New Data Shows Record CO2 Levels in 2024. Are Carbon Sinks Failing? (theguardian.com) 197
The Guardian reports that atmospheric carbon dioxide "soared by a record amount in 2024 to hit another high, UN data shows."
But what's more troubling is why: Several factors contributed to the leap in CO2, including another year of unrelenting fossil fuel burning despite a pledge by the world's countries in 2023 to "transition away" from coal, oil and gas. Another factor was an upsurge in wildfires in conditions made hotter and drier by global heating. Wildfire emissions in the Americas reached historic levels in 2024, which was the hottest year yet recorded. However, scientists are concerned about a third factor: the possibility that the planet's carbon sinks are beginning to fail. About half of all CO2 emissions every year are taken back out of the atmosphere by being dissolved in the ocean or being sucked up by growing trees and plants. But the oceans are getting hotter and can therefore absorb less CO2 while on land hotter and drier conditions and more wildfires mean less plant growth...
Atmospheric concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide — the second and third most important greenhouse gases related to human activities — also rose to record levels in 2024. About 40% of methane emissions come from natural sources. But scientists are concerned that global heating is leading to more methane production in wetlands, another potential feedback loop.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader mspohr for sharing the article.
But what's more troubling is why: Several factors contributed to the leap in CO2, including another year of unrelenting fossil fuel burning despite a pledge by the world's countries in 2023 to "transition away" from coal, oil and gas. Another factor was an upsurge in wildfires in conditions made hotter and drier by global heating. Wildfire emissions in the Americas reached historic levels in 2024, which was the hottest year yet recorded. However, scientists are concerned about a third factor: the possibility that the planet's carbon sinks are beginning to fail. About half of all CO2 emissions every year are taken back out of the atmosphere by being dissolved in the ocean or being sucked up by growing trees and plants. But the oceans are getting hotter and can therefore absorb less CO2 while on land hotter and drier conditions and more wildfires mean less plant growth...
Atmospheric concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide — the second and third most important greenhouse gases related to human activities — also rose to record levels in 2024. About 40% of methane emissions come from natural sources. But scientists are concerned that global heating is leading to more methane production in wetlands, another potential feedback loop.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader mspohr for sharing the article.
More nuclear energy yet? No? (Score:4, Interesting)
We were on the path to so much reductions in CO2 in the 1970s. The USA was putting one gigawatt of new civil nuclear fission generating capacity on the grid every month for a while in that decade. That would be about 50 years ago today. 50 years, 12 months in a year, 1 GW per month, that would mean 600 more GW on the grid today to replace fossil fuels.
Jimmy Carter pretty much put a stake in the heart of nuclear power with how he reacted to Three Mile Island. He'd seen nuclear reactor cores meltdown before and he knew what happened at TMI was effectively a nonevent. Sure, there was a billion dollar reactor turned to a radioactive mess but nobody died, nobody was at any real risk of harm in the future from it, was anyone even injured? He didn't want to speak out against his party on opposing nuclear energy so he put in place rules that meant a lot of nuclear engineers and technicians lost their jobs. I know people will want to point out that Reagan reversed these rules months later but that was too little too late. Once these people went off to find new jobs, or enjoy an early retirement, there's no easy way to get those people back.
The Democrats tried to kill off the "nuclear navy" too. They were half way successful in that, they put the nuclear powered destroyers on a path to early retirement. The nuclear powered submarines and aircraft carriers were simply too valuable in the Cold War to kill off. We even had an experimental nuclear powered cargo ship. With Russia having recently returned a nuclear powered battle-cruiser to service, building nuclear powered icebreakers, and building floating nuclear power plants, then maybe the USA needs to rethink the idea of a "nuclear navy" to keep up. Australia is getting new nuclear powered submarines. France is building another nuclear powered aircraft carrier. UK, Japan, South Korea, and other nations are thinking of building nuclear powered civil cargo ships. If keeping up with the Russians isn't enough motivation to get back into nuclear powered ships then maybe keeping up with allies will be the motivation we need.
I just watched a video about efforts to reduce CO2 emissions from shipping. Nuclear powered ships were mentioned as an option. Also mentioned as an option was using ammonia as fuel. Where are we going to get this ammonia? As I understand it nearly all ammonia produced today comes from burning natural gas. Why not use nuclear fission instead? If ammonia is used then that's a safety hazard if it leaks as it is a potent irritant. Then is that burning ammonia produces nitrous oxides, a potent greenhouse gas. Is that an improvement over natural gas on global warming even if we have a "green" source of ammonia?
