
Carbon dioxide toxicity and climate change: a serious unapprehended risk - graeme
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Phil_Bierwirth/publication/311844520_Carbon_dioxide_toxicity_and_climate_change_a_serious_unapprehended_risk_for_human_health/links/5a7586c645851541ce56e37e/Carbon-dioxide-toxicity-and-climate-change-a-serious-unapprehended-risk-for-human-health.pdf?origin=publication_detail
======
Fej
Abstract:

> "As atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide continue to escalate and drive
> climate change, the issue of CO2 toxicity is not recognised as a global
> risk. The toxicity of CO2 for breathing has been well defined for high
> concentrations but it remains effectively unknown what level will compromise
> human health when individuals are perpetually exposed for their lifetime.
> There is evidence from the few studies of long-term low-level exposure that
> permanent exposure, to CO2 levels predicted by the end of the century, will
> have significant effects on humans. Other studies of slightly higher CO2
> levels may offer clues to effects that may occur when humans experience
> lifelong exposure. Unhealthy blood CO2 concentrations have been measured
> from people in common office environments where reduced thinking ability and
> health symptoms have been observed at levels of CO2 above 600 ppm for
> relatively short-term exposures. Although humans and animals are able to
> deal with elevated levels of CO2 in the short-term due to various
> compensation mechanisms in the body, the persistent effects of these
> mechanisms may have severe consequences in a perpetual environment of
> elevated CO2. These include threats to life such as kidney failure, bone
> atrophy and loss of brain function. Existing research also indicates that as
> ambient CO2 increases in the near-future, there will be an associated
> increase in cancers, neurological disorders and other conditions. Research
> is urgently required to clearly identify the severity and proximity of this
> risk, associated with the primary human function of breathing, being a
> potential major aspect of climate change."

\---

Every day, I grow more and more convinced that we are just _utterly_ screwed.
Global warming (I am starting to favor the Stallmanism "global heating") has
us fucked left, right, and sideways. And the leaders of the world do little
about it.

It's already too late to reverse course, hasn't been possible for a while.
Even then, mitigation isn't coming, not fast enough. There is not enough
political will, and a magic carbon- _reducing_ invention is... unlikely (if
unpredictable).

From whence cometh hope? (Because I'm almost out of it.)

~~~
maxbond
I work close to this space (I'm an algae cultivation technician), and this is
the peace I have come to with it. Hope it helps.

> ...a magic carbon-reducing invention is... unlikely (if unpredictable).

The technology to remove CO2 from the atmosphere isn't magic; you feed algae
and you let them grow. There's work being done on piping flue gas from power
plants through algae to scrub the carbon as it leaves. Even without scrubbing
the flue gas, the only real problem with releasing CO2 into the atmosphere is
when you dig it up from the ground first, and the technology for turning
organic waste into natural gas is very mature.

It is certainly too late to stop climate change, but it's not too late for us
to survive climate change. We know how to make energy and chemicals from fresh
biomass instead of ancient biomass transformed into petroleum (such as with
pyrolysis), we can even sequester carbon while we do it (as biochar), but we
don't necessarily know how to integrate all of the required technologies and
some of them aren't ready for prime time (hydrothermal liquefaction and
cellulosic ethanol come to mind). But research into things like algae
cultivation and thermal processing of biomass has been going on since the 80s
and the 40s, respectively, and they're actually fairly mature.

The two biggest problems are managing massive amounts of complexity and the
lack of political will around actually funding & fielding these solutions. If
there were sufficient political will, the first problem would simply be a
matter of time and money.

Hope springs eternal because humans are not. We will begin in earnest to
rework our global economy and to fix our environment when enough of the old
guard have died that their viewpoint is no longer relevant. There's an adage
which goes, "progress is made one funeral at a time." If they don't die
quickly enough, our climate will collapse which should provide them with
sufficient encouragement. It's not something to celebrate but it is something
to reckon with.

In short, our bed is made and we're going to lie in it. But tomorrow is a new
day.

~~~
WhompingWindows
Are those two the biggest problems when it comes specifically to biomass? I
hear biomass advocates all over the place saying they're the solution, saying:
"we'll run entirely on carbon-neutral corn-derived ethanol and the poo from
our vegan diets". Wow, that'd be great, but where are the numbers? Many of
these claims go without physics-first principles and real numbers to back them
up. For instance, using algae, we'd need an incredibly massive commitment of
funds to install scrubbers on all the plants across the world. Even if we did
that over the next 30-50 years, which we really can't yet because the tech
isn't ready, even if a miracle occurred and we did that, that doesn't solve
the existing CO2 heating the planet or the negative feedback loops.

