects that, over the course of decades, led to today's low-cost solar panels.
This just may end up being the poster-child example of the one time that government actions were done right.
Re:..and the deniers will keep on denying. (Score:5, Interesting)
Economic burden is actually an important point.
Some people find they need the prospect of human extinction to motivate them to do something about pollution, but in truth that scenario is extremely unlikely. We are the most adaptable multi-cellular organism that four billion years of evolution has produced.
Climate change isn't going to kill us (at least collectively); it's going to cost us a lot of money. In fact it's going to cost some of us more than others, while causing it will benefit some of us more than others. If the costs and benefits of climate change were fairly distributed, then we'd automatically adopt a reasonable compromise. But people like you and me are going to pay a greater share of the costs than we received of the benefits, because things aren't run with our good in mind.
And it's going to cost us in ways that nobody's bothering to measure, but should be. I've been fishing for forty years now, and when I started people still remembered taking native, wild brook trout from streams in my state where they haven't been seen since the 1960s. Water pollution killed them off, but even though we've cleaned up those streams, the waters are too warm now to reestablish them. Streams where the average summertime temperature was 65 twenty years ago are pegging average temps in the 75 range now, and brook trout die at 68-77F depending on maturity. Even the brain-dead hatchery rainbow trout near-clones that are put out to replace the native brookies aren't surviving past June, and they were chosen because they're more heat-tolerant.
It's not just fishing; there have been declines in game species in the lower 48 due to temperature driven habitat stress and parasites. One study found a 75% mortality rate in moose calves due to parasite infection, and a 45% drop in adult population in the past fifteen years. During that time centuries old eastern hemlock groves where I used to hike went from having no sky visible overhead to being largely denuded because of the spread of parasites formerly kept in check. In a decade or two groves with trees predate the signing of the Declaration of Independence will be gone, replaced by alien Noway maples.
Can you put a price on that stuff? I suppose you can in terms of lost economic activity, but more to the point we're losing something you literally can't put a price on: tradition. Heritage. Our natural legacy. Maybe some people will be able to afford to take a month to go on safari, but for the average person these things are disappearing.
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Think of the chillllddrennnnn!!
Re:..and the deniers will keep on denying. (Score:4, Interesting)
From the article you quoted:
"The world still has fewer trees than at any point in human history. "
And that's a problem
Useless links (Score:5, Informative)
The slashdot link is really useless. Further rant: I really hate sites that highlight a word/organisation/site and then when you click on that link will show all articles on that subject in their own site (Looking at you, engadget! )That's what bloomberg seems to do.
Here's the original link
https://public.wmo.int/en/medi... [wmo.int]
and the actual bulletin:
https://ane4bf-datap1.s3-eu-we... [amazonaws.com]
Congratulations! (Score:2)
Re:And yet, little effect (Score:5, Insightful)
The way you can tell CO2 doesn't have the effect on the climate the fear-mongers want you to think it does, is that as CO2 continues to climb climate changes do not track with CO2 increases, much less exhibit any kind of runaway effect which is the whole reason you were supposed to fear CO2 to begin with.
Luckily even for those of you that continue to fear irrationally, CO2 production will inevitably decline in the coming decades as solar and other forms of renewable energy take over for real, now that that are close to actually making more sense than fossil fuels.
I don't think that you understand the meaning of the word rational.
CO2's effect has been demonstrated conclusively.
Re:Runaway effect? Nope. (Score:5, Interesting)
Just a guess, but the lack of 7 billion people and their concomitant industrial output probably had something to do with it.
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Why did everything not die then?
Just a guess, but the lack of 7 billion people and their concomitant industrial output probably had something to do with it.
I'll have to say this slowly, so even the Greens will understand.
Parent's question is about the effect on the overall environment last time the CO2 level hit 403 ppm before human existence. Right now, the industrial output of those 7 billion humans have brought us to 403 ppm again. It was not apocalypse then, so why should it be apocalypse, other than for Malibu realtors, now?