We can't go back in time and reverse the mistakes made in the 1970s and 1980s on nuclear energy. What we can do though is stop repeating those mistakes. It would take a long time to rebuilt the expertise lost when Jimmy Carter scattered the nuclear engineers and technicians in 1979/1980. Once we rebuild that expertise though we can move very quickly on reducing CO2 emissions. 1 GW per month in new nuclear energy capacity was likely seen as a sprint in the 1970s, but today that would be a walk in the park. We can't keep ignoring nuclear energy.
Re: More nuclear energy yet? No? (Score:3)
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The most "hilarious" thing is that we have had energy-positive solar technology since the 1970s, but people were still preaching nuclear power in the 1980s. It's even more "hilarious" that they are still doing it today, when solar power is cheap and easy and batteries are unprecedentedly cheap.
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They want the bomb. And they are knowing they are lying about it. In their minds, might makes right and might is the goal above all others. How else are they going to dictate what everybody is allowed to think?
70s tech not yet ready [Re: More nuclear energ...] (Score:3)
The most "hilarious" thing is that we have had energy-positive solar technology since the 1970s, but
I was in the solar industry in the 1970s. No.
Solar panels were hundreds of dollars a watt back then. They may have been energy-positive, but that was only because solar cells at the time were being made from scrap silicon left over from the semiconductor industry, which was possible because the solar array production volume was so small.
It is hard to overemphasize how effective the ERDA (later DOE) program to advance solar technology was. Pretty much every advance that led to today's 50-cent per watt arrays
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Pretty much every advance that led to today's 50-cent per watt arrays was pioneered in the Large Silicon Solar Array (LSSA, later renamed Flat Plate Solar array) program.
That project wrapped up in 1986, so if I'm wrong, I'm wrong only by one decade out of five. It's been almost four full decades now since that project concluded. How much in tax breaks and other subsidies have gone into fossil fuels since? How much further could we have been ahead in solar deployment if we had started spending that money on it in the 80s, let alone the 70s?
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Nothing gets subsidies like solar energy.
Nobody asked you to lie, yet here you are.
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Re: More nuclear energy yet? No? (Score:2)
Go have a think and youll figure it out.
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Yes, it wasn't. Next?
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Because Israel needs weak neighbors and is willing to bribe US politicians to get it.
Re: More nuclear energy yet? No? (Score:5, Insightful)
The left deliberately conflated nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons. Yes, there was plutonium produced in some civil reactors back in the 50s but there was no reason to still campaign against nuclear power in the 80s like CND did. It was just anti science ignorance masquering as enviromental concerns.
Your statement is partisan pseudo-conservative propaganda. By the way, your reasoning is as wrong as your spelling. You clearly need to think about what you're saying and how you say it. The idea that “the left deliberately conflated nuclear power and nuclear weapons” and that groups like CND were “anti-science” is revisionist nonsense. The connection between civil and military nuclear programs wasn’t invented by activists, it was real and it's well documented.
In the 1950s and ’60s, so-called “civilian” reactors like Britain’s Calder Hall were built to produce both electricity and weapons-grade plutonium. France’s early reactors did the same, and even standard light-water reactors generate plutonium isotopes as a by-product of fission. The overlap between nuclear power and weapons production was technical fact, not political spin. That’s why the IAEA was created—to stop materials from “peaceful” programs being diverted into bombs.
By the 1980s, the case against nuclear power had only grown stronger. Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986) proved that reactor failures could devastate entire regions. Radioactive leaks at Windscale, Sellafield, and Hanford showed that “peaceful atoms” left long-term contamination. And decades later, no country had a working permanent waste repository, a problem that still isn’t fully solved today.
Calling the movement “anti-science” is absurd when many of its leaders were scientists: Amory Lovins, Barry Commoner, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, to name just a few. Their arguments were based on physics, risk assessment, and environmental data, not partisan ideology.
Critics of nuclear power weren’t ignorant. They were right to demand accountability from secretive state-run programs built on military technology, catastrophic potential, and unsolved waste problems. Opposing nuclear power wasn’t anti-science. It was science with ethics.
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Three Mile Island devastated nothing outside the containment building.