IMO, the real problem with biomass is the sheer scale of the energy system,
it's far too large of an industrial base already for algae scrubbers to be
effective. IMO, we need planet-cooling measures, increasing cloud cover,
increasing albedo, somethjing to prevent heating and the vicious feedback
loops in the arctic and elsewhere. Then, we also need to deal with the CO2,
which will still be around even if we reduce insolation and heating. I don't
know if algae or CCS or some other method will be used for that, but I see
that as secondary to the "easier" cooling mechanisms.

~~~
dredmorbius
For waste-stream based fuels, consider first that the _upper bound_ on
potential is the incoming feedstock, that is, food, and nets to something like
25% of its energy potential.

And the feedstock is bounded by net primary primary productivity, also
referred to as the photosynthetic ceiling. It turns out that humans already
lay claim to 20% of this. Replacing fossil fuels (a prerequisite to acheiving
net zero emissions) would require another 20% of NPP, an unlikely scenario.

Using crop yields and land area, one quickly realises that under all but the
rosiest scenarios, more land is required for biomass fuel production than
exists in major technological and industrial nations.

So, no, biomass is not sufficient to sustain present per-capita energy use and
populations.

[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2cvap7/the_int...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2cvap7/the_intractable_problem_of_biomass_for_fuels_is/)

~~~
aoner
you can also use the sea with wastewater as feedstock:
[https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/OMEGA/index.html](https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/OMEGA/index.html)

~~~
dredmorbius
Interesting, though still bounded by the photosynthetic ceiling, and you're
competing with all other marine life.

------
perilunar
Well that was worrying. Now I'm sitting here in my air-conditioned office
building wondering what the CO₂ level is and wishing I could open a window.

Got to buy a CO₂ meter: [https://www.amazon.com/s?field-
keywords=CO2+meter](https://www.amazon.com/s?field-keywords=CO2+meter)

~~~
graeme
I think good AC is actually ok, since it's based on venting indoor air out.
Definitely depends on the building though.

But my CO2 meter reads lower with AC on. (With windows closed. Windows open is
power still)

~~~
janekm
If your AC is the type that vents out indoor air then this makes sense (though
smaller AC units tend to just circulate the indoor air after
cooling/dehydrating). Depending on the sensor technology in your CO2 meter, it
could be sensitive to temperature, so that may be worth trying to exclude as a
factor.

------
empath75
‘You and your children and grandchildren are going to suffocate’ sounds like a
much better way for people to get across the dangers of burning fossil fuel
than the vague threat of climate change. It’s personal and horrifying to
contemplate.

~~~
graeme
That's what I was thinking. The warming and climate destabilization effects
will be _worse_ (ugh), but this is perhaps easier to describe.

"You know that feeling of a stuffy meeting room? That's what outside will be
in 2100 if we don't reduce. Inside will be worse."

------
patrickg_zill
Increase in co2 equals increase in plant growth. A sealed greenhouse pumped
with higher concentration of co2 than normal saw plants grow faster.

Point of view is that co2 may not be absorbed quickly enough or that there may
be a limit to the amount that plants can take in:
[https://www.carbonbrief.org/rising-co2-has-greened-worlds-
pl...](https://www.carbonbrief.org/rising-co2-has-greened-worlds-plants-and-
trees)

~~~
ItsMe000001
I agree with your statement and would like to add to your comment:

I don't understand when people point to bio mass that could absorb the carbon.
This is based on my understanding of carbon history on this planet, which is
far from detailed or complete.

We already had the earth covered in biomass before human populations increased
explosively. Back then, a looooooong time ago, what as far as I know brought
the carbon levels (CO2) down was when dying bio mass was getting buried
instead of being recycled. That means most carbon is underneath the earth.

We just spend the last few centuries busily getting it back out from there
though.

So as I understand it (someone correct me please if it is wrong), how can we
possibly hope that a biomass cycle could keep enough carbon trapped? The past
shows that it has to be _buried_ deep inside the earth! That would mean
biomass cannot be the solution, even at full capacity it could not bind
enough.

I'm happy to be corrected if my understanding is wrong.

~~~
saalweachter
You can get a certain amount out of growing additional live biomass where
there isn't any now.

There was a supposition that one of the causes of the Little Ice Age was
reforestation of the Americas after plagues wiped out 90% of the inhabitants.
I don't know what the current state of that conjecture is, but I recall the
amount of carbon taken up in the process was significant.

If you found a way to eg forest the Sahara, it would be significant on a
global scale. Not a one-and-done fix, but significant. Then you would either
have to find new land to plant or cut down the trees and not burn them/mulch
them to sequester more carbon, but a living forest holds a good bit on its
own.

~~~
bonesss
There is a fascinating project to turn around desertification of the Sahara:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall)

------
evincarofautumn
I’ve wondered for a while—very non-scientifically, just idly—if atmospheric
CO₂ could account for increased rates of neurological/psychological conditions
such as ASD (autism spectrum disorder) and ADD (attention deficit disorder)—to
a degree not explained by more obvious factors like increased visibility into
the existence of these conditions and ability to diagnose them. Is there any
good research into such a correlation, or is it just absurd?