Re: Runaway effect? Nope. (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a simple and logical answer to why the current increase in CO2 might well be worse. When 403 ppm was reached previously, the change in CO2 and the effects on temperature were much more gradual than what we're experiencing now. Life is very resilient. Give it time to adapt to changing climate and it will. However, the present increase in CO2 and the associated warming is much more abrupt, leaving far less time for life to adapt and evolve.
Re: Runaway effect? Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether changes are limited to 2C average remains to be seen, especially as CO2 changes have been happening very quickly (in geological terms) and the ability of the ocean to absorb CO2 and heat has left the atmospheric climate changes to lag, so far.
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The high/low temperature spread today is more than 10C. The summer winter spread is at least 50C.
2C of temperature is also the difference between a healthy man and someone having a fever.
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Re: Runaway effect? Nope. (Score:2)
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One answer is that, last time, it was much more gradual. Life had a much better chance to adapt. This time around, we've got concerns that aren't just species survival.
Another is that we haven't stopped putting more CO2 into the air, so it's not going to stay 403ppm for long.
Re:Runaway effect? Nope. (Score:5, Informative)
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The runaway effect needs something like 3000ppm of CO2. This is not going to happen.
Could you please provide some additional reading/sources for this?
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Even the IPCC say there is virtually no chance of anthropogenic activities causing a runaway greenhouse effect a la Venus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
A runaway greenhouse effect is a process in which a net positive feedback between surface temperature and atmospheric opacity increases the strength of the greenhouse effect on a planet until its oceans boil away.[1][2] An example of this is believed to have happened in the early history of Venus. On the Earth, the IPCC states that "a 'runaway greenhouse effect'â"analogous to [that of] Venusâ"appears to have virtually no chance of being induced by anthropogenic activities."
https://www.ipcc.ch/meetings/s... [www.ipcc.ch] page 11
Strawman and company (Score:5, Informative)
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It would be extremely difficult for the Earth to achieve the right conditions to induce a runaway greenhouse effect similar to Venus. It's just not plausible based on known sources of carbon and are distance from the sun.
In about a billion years or so, that will change. But a worse case for Earth is somewhere in the neighborhood of +12C-15C. That would pretty much wipe out all but the hardiest life forms on the surface today, but it wouldn't be a runaway greenhouse.
Re: Runaway effect? Nope. (Score:4, Informative)
It's impossible to have discussions about technology that can offset our carbon emissions because everyone ends up replying to the same tired old logical fallacies from the same willfully obtuse deniers like yourself. Your logical fallacy of choice for this post is the straw man fallacy. No one except you claimed that everything would die off. That's intellectually dishonest. Perhaps you'll return with another denial attempt from your bag of tricks such as a false dichotomy, the ad hominem fallacy, the false equivalency, dodging the question, or any number of other logical fallacies that you and other deniers love to trot out. It's a tired act that needs to stop.
The greenhouse effect is established science. Its basic physics than can be demonstrated in a laboratory. Adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere makes the greenhouse effect stronger. This is obvious. As for why the warmer temperatures in the past didn't have more dramatic effects on life, it's because the worst effects were probably in the oceans, plus the relatively gradual nature of the changes allowed life more time to adapt. The present day greenhouse gas increases are much more abrupt compared with what's been observed in the past, and thus there's far less time for life to evolve and adapt to the changes. An abrupt change is almost certainly much more dangerous than a gradual one, and on geologic time scales, what we're witnessing in the present day is incredibly abrupt.
Re: Runaway effect? Nope. (Score:4, Insightful)
True, but the effects are diminishing with increasing concentrations. That's because CO2 acts like an optical filter, and most of the radiation is already absorbed.
