CO2 400ppm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/10/atmospheric-co2-concentrations_n_3253757.html

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/history.html

That has come a bit earlier than expected. Few people were actually aware of it though. High levels of co2 will hit home for many as there general mood deteriorates due to poor air quality. Hopefully not for some years yet though.

Biggest killer in the UK, Smoking.
Second biggest, Air Quality.

Forget about getting too fat, it won't kill you half as fast as poor air quality will. Your just warned about it as treatment costs can be avoided. Except where eating yourself to death don't cost the government so much. In such countries it is good that slobs eat themselfs to death at an early age.

I'm pondering on a fresh air intake for my home. A carbon and hepa filter perhaps, to keep the place under positive pressure with clean air. It is the best protection my health could ask for, but global carbon prices are very high, even for coir based stuff. Not everyone could do it, Or we would simply run out.

friendly1uk said:

That has come a bit earlier than expected. Few people were actually aware of it though. High levels of co2 will hit home for many as there general mood deteriorates due to poor air quality. Hopefully not for some years yet though.

Biggest killer in the UK, Smoking.
Second biggest, Air Quality.

Forget about getting too fat, it won't kill you half as fast as poor air quality will. Your just warned about it as treatment costs can be avoided. Except where eating yourself to death don't cost the government so much. In such countries it is good that slobs eat themselfs to death at an early age.

I'm pondering on a fresh air intake for my home. A carbon and hepa filter perhaps, to keep the place under positive pressure with clean air. It is the best protection my health could ask for, but global carbon prices are very high, even for coir based stuff. Not everyone could do it, Or we would simply run out.

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You realize CO2 isn't detectable by humans unless in very high concentrations and it can't be filtered with an air filter?

There is no turning back. Being depressed about it is a waste of your life. We are in the middle of a heat peak of a cycle that occurs every 100,000-150,000 years - though this heat peak is particularly nasty, but not historically unprecedented. Despite climates changing - despite pollution - ocean acidification - etc; this is actually the most fertile and liveable part of that cycle - we are at peak 'living stuff', so enjoy the time you have on this planet while you have it



We have hit 400ppm before, millions of years ago. A lot of creatures went extinct, but the smart ones moved north.

http://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/what-does-400-ppm-look-like/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliocene#Mammals

It's not the end of the world, but it will present challenges, and tens of thousands of years of suffering and death. Luckily for you, you won't be around to experience peak oil and peak population.

Enjoy your time here.

get a netatmo and you can measure CO2 in your home

There's a different opinion among the most informed scientists (I consider myself one). Its why I'm on this forum, so that I could ditch my car and become carbon-neutral (or net-zero). We are decidedly freaked out, as our current situation warrants great alarm, and there's no indication that business-as-usual will change in time to put a brake on this train. Currently THERE IS NO CHANCE for a 2-degree warmed world. Why is that important? Its because the IPCCC, where the world-wide science consensus is formed, said that is the maximum temperature rise we should tolerate if we wanted to live on a world anything like the one the human species evolved in, and is therefore adapted to. We're heading towards a 3 or 4-degree warmed world. At 4-degrees, we've got a dead planet.

And that's the point. Not warming per-se, but life on earth, our biological inheritance, on which human life depends. We're in the anthropocene extinction event and climate change accelerates this.

fizzit said:

friendly1uk said:

That has come a bit earlier than expected. Few people were actually aware of it though. High levels of co2 will hit home for many as there general mood deteriorates due to poor air quality. Hopefully not for some years yet though.

Biggest killer in the UK, Smoking.
Second biggest, Air Quality.

Forget about getting too fat, it won't kill you half as fast as poor air quality will. Your just warned about it as treatment costs can be avoided. Except where eating yourself to death don't cost the government so much. In such countries it is good that slobs eat themselfs to death at an early age.

I'm pondering on a fresh air intake for my home. A carbon and hepa filter perhaps, to keep the place under positive pressure with clean air. It is the best protection my health could ask for, but global carbon prices are very high, even for coir based stuff. Not everyone could do it, Or we would simply run out.

