
CO2 levels mark 'new era' in the world's changing climate - nedsma
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37729033
======
mrb
Here the scary chart in question:
[https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-
content/pl...](https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-
content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/mlo_full_record.png)

The last 2 years where it can be seen the level never returned under 400 ppm:
[https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-
content/pl...](https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-
content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/mlo_two_years.png)

------
rb808
> Levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have surged past an important threshold and
> may not dip below it for "many generations".

Is this at all reversible? I presume not.

The real problem is that lots of people and putting a lot of effort and money
into reducing emissions - where if the above is correct seems very very
difficult (with a growing developing world) and likely a waste of time.

Surely we should be trying harder to scrub CO2 from the atmosphere and spend
less time on reducing emissions?

~~~
czechdeveloper
We release it because it allows us to produce energy (burn something). To
remove it from atmosphere would require to put it some higher energy state so
that we can store it and that require again some source of energy. Pumping
pure CO2 in some mine will probably not do the job.

In reality, we will try to just reduce temperature without removing CO2, but
CO2 causes problems other than tempterature rise. See ocean acidification.

There seems to not be any good solution really.

~~~
collyw
Plant a hell of a lot of trees?

~~~
lisper
That is actually the most effective way of scrubbing CO2. The problem is that
trees take up a lot of valuable real estate.

~~~
the8472
Lots of unused land are shrubs, grass and hillsides. The mediterranean coast
used to be all trees a little more than two millenia ago[0]. Some semi-arid
zones around deserts could also support reforestation.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_during_the_Roman...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_during_the_Roman_period)

------
dougmwne
I really wish people would stop saying we're screwed. I know it's a
compensation for climate denial, but I think it's terrible rhetoric. If you
say, "it's too late, we're screwed," then the message is that nothing really
needs to be done but deal with the consequences.

This is a big, scary situation and it's easy to feel hopeless in the face of
it. But we are faced with multiple potential futures. Our outcome is tied to
our action and the outcomes could be anywhere between mild and catastrophic.
No invisible hand is going to swoop down and fix this one for us. This one's
on us.

------
avar
For context here's the Earth's level of CO2 over geologic time periods:
[http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.g...](http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif)

~~~
_ph_
While this diagram shows, that the current CO2 content is lower than in many
historic phases of the earth climate, this has little impact on the
seriousness of our current situation. The biggest problem we have with the
change of the CO2 content of the atmosphere is the speed by which it changes,
and consequently the speed of the warming up. Eco systems change way quicker
than they can adapt too. And dying eco systems and their input on our life are
the big problem humanity is facing in the next 100 years.

~~~
agumonkey
I can't help but to think that it will solve the problem by putting pressure
on its source, aka Humans.

~~~
briandear
Are humans the primary source? Would love a reputable citation.

~~~
idlewords
You can prove it to yourself by asking what happened to all the carbon in coal
and oil extracted since the 18th century. It tracks the rise in atmospheric
CO2, as you would expect, since we burned it.

~~~
TillE
I've been pointing this out to obstinate nerds for years. This really isn't
complicated: human-generated CO2 does not magically disappear, and we know
exactly how it interacts with infrared radiation. Just put these two simple
facts together.

------
diafygi
If you're wondering what software entrepreneurs can do about it, here's a
reply I recently wrote:

\----

I'm in a climate change startup, and here's how I look at it: 87% of the
energy sources we use are fossil-based[1] and will need to be replaced with
non-fossil alternatives in the next 30 years. That's trillions of dollars
worth of infrastructure and technology growth opportunity for clean energy and
energy efficiency[2]. The next Google will be an energy company[3].

To answer your question more specifically, in order to actually pull the 87%
energy transition off, clean energy sources face huge financial and
engineering challenges. This presents a lot of business opportunities for tech
startups that can improve efficiencies for those clean energy companies.
Energy efficiency, electric self-driving vehicles, solar, wind, nuclear,
geothermal, public transit, etc. all need to grow by 100x in 30 years, and a
huge chunk of that growth will be software driven.

The advanced energy industry is already a $1.4 trillion industry (larger than
airlines and fashion industries)[4]. So there is, right now, a ton of market
size for climate change tech, and it will grow by several orders of magnitude
over the next few decades. Now is one of those rare moments where you can save
the planet and have a business model. For example, my startup is a SaaS
company that is used by tons of distributed clean energy resources to smooth
out the process of collecting energy data for feasibility analyses. We shave
about 5-10% off the installed cost of energy audits and distributed solar, and
make money doing it.

So if you're interested in doing tech startup in climate change. Do it! We
need all the help we can get. If you're interested in the Bay Area
professional clean energy scene, check out the calendar
[https://bayareaenergyevents.com/](https://bayareaenergyevents.com/) (I run
it) and start showing up to stuff!

[1]:
[https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11951](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11951)

[2]: [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-
consensus-97...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-
consensus-97-per-cent/2015/aug/31/citi-report-slowing-global-warming-would-
save-tens-of-trillions-of-dollars)

[3]: [http://www.pvsolarreport.com/the-next-
internet/](http://www.pvsolarreport.com/the-next-internet/)

[4]: [http://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2016/03/advanced-
energy...](http://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2016/03/advanced-energy-hits-
record-revenue-nearly-1-4-trillion-2015/)

From
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12344113](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12344113)

------
_ZeD_
Sigh... [https://xkcd.com/1732/](https://xkcd.com/1732/)

------
melling
Without nuclear power, there's no stopping global warming:

[https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shellenberger_how_fear_of_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shellenberger_how_fear_of_nuclear_power_is_hurting_the_environment?language=en)

We squandered the past 3 decades, now we're screwed.