Unless I'm completely misunderstanding what you're getting at, this is almost completely wrong. The reduction in effect with increasing CO2 concentrations is trivial. Why? Because Carbon dioxide (only) absorbs infrared radiation (IR) in three narrow bands of wavelengths, which are 2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers (M). In other words incoming sunlight is barely filtered by CO2 at all, it's the light that's reflected from Earth that's 'trapped' by the CO2 in the atmosphere.
those feedback loops are not "basic physics", can't be "demonstrated in a laboratory"
And wrong again! Increased CO2 --> Increased temperature --> Increased evaporation --> Increased temperature (due to water vapour also trapping heat) --> Increased evaporation... Pretty basic, if you ask me.
You also have to assume that there are no additional negative feedback loops to counteract the effects, again something we don't know.
Are you suggesting the burden of proof here (for postulating, and proving these hypothetical negative feedback loops) lies with the people saying Global Warming is a problem?
It's dishonest for you and others to conflate the basic physics of the greenhouse effect with the speculative models involving assumptions about feedback that are used to argue for the need to reduce carbon emissions.
Since there's no need to invoke speculative feedback loops to say increasing CO2 concentrations are, for want of a better way of phrasing it, fucking up the future standard of life for everyone on the planet I'm not sure we're the ones being dishonest. We're certainly not the ones telling ourselves the biggest porkies!
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And that heat trapping effect, the greenhouse effect, is nearly saturated already.
Your understanding clearly differs from mine, and you seem to be basing your understanding on information I've either not seen, or overlooked in my researches. Could you provide a reference to back up, and possibly expand upon, the highlighted section above, please?
Furthermore, water vapor leads to increased cloud cover, which provides negative feedback.
Well, it would be more accurate to say increased humidity can lead to increased cloud cover, which would certainly self limit the positive feedback. That's not the same as saying it's a negative feedback loop, merely that the positive feedback do
Arrhenius (Score:5, Informative)
True, but the effects are diminishing with increasing concentrations. That's because CO2 acts like an optical filter, and most of the radiation is already absorbed.
Yes, the effect is logarithmic. This has been known since Arrhenius calculated it in 1896 [ref [aip.org]]. And it is incorporated into every single greenhouse model that is run.
It's why the anthropogenic greenhouse effect-- about 1 degree C so far-- is so vastly smaller than the natural greenhouse effect, about 33 degrees C.[ref [bbc.co.uk]].
Really. This is already part of the science. You're not telling us anything that the scientists aren't already incorporating into their models.
So, if that basic physics was all there was to the science, we clearly wouldn't have to worry about carbon emissions at all.
That's not true. Again: all of the current models already incorporate the effect you notice.
In order to conclude that there is any significant danger from greenhouse gases, you have to run climate models that make various assumptions about positive feedback loops;
The main feedback effect is known as "constant humidity." If you want to turn this feedback off, you need to come up with a mechanism that decreases the humidity as the temperature rises. I'm not saying that such a model is impossible... but it's hard to come up with a realistic mechanism.
those feedback loops are not "basic physics",
They most certainly are.
can't be "demonstrated in a laboratory",
Humidity can't be measured in a laboratory? I beg to differ.
and are largely speculative and unproven at this point.
They are not.
You also have to assume that there are no additional negative feedback loops to counteract the effects, again something we don't know.
People have been searching for such a negative feedback loop for several decades. So far all of the ones proposed have been disproven by measurements.
Uh, you do know that people measure the properties of the atmosphere, right? And that climate models are baselined against measured values?
It's dishonest for you and others to conflate the basic physics of the greenhouse effect with the speculative models involving assumptions about feedback that are used to argue for the need to reduce carbon emissions.
Except for the most part these aren't speculative models. They're well-tested models that are checked against measurements. And, there are many thousands of models run-- by independent groups on all five continents-- and cross-checked against each other to see which effects dominate. That's why the climate study outputs have error bars, because one of the things we do know is how much we don't know.
Yes, that's right: the actual science includes error bars. That's one of the ways you can tell the science from the speculation, like yours.