Click to expand...

You realize CO2 isn't detectable by humans unless in very high concentrations and it can't be filtered with an air filter?

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I wouldn't call 750ppm very high. Although that is very intolerant. However over 1000 makes many people feel ill. At the rate levels are rising it look like an eventuality, although now I think about it, plenty of other things will kill us first. Still, as levels rise outdoors, they also rise indoors, where stuffy environments are more common.

No, you can't filter co2 out the air. If only.

How does 4 extra degrees kill the planet?
This planet varies from -128F to 134f. The core is something like 10,000F. Outer space is negative hundreds of degrees.
If you believe in the big bang theory, you know that the amazing world we live in came out of a large explosion. And we know that the early earth was highly volcanic.

Can you explain to me how this planet could be dead from just 4 degrees, knowing that?

You talk about extinctions, but you don't mention the fact that we are continually discovering new species. Yes, it's true that there is a limit to how much 'living stuff' can be on this planet at one time, and we are becoming more and more predominant.. but that's happened before, has it not? wasn't this planet mostly inhabited by Dinosaurs, who crowded out all the other species as well, but they had a couple hundred million year long run?

The earth has gone through so many extreme cycles in it's lifespan that cannot even be counted or measured with our instruments. It has had extreme heat peaks, to the point where any water that would have remained frozen for over around 400,000? years cannot be found to be measured or tested. It has had such harsh ice ages that it ended a >100 million year run of life for the majority of the life on it.



Big mama is stronger than you think. Maybe we are meant to be a blip on the radar, a very small chapter in the book of planetary history written by a more advanced race.

But i believe we will run out of fossil fuels and other carbon intensive energy sources before we could ever hit the red line. Look at how much of it we have burned up and blown into the atmosphere, and we are only up something like 0.75F.

Say we have enough fossil fuel to raise the temperature up 4 degrees. Do you think 7 billion ( or 10, 20, 50 billion, by that time ) greedy mammals could be convinced to stop living a life made easy by those fossil fuels?

I can't even convince my liberal friends who complain about climate change to stop driving their SUVs.

neptronix said:

How does 4 extra degrees kill the planet?
This planet varies from -128F to 134f. The core is something like 10,000F. Outer space is negative hundreds of degrees.
If you believe in the big bang theory, you know that the amazing world we live in came out of a large explosion. And we know that the early earth was highly volcanic.

Can you explain to me how this planet could be dead from just 4 degrees, knowing that?

You talk about extinctions, but you don't mention the fact that we are continually discovering new species. Yes, it's true that there is a limit to how much 'living stuff' can be on this planet at one time, and we are becoming more and more predominant.. but that's happened before, has it not? wasn't this planet mostly inhabited by Dinosaurs, who crowded out all the other species as well, but they had a couple hundred million year long run?

The earth has gone through so many extreme cycles in it's lifespan that cannot even be counted or measured with our instruments. It has had extreme heat peaks, to the point where any water that would have remained frozen for over around 400,000? years cannot be found to be measured or tested. It has had such harsh ice ages that it ended a >100 million year run of life for the majority of the life on it.

Big mama is stronger than you think. Maybe we are meant to be a blip on the radar, a very small chapter in the book of planetary history written by a more advanced race.

But i believe we will run out of fossil fuels and other carbon intensive energy sources before we could ever hit the red line. Look at how much of it we have burned up and blown into the atmosphere, and we are only up something like 0.75F.

Say we have enough fossil fuel to raise the temperature up 4 degrees. Do you think 7 billion ( or 10, 20, 50 billion, by that time ) greedy mammals could be convinced to stop living a life made easy by those fossil fuels?

I can't even convince my liberal friends who complain about climate change to stop driving their SUVs.