~~~
_ph_
Nuclear certainly keeps the CO2 emissions down. France has a pretty low CO2
footprint based on 80+% nuclear electric power. However, nuclear is not only
controversial, but going forward, expensive. For new installations, wind and
solar installations are cost competitive if not even cheaper, with little
environmental or economic risks attached.

~~~
hacker42
> For new installations, wind and solar installations are cost competitive if
> not even cheaper, with little environmental or economic risks attached.

Citation needed.

~~~
Recurecur
Exactly. If subsidies are removed from the equation, solar in particular is
quite a bit more expensive. Wind and solar also lack the 24/7 reliability of
nuclear.

~~~
_ph_
No, solar is about 100€/MWh without subsidies. Indeed, the one big problem
remaining with wind and solar is constant supply over the day. But the larger
the connected grids are, the better this balances out. While a nuclear power
plant delivers a constant output 24/7 (this is also not ideal as we are
lacking consumption in the late evening and night, thats why Belgium put
lights onto their highways), nuclear power plants regularly get pulled of the
grid entirely, if there is a technical problem. A new one should of course
have less downtimes than an older one, but one needs to plan in a certain
amount of replacement capacity.

------
grondilu
"[...] all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. [...] There
is no doubt that parts of the world are getting warmer, but the warming is not
global. I am not saying that the warming does not cause problems. Obviously it
does. Obviously we should be trying to understand it better. I am saying that
the problems are grossly exaggerated. They take away money and attention from
other problems that are more urgent and more important, such as poverty and
infectious disease and public education and public health, and the
preservation of living creatures on land and in the oceans, not to mention
easy problems such as the timely construction of adequate dikes around the
city of New Orleans."

Freeman Dyson, heretic thoughts about science and society.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xFLjUt2leM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xFLjUt2leM)

[https://www.edge.org/conversation/freeman_dyson-heretical-
th...](https://www.edge.org/conversation/freeman_dyson-heretical-thoughts-
about-science-and-society)

~~~
idlewords
The scary thing about global warming is that it happens on a timescale that
our political institutions aren't equipped to handle, and requires concerted
effort by countries that are not equally affected. It's also hard to model and
has outcomes that range from "mild disruption" to "Earth turns into Venus".

The precautionary principle suggests that we take it seriously.

~~~
grondilu
> Earth turns into Venus

Unfortunately I don't remember where I did read it, but I do recall reading a
paper rejecting the idea that Earth could follow a runaway green-house effect
as on Venus.

I don't know if people seriously see that as a real possibility or not, but at
the very least I've never heard any scientist mentioning it seriously.

EDIT: well, apparently it wasn't so hard to find. It's right in the first
paragraph of the Wikipedia article about runaway greenhouse effect[1]

"For instance, a “runaway greenhouse effect”—analogous to Venus-- appears to
have virtually no chance of being induced by anthropogenic activities."[2]

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_greenhouse_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_greenhouse_effect)

2\.
[http://www.ipcc.ch/meetings/session31/inf3.pdf](http://www.ipcc.ch/meetings/session31/inf3.pdf)

~~~
_ph_
I very much hope that the worst case is not a Venus like runaway effect. But
there are many possible outcomes which for practical purpose for us humans are
equally bad. There have been geohistoric events where the temperature rose by
10 degrees, causing most of the eco system to collapse. Eventually life
recovered from this, with many larger species gone.