I would point out that instead of nuclear power plants the US burned coal instead. Are we really better off? I probably am, I live up north and a warmer climate is fine by me. But I have the impression that is a minority view.
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It was just anti-science ignorance masquerading as environmental concerns.
Just like this article from the Guardian.
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A direct lie. You clearly are dishonest scum. The "left" just called out what was going on.
Want proof? Here is a statement by somebody that knows: "Sans nucléaire civil, pas de nucléaire militaire, sans nucléaire militaire, pas de nucléaire civil". (https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2020/12/21/nucleaire-pour-emmanuel-macron-c-est-la-filiere-militaire-qui-prime_6064052_3232.html)
Yes, it was all along about the bomb, nothing else. That is why risks, cost, bad performance and all the oth
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Much text, but you failed to see the point - that many nuclear proposers tend to also neglect.
Nuclear energy is a "fossil" fuel with limited availability, in basically every sense, one would be that the US have already exhausted approximate 80% percent of their Uranium resources, this in turn means, that the remaining resources are more difficult - thus expensive - to extract.
So if you would want to substitute many of the CO2 emissions from carbon-fossil power plants with nuclear energy, you would already f
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Nuclear energy is a "fossil" fuel
Nuclear is absolutely not fossil in any sense of that word, don't demonstrate your ignorance.
with limited availability
Quite the opposite, the (fast neutron) nuclear fission technology is the only one currently available that gives you the potential option to generate more fuel from the side effects of "burning" your current supply.
Uranium availability [Re:More nuclear energy y...] (Score:2)
Nuclear energy is a "fossil" fuel
Nuclear is absolutely not fossil in any sense of that word, don't demonstrate your ignorance.
Correct. The term burni2 should have used was "non-renewable".
with limited availability
Quite the opposite, the (fast neutron) nuclear fission technology is the only one currently available that gives you the potential option to generate more fuel from the side effects of "burning" your current supply.
With the technologies we use right now, berni2 is correct: we would run out of uranium quickly if we powered the entire world by nuclear power.
To switch to entirely nuclear, in the short term we need fuel reprocessing, and in the longer term either breeder reactors or a switch to a different cycle (thorium is often proposed.)
Solar Power is Nuclear Fission (Score:2)
If you want to make silly intellectual arguments, solar power and fossil fuel are both charged by nuclear fission. Its just a long way away
Lets be clear the real problem with nuclear power is that it always takes longer to build, costs more and is less reliable than planned. As a solution to our IMMEDIATE problem it is just a distraction. Its future use is being used to prop up industries that rely on unlimited sources of power, like AI. The alternative to nuclear isn't solar or wind. Its conservation. Bu
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If you want to make silly intellectual arguments,
I don't.
solar power and fossil fuel are both charged by nuclear fission.
If you want to make silly intellectual arguments, solar and fossil fuel power are charged by nuclear fusion.
Lets be clear the real problem with nuclear power is that it always takes longer to build, costs more
Assertions that gloss over a lot of details. But if your overall point is that today's nuclear power is one of the most expensive sources of electrical power we have, that is correct.
and is less reliable than planned.
Actually, more reliable than other energy sources.
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If we needed to power the world on uranium fission, we could extract uranium from seawater. There is an estimated 4.5bn tonnes of uranium dissolved in seawater - if we extracted 10% of that, that would last 5,000 years at current consumption rates and without breeder reactors.
Breeder reactors can take us to millions of years, by which point, we may well have perfected other forms of energy production, population may have shrunk enough to make completely renewable energy sources more than adequate.
With nucle
Breeder technology [Re:More nuclear energy yet?] (Score:2)
Bla, blubb. You have any actual insights? Because that was just a stinking pile of nonsense. Breeders have FAILED. All of them. The tech is unworkable.
Breeder reactors failed because among the isotopes they breed is plutonium, and back in the '70s and '80s the fear that plutonium would be diverted by terrorists or dictatorships to be made into bombs was more frightening than the fear of global warming (which was still far off into the future.)
The tech is not unworkable; it's been demonstrated to work. However, it may be unwise.
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Bla, bla, bla. You got any arguments besides an utterly dishonest attempt to shift blame?
Not sure why you think that was an attempt to shift blame (from whom to whom?), much less a "dishonest" attempt. And I'm not even sure what part of my post you're objecting to. The statement that breeder reactors work? Or the statement that the argument against them was primarily about proliferation?