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In the total history of the world, of course it has been in many different states throughout the past. Once upon a time it was a bunch of dust floating through space. But we are very lucky to be alive because there's a very tight envelope of conditions that humans can survive in, and we are steadily pushing the world past that envelope. Sure, other species can survive in way different climates. And some people live in Alaska and some people live in Death Valley. But they only do that because they're supported by food and resources created in other climates that are all dependent on the world climate remaining stable.
And as I've explained before, it is not a linear relationship between the carbon that we emit, and how much the earth warms. It's not "today's carbon times four equals four times the warming." We are approaching a point where global warming can't be stopped by anyone. There are huge methane and carbon reserves in arctic ice and the ocean that will be released by just a little more warming, as the Lake Vostok data shows.

Oh no! ..not the climate change debate again ! :x

Hillhater said:

Oh no! ..not the climate change debate again ! :x

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http://www.deceptology.com/2010/10/why-daddy-should-never-lie-about.html

http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Founder-of-Greenpeace-Worries-that-Modern-Environmentalists-are-too-Extreme.html

Anyone think there is a correlation between the use of oil dispersant and co2 levels?

I've read that the ocean is responsible for 70% of the Earths oxygen production. Much of that is via plankton. Plankton don't do so well http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Dispersants-Make-Oil-Spills-52-Times-more-Toxic.html with oil+oil dispersant. Less plankton means less co2 consumption (and less oxygen).

Look, I really can't help it if you want to be a fracking idiot about this stuff. I'm old enough to know that I can not convince anyone of anything (believe me when I say I've tried). People will educate themselves or not on pretty much everything they consider they know. What I mostly got out of the educational system was how to learn - the basics of reading, riting, rithmatic and repetition - the 4R's. I'd add respect for those who deserve it. And I believe that the scientific community deserves that. So I only point to the central repository of fully vetted research and reports on the subject:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml#1
If you want to be a fracking idiot, its certainly your prerogative to be so. I don't know why, given the vast web based resources available. The right wing media machine has made a complete hash of this, so that every man's "opinion" matters, as mere belief can make a difference. All I can say is bother to care enough to get the real facts, the ones the international body of scientists have gathered, vetted and placed into well written and accessible reports. In other words, be scientific about it rather than slum around with all the low level shit on the subject. And yes, by all means, more debate, from me at least. I can only hope climate reality and science based facts can make some difference for some that they'll do what's necessary to make a positive contribution, like reduce their appetite for fossil-fuels.

With a 4-degree warmed world (that's planetary average, accounting for the total recorded temperature variation), we're on a completely different planet than the one we evolved in. At that level, the surface of the planet is all desert. Sure there will be pockets of humanity trying to persist, doing their best to capture water and grow food in a hydrologically contained greenhouses, but we'll be down to less than a million. And forget all the non-humans, the charismatic species we love - their habitat is gone!

Gone for Good said:

The three blue spheres represent relative amounts of Earth’s water in comparison to the size of the Earth:
The largest sphere includes all the water in the oceans, ice caps, lakes, and rivers, as well as groundwater and atmospheric water.
The medium blue sphere (over Kentucky) represents the world’s liquid fresh water (groundwater, lakes, swamp water, and rivers) of which 99 percent is groundwater.
Highlighted with the arrow, the smallest sphere bubble represents fresh water in all the lakes and rivers on the planet, and most of the water people and life of earth need every day comes from these surface-water sources.
Credit: Howard Perlman, USGS; globe illustration by Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (©); Adam Nieman. Data source: Igor Shiklomanov’s chapter “World fresh water resources” in Peter H. Gleick (editor), 1993, Water in Crisis: A Guide to the World’s Fresh Water Resources (Oxford University Press, New York).http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/2010/gallery/global-water-volume.html

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[youtube]vA7tfz3k_9A[/youtube]

Watching the graph, it seems the annual rise hovers around 20ppm, and seems to increase closer to 25ppm. That would put the range higher by 170ppm by 2020, in seven years? Does this trend mean that in an additional 21 years, by 2041 this level could have risen to 1093ppm? And by 2062, it would be around 1643ppm, world wide? It seems probable, can anyone verify this estimate?