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Nothing you have said contradicts my statement:
You write:
Correct. And in addition to that, they also incorporate a lot of assumptions for which there is little solid evidence.
A model that is composed of two parts, one part being sound physics, one part being highly speculative, ends up making hi
Re:Runaway effect? Nope. (Score:4, Informative)
Nobody sane has been saying that scenario is likely. If that's what people you are listening to are either saying or claiming that other people are saying, then you should consider listening to other people.
Not that it isn't possible. You mentioned the incontrovertible evidence yourself: Venus. It's just that the climate models don't predict it. Of course, if you believe the climate models are unreliable and untrustworthy, then a Venusian scenario is back on the table, and you really should worry about it.
But when sane people talk about runaway effects, they are talking about scenarios that merely kill hundreds of millions of people and ruin the lives of billions more. Nothing really to worry about from a species extinction point of view, but personally I'd like to avoid that.
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Maybe we will not have a "venus effect", but you should still fear CO2.
FYI: professional safety limits for CO2 exposition, 8 hrs/day, are 5000 ppm (italian laws). Check your country's laws, probably your values aren't too different. Considering a 24/7/365 exposition, I figure we end up with numbers even closer to the current 400 ppm level.
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Really, in what way? How do you "demonstrate" the whole planet will warm into an unstoppable Venus like unlivable atmosphere? Because that's why we were told to fear CO2.
No, you weren't. That's a straw man.
Meanwhile in real life even though CO2 increases exponentially, we see only the same slow warming trend we have been seeing for a while.
I'd say that's perfectly in line with the fact, actually known even to the 19th century scientists, that CO2's effect is supposed to be logarithmic, wouldn't you say?
Re:Runaway effect? Nope. (Score:4, Insightful)
The way you can tell CO2 doesn't have the effect on the climate the fear-mongers want you to think it does, is that as CO2 continues to climb climate changes do not track with CO2 increases,
The very first numerical integration of the greenhouse effect incorporating real-world IR aborption and convective/radiative heat transfer, Manabe and Wetherald 1967, predicted a 2.4C temperature rise per doubling. (The same as the current IPCC estimate: "in the range 2 to 4.5 C, with a most likely value of about 3 C.") Since then the CO2 has risen by a factor of 1.25 (from 322 ppm to 404 ppm), and the temperature by 0.98 degrees C. Looking at the correlation, yes the temperature has very well tracked with CO2-- the temperature is actually slightly higher than predicted (applying Arrhenius' logarithmic relationship)-- but well within error bars.
So, basically: you're wrong. Temperature does track CO2 increases.
much less exhibit any kind of runaway effect which is the whole reason you were supposed to fear CO2 to begin with.
Citation needed. What "runaway"?
CO2's effect has been demonstrated conclusively.
Really, in what way? How do you "demonstrate" the whole planet will warm into an unstoppable Venus like unlivable atmosphere? Because that's why we were told to fear CO2.
Strawman. [logicallyfallacious.com]. I suppose somebody, somewhere, some time might have talked about a scenario where Earth warms to Venus temperatures, but I don't know who and I've never heard that argument put forth. Actual scientists talk about: 3 degrees per doubling. How has it been "demonstrated conclusively"? Well, by measurements, for one.
Meanwhile in real life even though CO2 increases exponentially, we see only the same slow warming trend we have been seeing for a while.
Yes: carbon dioxide is increasing and the temperature is warming in the exact amount predicted. Your point is?
Even the IPCC now forecasts MAYBE 2C warming over 100 years.
And, remarkably, the IPCC hasn't changed that prediction at all. The 1990 IPCC First Assessment Report estimated that equilibrium climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling lay between 1.5 and 4.5 C, with a "best guess in the light of current knowledge" of 2.5 C. The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report stated: "Equilibrium climate sensitivity is likely in the range 1.5 C to 4.5 C (high confidence)".