If your objection was that they work, I suggest reading the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] for a good summary, including a list of successful and unsuccessful reactors. If your objection was that the case against breeder re
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Funny thing: Nuclear is excessively expensive already and excessively dirty (due to the mining and refining needed). But with more nuclear power, that all goes up as the fuel gets harder to extract and is of lower quality.
The only rational reason to build more nuclear power plants is to maintain a nuclear arsenal, no other reasons. Everything else is a direct lie. Oh, and look, France, for example, thinks it needs a total of 4 reactors for that. The UK thinks it needs two. So not even that reason holds up.
Nuclear power civil ships? (Score:2)
I wouldn't trust a civil shipping company to maintain a nuclear reactor to a sufficient standard for it to be safe, particularly some of the dodgier firms flying a flag of convenience. Also civil ships have an unfortunately habit of sinking quite often so by now there would probably be dozens or even hundreds of decaying reactors with the minimum shielding they could get away with on the ocean floor - an enviromental disaster waiting to happen.
Re: Nuclear power civil ships? (Score:2)
Yeah, because climate change since the 70s are way more environmental friendly.
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Yeah, because climate change since the 70s are way more environmental friendly.
Yes. Oh wait you were being sarcastic? Yeah absolutely climate change since the 70s is way more environmentally friendly than having 110,000 nuclear reactors in the world run by companies who are so infamous at cutting corners to the point of using effectively slave labour, and who lose on average 25-40 ships per year.
Climate change is orders of magnitude better for the environment than that fucking disaster.
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We can make rules on how a nuclear powered ship operates.
Who is going to enforce those rules if the US violates them?
Nope [Re:More nuclear energy yet? No?] (Score:3)
Jimmy Carter pretty much put a stake in the heart of nuclear power with how he reacted to Three Mile Island.
You keep saying that. It is simply not accurate.
The TMI accident happened the last year of Carter's term. The regulatory and legislative response after TMI was done during Reagan's term of office, not Carter's.
I know the right wing wants to say everything good happened during Reagan, everything bad during Carter, but in this particular case it is just not true. Carter did not implement anti-nuclear policies in nine months. You are trying to put today's political stances into 1979, and it's not what happen
Ronald Reagan killed nuclear power [Re:Nope [...]] (Score:2)
Here's what Ronald Reagan had to say on nuclear energy only months into his first term as POTUS: https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/... [reaganlibrary.gov]
Reagan said a lot of things. What did he do ?
Does that sound like someone trying to kill the civil nuclear energy industry? Doesn't that appear like someone concerned about electricity production and wanting to see new nuclear power plants built to solve it?
He wasn't trying to kill the civil nuclear energy industry. Nevertheless he did. His administration approved zero new nuclear power plants (nor did the Bush administration that followed). His "wanting to see new nuclear power plants" apparently wasn't strong enough to actually do anything.
There's no doubt that the civil nuclear power industry was brought to a crawl while Reagan was in the White House.
Not "slowed to a crawl." Brought to a stop.
...
The rest of your post is simply you thinking that the party positions from the late 80s must had been the positions back in 1979
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We were on the path to so much reductions in CO2 in the 1970s.
Horseshit, you were on the path to very few reductions. Back in the 1970s the power grid produced even less of the proportion of CO2 emissions than it does today, (around 30%, and back then less than 25%). The emissions were going up even if you did get your fantasy all nuclear power grid (which would have been quite the disaster since nuclear power can't provide peaking loads).
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Because auto's produced more. You are displaying a basic ignorance of statistical percentages.
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I see the nuclear cretins are out in force. Again. Apparently, learning from experience and seeing reality is not in their skill set.
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Nuclear power isn't the answer since it obviously just adds to the net heat produced on the planet. Think about it, more energy, more heat, more global warming.
It turns out that waste heat from energy production is a small effect compared to the greenhouse effect from carbon dioxide.
Basically, carbon dioxide inserted into the atmosphere continues to heat the planet for the atmospheric lifetime of the CO2, estimated as centuries under present conditions. Waste heat, on the other hand, heats the atmosphere only for the thermal time constant of the atmosphere, which is a few days for waste heat in the atmosphere, and on the order of a year or so for waste heat relea
One small piece of good news... (Score:2)
... is that methane only has a half life of about 10 years in the atmosphere. Unfortunately N20 is about 100 years, not that the spaced out morons around my area getting high from catering canisters of the stuff give a damn.