~~~
chemicalcrux
At first blush I find it very hard to believe. Your body might have to work a
tiny bit harder to maintain homeostasis (since more CO2 in the atmosphere =
more ventilation needed to expel it from your blood), but we're dealing with
such low levels - and such small changes - that it sounds very improbable to
me.

------
jdnier
I'm blocked from the PDF link. This may be the same article, although it's
dated 2016: [https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Carbon-dioxide-
toxicit...](https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Carbon-dioxide-toxicity-and-
climate-change%3A-a-risk-Bierwirth/a53f3a6f7a0db8cfd006c51f19c76a68f3386f7e)

~~~
graeme
The link goes to html now. Same author, but it's a 2017 working paper.

------
Raphmedia
> Unhealthy blood CO2 concentrations have been measured from people in common
> office environments where reduced thinking ability and health symptoms have
> been observed at levels of CO2 above 600 ppm for relatively short-term
> exposures.

Oh, that's scary. How often does that happen in small offices converted into
open offices?! I've often noticed people acting strangely, missing small bugs
or acting confused. I have a CO2 detector at home but those are only for
extreme levels. How would someone check for unhealthy but not deadly
concentrations?

~~~
gwern
I wouldn't worry about it. OP is massively cherrypicking studies. That
particular citation is an unreplicated experiment which contradicts literally
scores or hundreds of other experiments going back half a century or more,
including dozens sponsored by the US Navy investigating cognitive performance
at CO2 concentrations all the way up to 20,000 PPM and higher, finding jack
squat (which is why submarines are allowed to have such high CO2 levels, which
saves on scrubbers & range). Here's one book reviewing CO2 studies:
[https://www.nap.edu/read/11170/chapter/5#54](https://www.nap.edu/read/11170/chapter/5#54)
For comparison, your bedroom will routinely get to 1-3000 PPM while you sleep
for 8-10 hours daily even if you leave the door open; have you noticed any ill
effects or that you are borderline retarded while in your bedroom? Probably
not... And see my discussion in
[https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pPZ27eZdBXtGuLqZC/what-is-
up...](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pPZ27eZdBXtGuLqZC/what-is-up-with-
carbon-dioxide-and-cognition-an-offer)

Since you have to go to 10,000 PPM or even 60,000 PPM to start finding serious
effects of CO2, it's very hard to believe that the Satish effect is real or of
the staggering magnitude claimed, or that global warming will, by increasing
average CO2 PPMs by at most a few hundred over a century, will have much of an
effect. (Not to mention that it would be easy to offset with office
plants+better ventilation even if you buy the story.)

------
ndonnellan
Please mark the title with [pdf] tag, as it auto downloads.

~~~
leephillips
I just got an HTML version with a link to download the PDF, no auto download.

------
taf2
Maybe a side business figure out how to e sure building air systems are
pumping the correct balance of air for maximum lung efficiency... like pumping
O2 into the room but with filters to remove and correctly balance the air. For
that matter it seems like some longer term studies to determine what balance
if air actually leads to longer life

~~~
pjc50
Very sci-fi; suddenly we need a life support system inside our offices because
we've ruined the air. Maybe borrow some of these from the ISS:

[https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/200502...](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20050210002.pdf)

------
rich-w-big-ego
There are many solutions to the problems that Earth's atmosphere faces. One of
the solutions is Accelerated Silicate Weathering[1]. Everyone likes to talk
about how screwed we are, but that is yesterday's discussion. Today's
discussion is this: How hard are you going to work today and for the rest of
the year and for the rest of the decade on advancing the many solutions we
have available to this problem? Are you going to be a hero, or are you going
to fear-monger? The future of the planet depends on the readers of this
comment (and the writer of it, for that matter) more than any of us can know.
That's right. It is your personal responsibility to advance the efforts to
reduce pollution and C02 levels. Do not abandon us.

[1]
[https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/~mjelline/453website/eosc453/E_print...](https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/~mjelline/453website/eosc453/E_prints/AnnRev.28.1.611.pdf)

------
chupasaurus
Raise of CO2 level is because of incoming glacial period, not a global warming
[0]

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_period#/media/File:Co2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_period#/media/File:Co2_glacial_cycles_800k.png)

~~~
erdewit
The current level is at 400 ppm, while that graph only goes to 300.

~~~
nonbel
I'm not sure how they argue that ice core CO2 is representative for the earth,
but on the face of it I wouldn't compare Mauna Loa measurements (from near the
equator and at thousands of feet above sea level on the largest active volcano
on the planet) with those directly above the Antarctic surface.