Your comment subject is "Re:Runaway effect? Nope." That's correct. Nope. It's not happening, because it wasn't predicted in the first place. That's a strawman.
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CO2's effect has been demonstrated conclusively.
Really, in what way?
How do you "demonstrate" the whole planet will warm into an unstoppable Venus like unlivable atmosphere? Because that's why we were told to fear CO2.
Meanwhile in real life even though CO2 increases exponentially, we see only the same slow warming trend we have been seeing for a while. Even the IPCC now forecasts MAYBE 2C warming over 100 years. So what? There's not any reason to fear that; unless you fear more livable landmass and better crop production the world over.
What makes you think 2C would give us more livable landmass and better crop production? The majority of studies project the exact opposite (and regardless, those are far from the only consequence).
Even the article says CO2 was at this level 800,000 years ago, and the temperatures were 2-3C warmer - so what happened to that runway effect then? Why did everything not die then? Apparently it was all fine and everything carried on, so why are you worried NOW when humans have the technology to overcome even drastic climate shifts, much less the mild climate shifts we are actually getting.
Your post claims to be rational, yet you seem to fear something that we already no happened to no ill effect.
So the fact that 800K years ago we had a functioning (though radically different) ecosystem is something you cite as evidence as there being nothing to worry about.
But you don't even mention the 10-20 difference in sea levels.
I'm not trying to hold you to the standard of peer reviewed literature... but can you at
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There has NEVER been "runaway global warming". And there won't be, no matter how hard people try to scare you.
Re:I 3 Global Warming (Score:5, Interesting)
"CO2 is plant food," a stupid argument to use in favor of global warming considering CO2's other negative effects - especially the reduction in arable land, isn't even right in itself.
More accurately, CO2 is plant junk food. Higher CO2 levels produce less nutritious crops:
http://www.nature.com/nature/j... [nature.com]
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More accurately, CO2 is plant junk food. Higher CO2 levels produce less nutritious crops
Not sure why you provided a paywalled link when there are alternatives like this one [harvard.edu].
You might read the actual study if you haven't -- the details suggest a lot less of a clear-cut situation even for the single variable the authors are trying to isolate. The generally single-digit decreases in zinc and iron varied widely per cultivar of a given crop, and some cultivars had little decrease or even had an increase in nutrient content when grown under elevated CO2.
So stack up a negligible decrease in certain
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And you think that your best-case scenario gains could possibly make up for loss of arable land? [nationalgeographic.com]
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your best-case scenario gains
"Best-case scenario" has a well-understood and measurable meaning -- it's not just a label you throw out when someone brings up something inconvenient to your position. If you have some specific criticism of either paper I cited, I'm happy to discuss.
make up for loss of arable land? [nationalgeographic.com]
And here we have what I've come to fondly term the "lilypad" style of debate -- after "CO2 is junk food for plants" didn't work out for you, you've simply moved on to a completely different proposition. I'll play one round with you, but likely not two.
The inf
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I gave the latitude frim my mind. So being 4 - 5 degres off is not as bad ad the original poster who was 15-20 degrees off. ... no way you will soon farm grain ther
Latitude 45 is already perfectly farmable. So global warming does nit bring any more farmland at latitude 45.
Latitude 60 will always be bad for farmin: to long frost times, after thawing to long muddy, tundra and woods, usually yield back farmland. Edge cases like you example about Fairbanks don't contradict that.
Try that in the middle of Siberia
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That's why greenhouses pump in CO2 to massively increase yields.
Obviously they are competing to see who can make the least nutritious crops. /sarc
Re:I 3 Global Warming (Score:5, Insightful)
CO2 provides raw material for plant photosynthesis, which helps to grow food. Global warming = more food.