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methane only has a half life of about 10 years in the atmosphere
What do you think it breaks down into?
Yes, global carbon sinks are maxing out. (Score:2)
The most prominent example being the Amazonian rainforest, once heralded as the "earths lung", now has turned into a net zero factor in recent years. The area is getting so hot that some native tribes are already bugging out.
We are screwed. How hard is up to us.
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Gee, who could have foreseen wholesale cutting down forests in the Amazon or Borneo or anywhere else could have a negative effect on the absorption of CO2? I mean, it's not as if this subject hasn't been studied for decades, or that cities, which lack trees or greenery and instead are oasis' of blacktop and concrete, are at least ten degrees hotter than communities further out.
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Rainforests are generally naturally near net zero. They don't produce oxygen because the rate of decomposition is rapid enough and the environment is wet enough that most decomposition is anaerobic, which means most of the carbon is released into the atmosphere. Their "purpose" is global cooling and filtering, they are evaporative coolers as they emit a lot of water vapor in the process of photosynthesis. Most oxygen comes from oceanic algae. Speaking of which, have you been keeping an eye on oceanic acidif
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We are screwed. How hard is up to us.
Indeed. From observable facts, it seems most want to get screwed for at least a decade longer, better two. Then we are going into gigadeath territory and possible extinction 50 years or so later.
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Indeed. From observable facts, it seems most want to get screwed for at least a decade longer, better two. Then we are going into gigadeath territory and possible extinction 50 years or so later.
No. Read some actual science. Yes, global warming is real, yes, the associated climate change will have bad effects, but no realistic projections suggest "gigadeath territory and possible extinction" in 50 years.
I recommend the IPCC [www.ipcc.ch] reports for a good summary of real science.
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I read actual science. And I am an actual scientist myself. Incidentally, I never predicted "gigadeath in 50 years". You seem to be math or language challenged, I am not.
The other problem is that what you thing are "realistic" predictions are anything but.
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I read actual science. And I am an actual scientist myself. Incidentally, I never predicted "gigadeath in 50 years".
your actual words:
Then we are going into gigadeath territory and possible extinction 50 years or so later.
You seem to be math or language challenged, I am not. The other problem is that what you thing are "realistic" predictions are anything but.
ROFL! You are predicting "gigadeath and possible extinction" and you think my predictions (sourced to the IPCC [www.ipcc.ch]) are "anything but realistic"?
Sure. Cite me a source to what you call "realistic" predictions.
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I read actual science. And I am an actual scientist myself. Incidentally, I never predicted "gigadeath in 50 years".
your actual words:
Then we are going into gigadeath territory and possible extinction 50 years or so later.
Yes. Read the whole thing again.
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I never predicted "gigadeath in 50 years".
your actual words:
Then we are going into gigadeath territory and possible extinction 50 years or so later.
Yes. Read the whole thing again.
I did. Yep, "gigadeath" was you, all right.
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And failed at basic reading comprehension again. If you read "actual science" like that, it is no surprise you are clueless.
Unfortunately that's something nobody could ha e f (Score:2)
Are carbon sinks failing? (Score:2)
No, China is under reporting the amount of its emissions.
If it were to report correctly, the emission level would be higher and the sink level staying the same, but the result would be rising ppm.
They do not believe in any climate crisis. But they do believe there is a public relations problem and they are managing it, and very effectively too.
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Eyes on your own paper. Its illegal to report numbers at all in Florida.
Re: Are carbon sinks failing? (Score:2)
The reports can be checked reasonably accurately, apparently, so you don't need to rely on what they say...
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participate in a global carbon price on traded goods.
Participate? Call it what it is - enabling rent seeding by private interests on all energy, shipping, and food costs. That is, you are asking everyone, including starving poor in third-world countries, to pay more for food so some connected technocrat can siphon money out of the system using some green-wash scheme.
I will believe that you care ... (Score:3)
... when we start building nuclear plants.
Until then, please hyperventilate somewhere else.
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My favorite is I will believe that you care when commercial air travel is banned. 2% of global emissions gone overnight. 12% of transportation related emissions gone. Until a hundred years ago air travel didn't exist, it's a luxury we can't afford if CO2 emissions really are a threat.
But the urban elite don't like that idea.