HAROX said:

Watching the graph, it seems the annual rise hovers around 20ppm, and seems to increase closer to 25ppm. That would put the range higher by 170ppm by 2020, in seven years? Does this trend mean that in an additional 21 years, by 2041 this level could have risen to 1093ppm? And by 2062, it would be around 1643ppm, world wide? It seems probable, can anyone verify this estimate?

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At 550ppm, it won't matter because the human species will be in serious decline and we will have lost our capability to measure. What I find remarkable is the end-graph that shows the ice core record and that through-out the measurable time frame, CO2 levels did not exceed 280ppm, the starting point for the industrial era. The spread was 185 to 278ppm, about 100ppm. Hence we were in extremes at 378ppm and the 350ppm mandate was liberal, in consideration. At 400ppm, humanity, if sane, would simply STOP with the emissions. I don't credit our collective system of governance capable and am pretty sure that business-as-usual will continue to place us into the IPCC most extreme scenario, meaning we are doomed.

fizzit said:

friendly1uk said:

I'm pondering on a fresh air intake for my home. A carbon and hepa filter perhaps, to keep the place under positive pressure with clean air. It is the best protection my health could ask for, but global carbon prices are very high, even for coir based stuff. Not everyone could do it, Or we would simply run out.

Click to expand...

You realize CO2 isn't detectable by humans unless in very high concentrations and it can't be filtered with an air filter?

Click to expand...

I think he's correlating anthropogenic CO2 emissions with other emissions of industrial combustion processes: soot, unburned hydrocarbons, heavy metals, etc. It is true that more of one comes along with more of the other, though that's not the case with CO2 and methane releases due to organic decay, thawing, etc.

it doesn't help to argue with the rednecks over global warming. they will always be ignorant no matter how hard you try to make them understand. it is just part of their culture to be that way. ever wonder why they never became scientists or do anything but praise the lord and buy more guns?

the problem is not that humans will not survive as global warming pushes the global climate systems to more extreme behavior.

most of the world's population lives very close to sea level and as the sea level rises over the next century then billions of people and most of the major metropolitan areas on the coasts and seaways inland will be flooded. commerce as we know it will not be possible. the entire global infrastructure will have to be displaced to higher ground which means rebuilding the entire world's major cities in a different location but without the access to cheap and abundant supplies of oil and natural gas which will be mostly consumed by then and access to it will be heavily restricted by the ruling classes.

dnmun said:

most of the world's population lives very close to sea level and as the sea level rises over the next century then billions of people and most of the major metropolitan areas on the coasts and seaways inland will be flooded. commerce as we know it will not be possible. the entire global infrastructure will have to be displaced to higher ground which means rebuilding the entire world's major cities in a different location but without the access to cheap and abundant supplies of oil and natural gas which will be mostly consumed by then and access to it will be heavily restricted by the ruling classes.

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I doubt sea levels will rise faster than people's ability to cope. It will just become a nuisance and economic drain in coastal areas, as things have to be rebuilt and relocated more often than in the past. Let's face it; folks will be migrating around anyway to wherever the economic action is. Old coastal cities may become the next Rust Belt as their upkeep costs approach and exceed their productive value.

I think the real threat of manmade global warming comes in the form of desertification and extreme weather events making it harder and harder to feed the world's growing population. In this regard, the rednecks' retarded offspring are at least as big a problem as their energy gluttony and climate change denialism. Having children these days is in my opinion irresponsible; having more than two constitutes callous disregard for the welfare of others.

If we can't get a handle on our overpopulation, nature will do it for us. Those of us who have been observing reproductive discipline might even live long enough to say "I told you so".

dnmun said:

it doesn't help to argue with the rednecks... most of the world's population lives very close to sea level ... the entire global infrastructure will have to be displaced to higher ground ...