Food plants can't tolerate a desert. What we are doing is creating changes to the areas that produce the food. Even India, the greatest food producing nation on earth is suffering from localized seasonal temperature pattern changes that are slowly making areas that once produced food uninhabitable. The Mediterranean climate influenced food producing regions of Spain are also experiencing changes that make areas less productive of food and will kill humans at certain times of the year when temperatures soar to levels over 115f for weeks at a time.
But amongst the climate change deniers there are also those who think that rapid melting of permafrost will open up vast areas of land to agriculture. Little do they understand that the areas they so wrongly think can support agriculture are in reality are mostly the cold northern deserts which do not have the rainfall to support agriculture. In contrast the areas around the equator which have high rain fall are very low in biomass and when the farmers slash and burn the rain forests the land exposed cannot produce food for more than a few years.
The highest food producing areas of Western North America in California, which by and large rely upon water from systems that are slowly but surely being effected by less and less rainfall on the mountains of West Coast. So the water levels in the Colorado at lake Mead and the other dam ridden systems are slowly cycling lower and lower each year. While ironically the lakes behind the dams are filling with sediment at a faster than predicted rate because of sudden snow melts after large snow fall instead of a predictable cycle of sedimentation.
On top of this California which relies almost entirely upon imported water from the greater Pacific water shed is also experiencing what Spain, Portugal and other areas with similar climate parameters is also headed for dangerous ground in terms of losing areas of habitability due to prolonged heat waves.
We are raping the planet and as we reach the tipping point and start to see the serious consequences of our greed and stupidity there will always be those with rose coloured glasses who claim that the good ship earth is unsinkable.
Re:I 3 Global Warming (Score:5, Interesting)
Lucky then that climate change causes increased evaporation and probably overall increased precipitation.
And, again, good thing that climate change is here to help. [sandiegouniontribune.com]
The rose coloured glass effect in spades. The fly in the ointment with this belief is that the areas that are warming the most are not receiving increased rainfall and will not, unless the patterns of the jet stream and continental weather streams change drastically. The arid deserts are not about to change suddenly into agricultural land, neither will the areas with the greatest biomass in the form of peat bogs and a cold climate desert ecology. The territories in Canada and the northern sections of the provinces are not suitable for agriculture and will not suddenly become arable lands, the fools that spout off about the benefits of global warming are exactly that FOOLS. Yes we will be soon able to send oil tankers through the North West Passage and drill the hell out of areas of the Arctic. Yes there are huge areas of fertile prairie which is quickly losing the permafrost but most are are based upon an acidic top soil that will not produce our chosen food stuffs or support adequate grass for grazing animals for centuries until many cycles of grass fires can change the top soil ph. This is how our prairie grain lands are created and is how they will eventually be created in some more northernly areas of North America
Some of the areas just south of the permafrost have already been used for Northern agriculture in a very recent time frame. The Peace River region is one example, but these areas have had centuries to adjust to the loss of the permafrost.
Unless the arm chair scientists claiming that global warming will increase food production have a way to change the polar rotation of the earth there is absolutely no way to increase the growing seasons of the North which around the 60th parallel is 3-4 months of frost free temperatures and enough daylight to grow plants.
Even more importantly, FYI what it takes to raise a cow on grass and forage plants at the 60th and even down to Dawson creek at 55.7596 N is more in monetary terms of feed than the animal will bring at market. Most cattle grown there are stock produced first or trucked in then range fed, then trucked out to then be market fattened in the production feed lots in southern Alberta before going to market. Also the animals must be housed during the coldest months in a heated barns to avoid them losing too much fat and muscle mass to the cold. The range season there much shorter than in Montana even if the winters are not much colder they are much longer. The low cost of natural gas in Canada is the only thing that makes cattle ranching there possible.
Traditional agriculture does not work in most of Canada and Russia and the fools who believe it will are living with rose coloured glasses that blind them to the realities of the environment of the north and what it takes to live and work there. Productive prairies are slowly created by cycles fire and grass and the slow warming since the last ice age. Prairie agricultural lands will not and cannot be magically created by man made global warming.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Luckily even for those of you that continue to fear irrationally, CO2 production will inevitably decline in the coming decades as solar and other forms of renewable energy take over for real, now that that are close to actually making more sense than fossil fuels.