You can scrap the cruise ships too. I won't mind. If you want to go to Hawaii take a sailboat.
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My favorite is I will believe that you care when commercial air travel is banned.
We can't even make Bill Gates stop flying around in a private jet. The problem of climate change denial is not claiming it doesn't exist, its believing we can stop it without any immediate changes painful to anyone... except coal miners.
the carbon cycle (Score:3)
Everyone who thinks we can plant trees to get out of this needs to go back to repeat a 2nd grade science class. The only way to take carbon out with trees is to bury them, but simply burying them isn't enough because 60 million years ago bacteria evolved to eat wood. That carbon is never going to turn back into coal or oil.
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The only way to take carbon out with trees is to bury them
Or build houses. The problem is not a million years from now, its today.
uhm it's 2025 (Score:2)
Please get with it.
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Military is made of people. They also burn coal, diesel, gas, kerosene. They eat, they need transportation even more than anyone else. If they cared they woild stop themselves first. Look at the wars, look at all of the world militaries. How much CO2 and varoous poisons is produced by them in proportion to the rest of the population? What do wars cost us in terms of CO2 and poisons and all other ways, that military destroys the environment? Will people of this planet stop fighting and disban all milit
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It is not a simple issue. Militaries of the world, even the US military in particular, are very aware of how global warming lead to unrest and instability in the world. For example, rising food prices is what had triggered the "Arab Spring" in 2010 onwards, which had led to several wars.
Militaries have sometimes dissuaded politicians from building nuclear power plants from which radioactive material would be spread over a wide area if they ever got bombed.
Military have also sometimes protested against build
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So can an EV with V2X parked out front.
There's always wind somewhere. You just need a transmission line to it.
Transcontinental power? [Re:Every military tha...] (Score:2)
There's always wind somewhere. You just need a transmission line to it.
High-voltage transmission lines over thousands of miles are not cheap. You're going to significantly increase the cost of power if you do that to levelize supply.
...however, the right-of-way of transmission lines (minimum 100 foot width, but 150 foot for high voltage) could be used as a place to put solar panels...
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Right, the economist refer to this as "externality". Fossil fuels aren't cheap, if you factor in the costs that people using them transfer to third parties. Theoretically, if the true cost of using fossil fuels were factored into every pound of coal or gallon of gasoline consumed, then we would use *exactly the right amount* of fossil fuels. Probably not zero, but not as much as we do when we pretend pollution isn't a cost.
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I think you missed the second part of my point. The sledgehammer is MONEY. If you accurately assess the cost of carbon remediation and price that in as a tax on dirty energy, you've immediately halted the crisis. On the other hand, if you try to "centrally plan" your way out of this, the likely result is that you'll stop some of the emissions with no remediation to balance the rest of them.
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I don't think you could price it high enough, except by pricing it so high you would effectively cause our solutions to converge. Whether you ration gasoline or you price it beyond the affordablility of the masses, you're doing the same thing.
Perhaps we agree by effect, if not verbiage.
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Honestly, we should have started in the 1870s when scientists first started warning about this, after the invention of spectroscopy codified exactly how CO2 raised temperatures (absorbs IR). We've had 150 years of warning, and we STILL have shady organizations running around whispering into politic
What's the root cause? (Score:2)
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Actually, yes, Growth, at least, is bad for the environment. The environmental cost has always marched alongside economic growth. Pollution, for instance, isn't a side effect of growth. II's a facilitator. The path to environmental balance is massive recession. You don't have to go back to candles and horses, but you probably have to give up 500 watt video cards whose only contribution to society is pretty graphics.
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And you offloaded that price of growth to those other countries. The fact that you changed its geography doesn't make it go away. It's still your cost.
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Sure, but that doesn't address the question.
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Jobs and growth are bad for the environment?
Yes. Why do you even need to ask something this blatantly obvious?
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Jobs and growth are bad for the environment?
Yes. Why do you even need to ask something this blatantly obvious?
Jobs are not inherently bad for the environment. Making beds doesn't cause global warming. Neither does planting trees.
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Are you stupid? The question was about jobs and growth, not about technological progress. The two are not connected or rather more people generally means less wealth and access to modern tech because resources are limited. Looking at the rest of your drives, yes, you clearly are stupid.
