Slashdot Mirror
Carbon Pollution Touched 800,000 Year Record in 2016, WMO Says (bloomberg.com)
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.
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.
That "El Nino" needs to be taxed so this doesn't happen again.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
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?
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.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Climate Change is a Threat...
But apparently not enough of a threat to convince the anti-nukes to abandon their irrational fears.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The runaway effect needs something like 3000ppm of CO2. This is not going to happen. What you need to fear is the sea level rise, desertification, extreme weather and your neighbors who will gladly kill you once they have nothing to eat.
Care to present a scientific article which pretended earth would end up like venus in a run away effect ? There is quite a few fear that there is a potential run effect with methane clathrate and a few fear about permafrost earth melting dumping a lot of carbon in the atmosphere, but none are about a venus end effect, all are more about going back to pre-cambrian or similar climate, which would be hell for all our coast , agricultural area, and various very negative effect on the food supply of a majority of the earth population, not counting that this would be so quick many species would not be able to adapt. Some *dumb* lay people may have told that, end effect venus, but then it is your fault to believe lay source rather than hard science.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
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.
"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...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
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...
and the actual bulletin:
https://ane4bf-datap1.s3-eu-we...
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.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
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?
2C makes a huge difference in the timing of spring & fall weather, in the elevations at which certain plants can live (and they can't simply move) and in the ability of pests to survive in different locations.
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.
Lucky then that climate change causes increased evaporation and probably overall increased precipitation.
And, again, good thing that climate change is here to help.
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.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
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]. 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].
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.