Luck is the key word there, because despite huge increase in solar and wind, we are see NO improvement in CO2 emissions. As long as so many cling to the oversimplified dream that simply adding solar and wind and EVs will make enough of a difference, we will fail.
We need all the tools in the toolbox, particularly nuclear, to stand a chance. We can't hope for breakthroughs as a strategy. We must consider the socioeconomic aspects of solutions as well. But, unfortunately we'll just hear more of the same 'mo
Re:And yet, little effect (Score:5, Insightful)
Climate Change is a Threat...
But apparently not enough of a threat to convince the anti-nukes to abandon their irrational fears.
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Climate Change is a Threat... But apparently not enough of a threat to convince the anti-nukes to abandon their irrational fears.
To the contrary: it is indeed enough of a threat to make the anti-nukes abandon their irrational fears. Pay attention.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nuclear-power-is-the-greenest-option-say-top-scientists-9955997.html
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/07/nuclear-power-renewables-climate-change
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pro-nuclear_environmentalists
http://www.ecomodernism.org/readings/2015/6/17/why-a-green-future-needs-nuclear-power
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/03/world/nucle
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Yes, there is more solar and wind generation.
There is also more energy use in general.
For the huge increases in solar and wind to matter, we need to actually TURN OFF the fossil fuel based generation. Installation of renewables need to outpace demand increase to the degree of replacing existing generation. That's when CO2 output goes down.
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Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Luck is the key word there, because despite huge increase in solar and wind, we are see NO improvement in CO2 emissions. As long as so many cling to the oversimplified dream that simply adding solar and wind and EVs will make enough of a difference, we will fail.
To get to zero carbon, we have to eliminate the fossil baseload. Greens can dream of wind-powered unicorns all they want, but any country that has heavy industries and large cities will need a carbon-free baseload to replace the fossil baseload.
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...if they expect to run their electric smelters on windless nights in cities without hydroelectric power without paying more. But that's a lot of loopholes they can exploit!
Re:And yet, little effect (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There's lots of effects that you generally wouldn't think of. For example, as someone who's working on engineering a house to last many hundreds of years, one thing that's key to avoid is the key longevity limitation of traditional concrete: carbon dioxide slowly seeps into the concrete, turning calcium hydroxide to calcium carbonate (limestone) and thus lowering its pH; when the pH drops too much at the steel rebar, it no longer protects it, it rusts, increases greatly in volume, and the concrete spalls ou
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For my house I'm looking at pozzolonic cement. You still have to use a lot of portland cement, but not as much.
From my view, though, the most "green" way you can build is to build to last. The difference between environmental footprints of a house that needs to be rebuilt every 50 years and one that needs to be rebuilt every 500 - only "refurbished" inside every few decades - is immense. While carbonation spells the doom of steel rebar, it's actually good for alternatives, such as FRP rebar. All of that
Concrete solutions to concrete problems (Score:2)
If you really want to limit CO2 output, you need to find a better way to make concrete, or outlaw portland cement.
Yes, people are in fact looking at that: http://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.... [iges.or.jp]
Cement is only about 5% of global carbon dioxide emissions, though, so at the moment it's not the driver. ( http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2... [columbia.edu] )
People are looking at alternatives: https://phys.org/news/2015-09-... [phys.org]
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There is NO form of energy that can provide the base power load requirements that is not fossil based, other than nuclear.
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OK...You and the Anti-Hydro nuts, that are tearing down dams all across the US, are going into a cage fight.
