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CO2 Levels Likely To Stay Above 400PPM For The Rest of Our Lives, Study Shows (inhabitat.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A new study from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere are likely to remain above 400 parts per million (ppm) for many years. Specifically, scientists forecasted that levels would not dip below 400pm in "our lifetimes." The CO2 concentrations of "about 450ppm or lower are likely to maintain warming below 2 degrees Celsius over the 21st century relative to pre-industrial levels." However, lead author on the paper Richard Betts said we could pass that number in 20 years or less. In an article on The Guardian, he said even if we reduce emissions immediately, we might be able to delay reaching 450ppm but "it is still looking like a challenge to stay below 450ppm." El Nino has played a significant role in climbing carbon dioxide levels, but it's likely we'll see higher CO2 levels than the last large El Nino storm during 1997 and 1998 because "manmade emissions" have risen by 25 percent since that storm, according to The Guardian. Met Office experts predicted in November 2015 that in May 2016 "mean concentrations of atmospheric CO2" would hit 407.57ppm -- the actual figure was 407.7ppm. The NOAA reported during 2015 that the "annual growth rate" of CO2 in the atmosphere rose by 3.05ppm. NOAA lead scientist Pieter Tans said, "Carbon dioxide levels are increasing faster than they have in hundreds of thousands of years. It's explosive compared to the natural processes."
The discussion here actually is quite good. And discussion of politics is not off topic. Climate change is, like it or not, as much of a political issue as it is one of science. The only way to combat climate change is through political means, and hence we must always consider climate change within the greater political context within which it exists.
What I think is most harmful to the discussion here is the awful moderation that we're seeing. I see numerous reasonable comments at -1, while for some reason all of the comments from "riverat1" ended up modded quite highly very quickly, although they're among the least valuable comments posted so far.
I suspect that there may be moderation abuse going on here. At the very least, all of the moderations applied to the comments for "riverat1" should be removed, and the moderators banned from moderating in the future. Even if there wasn't any intentional abuse, something is very fishy about this situation. Resetting the moderations of those comments is the only reasonable thing to do, to prove that there isn't abuse going on.
Slashdot should also consider removing moderation completely for submissions about contentious issues like this. Since moderation is just abused in discussions like this one, then it should be removed completely. Nobody should be able to benefit from abusive moderation, and nobody should be harmed by it. Everybody's comments should be at 1, and visible by default. That's the only way to have reasonable discussion: when nobody can commit persecution, and thus nobody should fear becoming a victim of persecution.