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I don't care that civilization will have to be rebuilt to pre-industrial standards of life, or even about the collapse to sustainable levels of population. I care that the next generation will be faced with extreme weather events, the drying out of forests & grasslands, uncontainable fires, desertification, the loss of biodiversity, and so forth that is now most immanent. It the continued survivability of the human race that is at stake.

arkmundi said:

With a 4-degree warmed world (that's planetary average, accounting for the total recorded temperature variation), we're on a completely different planet than the one we evolved in. At that level, the surface of the planet is all desert. Sure there will be pockets of humanity trying to persist, doing their best to capture water and grow food in a hydrologically contained greenhouses, but we'll be down to less than a million. And forget all the non-humans, the charismatic species we love - their habitat is gone!

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Are you so sure? don't you think that the earth could become more tropical as it has been before? ( even very high elevation areas, like the rocky mountains were tropical! ) Lots of heat means lots of evaporation, lots of evaporation should make for a good amount of rain. Perhaps the water would just be distributed in different places than before, no? couldn't life adapt to that?

Let's say the desert thing is true, and i am wrong. How do we end up in the extreme case where our population starts dwindling, yet we continue to emit the same amount of carbon, and steadily get to the point where there is only a million of us left? For example, if half of us die, then just about half of our emissions go away. Isn't there a natural limiter there, which will prevent the scenario you're talking about?

Would you even entertain for a second, the idea that we will run out of carbon-intensive energy sources before we hit this red line you're talking about? Think about how hard oil is to get these days for example. The vast majority of the low hanging fruit is gone, and in the next 10-20 years, what you will fill your car up with will come from unconventional sources ( tar sands, oil shale, etc ). The price will naturally rise to reflect the increasing scarcity and difficulty of acquiring said carbon based energy source; i do believe this is another scenario in which we will easily run out of carbon energy sources before we could ever hit extreme PPM numbers.

I think you are not considering many possibilities. Many folks who fear global warming do not. They typically believe that if they could just convince governments to clamp down on pollution, only then will humanity have a chance of surviving. I laugh at this especially when

P.S. You are throwing terms around like 'right wing' and 'frackin' idiot', it really indicates to me that your ideas are fixed and inflexible. Isn't skepticism healthy, in science? you can call me an idiot ( many people do when i contest what they firmly believe in ), but you should know i'm not a right wing guy. Not at all.

You know what they say about ad hominem...

Chalo said:

Having children these days is in my opinion irresponsible; having more than two constitutes callous disregard for the welfare of others. If we can't get a handle on our overpopulation, nature will do it for us. Those of us who have been observing reproductive discipline might even live long enough to say "I told you so".

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Ha, never thought I'd meet another person making this same choice, being consciously child-free. Likewise, I feel its most appropriate, all things considered. That said, I really feel for people who have young children right now.

neptronix said:

Let's say the desert thing is true, and i am wrong. How do we end up in the extreme case where our population starts dwindling...

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You are wrong. Desertification is already a reality, and growing. The Rio accords not only called for an address to climate change, but also two other really big global issues: Biodiversity and Desertification. All nations are facing these issue on a grand scale. The problem is already grave in the USofA. But also China, Australia and many other nations. If you were a farmer or rancher, then you'd be feeling the pinch. In Texas, ranchers have allowed their herds to die off for lack of water, and are not going to replace them. Many, many examples.

neptronix said:

Would you even entertain for a second, the idea that we will run out of carbon-intensive energy sources before we hit this red line you're talking about? Think about how hard oil is to get these days for example. The vast majority of the low hanging fruit is gone, and in the next 10-20 years, what you will fill your car up with will come from unconventional sources ( tar sands, oil shale, etc ). The price will naturally rise to reflect the increasing scarcity and difficulty of acquiring said carbon based energy source; i do believe this is another scenario in which we will easily run out of carbon energy sources before we could ever hit extreme PPM numbers.

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All sides in this discussion seem to agree that we have a lot more extractable fossil energy available. Those who are concerned about manmade climate change recognize that we're screwed long before it's used up.

But with tar sands, oil shale, fracking, etc., the problem is only compounded. High energy costs have resulted in a situation where producers are willing to burn up a great deal of fossil energy just in the process of extracting the pay dirt. So when this stuff is used, it represents carbon emissions much higher than just the carbon it contains.