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"as solar and other forms of renewable energy take over for real, now that that are close to actually making more sense than fossil fuels" good to see someone actually seeing the point of scientific progress and finally seeing that things do not happen overnight as most deniers seem to think it should happen (same problem for evolution deniers too, expecting to see things happen overnight). Imagine if they listened to the climate deniers and didn't do all t
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This tired old nonsense again?
https://www.skepticalscience.c... [skepticalscience.com]
Bring a fresh argument next time. If the climate conspiracy blogs can cook up any.
Re: And yet, little effect (Score:2, Insightful)
When you attack somebody for asking questions, you aren't doing science. You're doing religion.
answered over and over and over and over again (Score:4, Insightful)
When you attack somebody for asking questions, you aren't doing science. You're doing religion.
It's not so much attacking people for asking questions, it's people getting annoyed and frustrated at anonymous cowards making assertions and raising objections that have been answered over and over and over and over again. The people doing this aren't actually asking questions, because they don't actually care about getting answers.
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The parent comment really shows how awful the discussion, and especially the modding, has become here. Kendall, who has long been one of the most positive contributors to this site, is downmodded and punished for making a sensible, high-quality comment.
To the contrary; the parent comment shows how good the discussion, and the moderation, is. Kendall made a strawman assertion, one of the well-known logical fallacies (demolishing a position that nobody had asserted in the first place), and got called out for it, with several of the responders pointing out his fallacy in detail.
Unfortunately there isn't a "-1, strawman argument" moderation (there should be), but nevertheless, his argument didn't stand up, and he was quite correctly criticized for it.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
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There are thousands of rich people with private jets and multiple vacation homes. If you want to encourage them to live more sustainable lives, there is a very direct way to do it: use incentives that they care about, that is: money. AKA Carbon tax.
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Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
Back then it was covered in lush forests and giant mammals.
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Insofar as he understands anything, he knows the desires of political hacks who will use this for massive control of the economy so they can get huge kickbacks to ease off a bit.
Follow the money.
We should no more be throwing brakes on the economy than people in 1900 should have to "help" us today...leaving us with 1970 level tech (if that) in 2017.
2010 era technology is solar (Score:5, Insightful)
Insofar as he understands anything, he knows the desires of political hacks who will use this for massive control of the economy so they can get huge kickbacks to ease off a bit.
Ooh, libertarian-tainted conspiracy thinkings! The global illuminati/socialist/masonic/Rothschild conspiracy is making its bid for global control, and they're using solar power as their tool! Everybody organize to stop it!
Follow the money.
OK. The fossil fuel industry is a trillion dollar a year industry. Everything else is trivial compared to that number. Money followed: the fossil fuel industry is driving everything.
We should no more be throwing brakes on the economy
OK. To not brake the economy, the best thing to do would be to go rapidly into new energy technologies, which are economic growth areas, and quit supporting antique fossil-fuel plants that haven't been updates since Ford was in office.
than people in 1900 should have to "help" us today...leaving us with 1970 level tech (if that) in 2017.
Coal power is 1920s decade technology. Wind is 1990s decade technology. Low cost solar is 2000s decade technology. High capacity battery night storage is 2010 decade technology. If you're worried about 1970 level tech, that was fossil fuel, allright.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
How about "moderation -1 stupid" instead?
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Actually I heard Venus is pretty nice around this time of year...
(for the humor impaired, look up the Marching Morons)
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Carbon dioxide helps plants grow.
Carbon dioxide alone isn't enough to accelerate plant growth. We will also have to increase the rate of nitrogen fixation by producing more NOx. Volkswagen, where are you when we really need you?
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Some will lose billions,some will make billions just as they did in the past.
The whole point of fighting global warming is that the world, as a whole, will lose billions more than if we act.
The cost of acting today is lower than the future cost of doing nothing.
CO2 and nuclear power (Score:2)
When someone talks about The CO2 Apocalypse, and out of the other side of their mouth chants "No Nukes Shut 'em All Down Now"...
Strawman argument. Who are those people?
Certainly none of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] or these http://www.independent.co.uk/n... [independent.co.uk] or these http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/03/... [cnn.com]