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Actually they don't. Because the people you are talking about don't have access to fossil fuels either because of cost or supply. Realistically, they are at least as much a pipe dream as solar panels. In fact, in most of those places energy from the sun is cheap and readily available compared to fossil fuels. So harnessing that energy will have far less environmental impact than trying to deliver fossil fuels.
Why not try taking cyanide then? (Score:2)
The average deadly dosage is about 1.5E-3 (3.3E-6 lbs.) gramms per kilogram (2.2 lbs. ) body weight:
1.5E-3 grams is 1.5E-6 in kilograms or 0.000,001,5 kg
or JUST (yes fun with "relatives") 1.5 ppm of body mass,
which is very much less than 0,04 % because 0,04 % is 400 ppm
So when it woulnd't matter why not try taking some 400 ppm cyanide?
Give me your weight and I will happily calculate the "deadly sure" dossage for you,
But I still hope, aside from your statement that you can achieve that by yourself, .. .. or
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Cyanide begins to be "potentially harmful" at a level of 500 ppm, or 0.05%. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/b... [nih.gov]:
CO2 begins to have harmful health effects at 40,000 ppm, or 4%. https://www.co2meter.com/blogs... [co2meter.com]:
So first of all, CO2 is far less toxic than cyanide, while your comparison implies that the CO2 is just as toxic as cyanide. It's not, cyanide is at least 80 times more toxic than cyanide.
Second, the level of cyanide you propose, 0.04%, is actually not generally problematic.
Toxicity is all about concent
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Exactly, it's about 50% more than it was when humans evolved and adapted to the climate.
Global median earth temperature can quite easily be calculated by CO2 in the athmosphere:
0,03% CO (300 ppm): 13.40 C
0,04% CO (400 ppm): 14.64 C
0,05% CO (500 ppm): 15.61 C
The effect is tremendous, without CO2, as in level 0,000%, global median temperature on earth would be 11.3 C.
So maybe you can see now that 0,03% make quite a difference, and so does every 0,01% more.
The effects of 2 degree might still seem neglectibl
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Yes. And that is massively too high. I get you are too dumb to see that and just see "small number, must be meaningless". That is not how reality works, unfortunately.
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I have a bottle of water for you. It's only got 0.04% ricin in it. It's a small number, so it's fine.
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Ricin is far more toxic at lower concentrations than CO2, so the 1:1 comparison isn't valid.
CO2 becomes toxic at levels about 40,000 ppm, or 4%. https://www.co2meter.com/blogs... [co2meter.com]:
This doesn't mean the level of CO2 in the air isn't problematic, it just isn't toxic.
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Ricin is far more toxic at lower concentrations than CO2, so the 1:1 comparison isn't valid.
But the issue isn't the toxicity of carbon dioxide.
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I replied to this:
I have a bottle of water for you. It's only got 0.04% ricin in it. It's a small number, so it's fine.
That surely *seems* to be talking about toxicity. Otherwise, why bring ricin into the conversation?
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And my post was pointing out that sometimes a small fraction of a percentage is *not* important. It entirely depends on what the substance is, and what its effect is.
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Many claim causation (i.e., it is warmer because of CO2), but I am not convinced by such single-cause explanation.
You and many other anti-Science idiots. You lack of "belief" (you could just look up the facts, you know), just demonstrates a fundamental defect in you.
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The most famous atmospheric scientist in the world (Score:2)
No, it demonstrates failure of how we practice science in some areas, where on some topics dissent from consensus is career-ending.
To the contrary. A scientist who could come up with a model by which carbon dioxide does not cause a greenhouse effect that will heat the atmosphere, and have that model not be ruled out by data, would instantly become the most famous atmospheric scientist in the world. This is how scientists win the game: by showing existing theory is wrong.
But, a lot of people have looked for that theory, and so far nobody has come close to finding one. And that is how science progresses: a theory gets accepted when many
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A scientist who could come up with a model by which carbon dioxide does not cause a greenhouse effect that will heat the atmosphere, and have that model not be ruled out by data, would instantly become the most famous atmospheric scientist in the world.
This is how science should work. In reality, a scientist like that would lose tenure track, grants, and would not this model published because peer review would not let it through.
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My understanding is that temperature-CO2 levels are related, the warmer average temperature, more CO2 gas will be present in the atmosphere. Many claim causation (i.e., it is warmer because of CO2), but I am not convinced by such single-cause explanation.
You may not be convinced, but the effect of carbon dioxide on radiative heat transfer in the atmosphere is well-understood physics and supported by high precision spectroscopic measurements of the infrared profiles. Nobody who understands the basic science has come up with any possible mechanism by which it would not warm the climate. The only remaining question is the detailed calculation of how much it heats the planet, and if you read the actual science, not just the popular science in the media, you wil
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That is my quick summary of how to tell real science from popularizations (that are often misleading): real science has error bars.
And is not understandable by people who aren't trained in the science. So, in fact, what people rely on is authority, not science. If you mistrust the authority, then you are going to mistrust the "science" it claims to describe. Since most people only have access to popular media descriptions, they are wise to mistrust its authority.
On the other hand, we live in the real world where we need to make decisions based on uncertain information. Is it possible that reports on climate change are wrong or exagger
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So, in fact, what people rely on is authority, not science. If you mistrust the authority, then you are going to mistrust the "science" it claims to describe.
Very insightful. The authority keeps repeatedly getting it wrong, from amyloid plaques, to string theory, to mRNA jabs. More so, the long march through institutions by neo-Marxist made a mockery of scientific authority, when they tell you a man can become a woman, then you start wondering what else they tell you is ideological propaganda and not based on the actual science.
Open a warm beer ? (Score:2)
Ever open a warm beer? What happens? CO2 foams out which it does not from cold beer.
CO2 solubility in [rain] water is strongly temperature-influenced (alkalinity of oceans lock it down). The 400mm of annual average rainfall falls through 3mm (as solid) CO2 inventory and does most of the scrubbing.
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Re:Science is irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
Those dastardly libs at it again. Somehow too weak to do anything in congress, yet so strong they control every facet of your life. Its pretty amazing how they can accomplish so much while accomplishing so little.
Re:Science is irrelevant (Score:4, Interesting)
The enemy is weak, but also strong.
Life is eternal warfare, but also, peace will come soon.
Nothing is more important than the bold freedom of the individual, but also, we must submit ourselves entirely to the needs of the state.
The government is a tool that prolongs the weak who are unfit to live, but also its whole force must be used in aid of the true citizens, who have been betrayed.
the enemy is greedy and scheming, but also, all’s fair in war and nobody owes anyone anything.
We must follow the will of the people, but also the people are foolish and need a strong dictator to stand over them.
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Re:Science is irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
The republicans control all three branches of government and you’re telling me the libs are behind it?
Re: Science is irrelevant (Score:4, Informative)
I think if you look at his wider point, it's not stupid at all. Currently, as has happened before, Republicans run all three branches. Republicans have run SCOTUS for as long as I remember, but the majority wasn't high enough to pull off the extremism that the current bunch are involved in. Republicans have had the Presidency for most of the last 24 years. The Senate and House have flipped a lot, but in both cases Republicans have had majorities most of the last 24 years.
And when libs HAVE had majorities good enough to pass legislation, which, from memory, was two years at the beginning of the Obama administration, they spent their time performing the evil, evil, agenda of *checks notes* trying to get everyone to have healthcare coverage. Which they did badly, that's fair, but they were, also be fair, trying to get the Republicans on board by passing the Republicans own health plan, which gives you some idea of how far the overton window has shifted to the right.
Yet somehow those dastardly libs are responsible for everything that goes wrong and are somehow promoting global warming to... make money? Meanwhile Trump is openly taking bribes for everything and his staff running companies profiting from his own policies without anyone making these claims about dastardly libs being unhappy about it.
But that's the Republican way. Do things, and pretend the opposition is the one doing them. See also: Pedophilia.
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Only thing that matters is libs have found a way to profit from it, and control every facet of your life.
Maybe they are trying to just breath, unfortunately they will also keep you alive. Both sides are guilty of confrontation over cooperation, I don't like wokeness but its better than the shit were using right now. The pronoun crowd are nice enough but a little weird, you guys are fucking nuts.
I have bad news, in the end its not the libs that will steal your money and or wreck your home.
Funny word "profit", Corp USA only protects million dollar golf club members in the current GOP administration. The an
Re:Coals was cooling our planet (Score:4, Informative)
Basically, the sulfate aerosols had a cooling effect proportional to the amount of coal burned. The greenhouse effect had a warming effect proportional to the cumulative amount of carbon dioxide emitted. In the long term, the integral (of a positive function) will always overwhelm the value of the function.
tl;dr: coal was cooling the planet slightly, but not enough.