
Earth’s carbon dioxide levels reach highest point in 800,000 years - lisper
https://www.therecord.com/news-story/8590664-earth-s-carbon-dioxide-levels-reach-highest-point-in-800-000-years/
======
graeme
I thought this bit was interesting:

"As a scientist, what concerns me the most is not that we have passed yet
another round-number threshold but what this continued rise actually means:
that we are continuing full speed ahead with an unprecedented experiment with
our planet, the only home we have," Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at
Texas Tech University, tweeted Thursday"

We really are going ahead full speed. Global emissions have been rising in
recent years, not falling.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
And even countries like Germany who say they take climate change seriously are
revising their CO2 goals because they are having trouble meeting them due to
their abandonment of nuclear power.
[https://euobserver.com/environment/140475](https://euobserver.com/environment/140475)

At this point if you are opposing nuclear power, you aren't taking climate
change seriously, even if you say you are.

~~~
abenedic
I have a feeling that one of the biggest blockers to actually doing something
about climate change is how easily the conversation gets derailed. Almost
everyone agrees on clean energy, but once you get into specifics people lose
their cohesion(people are pro- or anti-nuclear power, or for or against wind
energy(birds, off-peak power, etc.)).

I think people get too focused on any one particular solution, and cannot see
that a mixture of things probably is best. Nuclear for places that can
tolerate it plus wind or solar for peak times. Hydro and solar/wind for places
that can't.

I have heard for years, and at various times expounded myself, of the virtues
of nuclear. But the public in most industrialized countries cannot stand the
thought of it near them, so looking at a more balanced approach makes sense.

~~~
btrettel
> I think people get too focused on any one particular solution, and cannot
> see that a mixture of things probably is best. Nuclear for places that can
> tolerate it plus wind or solar for peak times. Hydro and solar/wind for
> places that can't.

I agree that a mixture is necessary. With that being said, the examples you
give are entirely technological, which I think is likely insufficient to solve
climate change. I think we need a combination of technological, psychological,
and political approaches.

For example, as a cyclist, I'm continually disappointed by the reasons people
tell me they'd never be able to adopt cycling for transportation. I'm told
that they wouldn't be able to do X, Y, or Z, or that they'd feel very
restricted, etc. But when I tell them that most cyclists do X no problem and
they could rent a car if they wanted to do Y and Z (which are done
infrequently), they aren't convinced. It seems to me that many people face a
false dilemma here because they see cycling as far more difficult than it
actually would be. If you design your life to make cycling possible, it's
perfectly acceptable, even preferable in my case because I want the exercise.
Most people pick where they live based at least in part on their driving
commute, so it would only be fair to do the same for a cycling commute.

Population reduction is another area which you could mention as part of a
combination of solutions. In my experience those conversations are often
counterproductive. But it seems clear to me that population can't keep
increasing if we only have one planet, and we might prefer to have less people
with a higher quality of life. (My views on population ethics are not fully
formed for what it's worth.)

My view is that climate change is a lost cause, so instead I'm focusing on
adaptation to the new normal.

~~~
mandrake-c-papi
> My view is that climate change is a lost cause, so instead I'm focusing on
> adaptation to the new normal.

I hate this attitude. You may be doing everything possible as an individual to
prevent further climate change, but the majority of people I hear spouting
this attitude do not.

It's based on the premise that there will actually be some sort of "new
normal" that is worth surviving for. The ongoing impact of our actions is
indeterminable - we could end up with something so inconceivably bad that all
your adaptation efforts are pointless, or that you simply cannot live a life
of any value when compared to the early 21st century.

Also, it smacks of "F*ck you, I've got mine". You assume that the impact of
climate change are survivable, apparent by the fact that you want to focus on
adaptation, but this attitude ignores the fact that there are billions of
other people on the planet. Maybe climate change can be survived by us in our
situation with all our first world advantages, but there are millions,
possibly billions, who don't have that choice.

Focus on adaptation for all you like, but please don't forget that prevention
is greater than cure and that it's not too late.

~~~
zaarn
Last time I checked we breezed past the symbolic point-of-no-return at 400 ppm
CO2... so it kinda is too late. We can try some damage prevention if you feel
like it.

~~~
graeme
We might as wel try though. It's possible that if we had a carbon tax someone
might come up with:

    
    
      * very cheap energy
      * a somewhat effective way to sequester carbon
    

We'd obviously lose a massive amount of energy putting back all the energy we
burned but that would be the price of survival.

I don't know if this is possible. But we should at least try. Currently our
lack of carbon pricing isn't giving us full incentive to try.

~~~
LifeLiverTransp
Well, here is the thing- our cooperate overlords have created the perfect
system to shirk regulations by shifting production to whoever is the most
desperat.

My money is not on goverments or companys here. My money is on some plague
drastically reducing the number of humans capable to produce carbon dioxide.
It looks containable now, but contain something like Ebola with millions on
the move and the UN-Institutions collapsing under this circumstances.

You can not enforce quarantine, if a whole country decides to walk.

------
digitalsushi
the only thing that stresses me out more than the story, is the likelihood
that someone very smart is working on something that will take 99% of us all
out in a last ditch effort to save the planet.

~~~
timb07
[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwvgeq/an-
incompl...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwvgeq/an-incomplete-
timeline-of-what-we-tried)

~~~
digitalsushi
That is haunting.

------
Pilfer
[http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange2/07_1...](http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange2/07_1.shtml)

On a geologic timescale, CO2 levels were many times higher than they are
today.

>In very general terms, long-term reconstructions of atmospheric CO2 levels
going back in time show that 500 million years ago atmospheric CO2 was some 20
times higher than present values. It dropped, then rose again some 200 million
years ago to 4-5 times present levels--a period that saw the rise of giant
fern forests--and then continued a slow decline until recent pre-industrial
time.

CO2 levels over the past ~5 million years are at the lowest point in over 200
million years. On a geological timescale, CO2 levels are _returning_ to
normal, not going away from it.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Okay, this comes up sometimes in climate-related topics, usually because of a
combination of misunderstanding and a need to be the clever contrarian that's
thought of something nobody else has.

The question isn't whether Earth will survive these CO2 levels. Earth will
(probably) be just fine. It's common knowledge, especially among the
scientists that publish claims about rising CO2 levels, that Earth has had
much higher levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the past, and that at
those times, there was lots of life.

The question isn't necessarily even whether humans will survive much higher
CO2 levels. We're resourceful, we have the ability to shape our environment.
Some people will survive.

The question is how much we're going to enjoy all of the adverse effects of
this global climate change. It is going to cause or contribute to a lot of
natural disasters: hurricanes, tornadoes, extreme storms, droughts, flooding,
massive wildfires. There are going to be migrations. Wars. There are some
solid arguments that climate change contributed to the Syrian civil war [1].
Many species are going to disappear as they fail to adapt quickly enough to
the changing environment; it will take much longer for new species to take
their place. We will see, for example, an environment with fewer butterflies
and more mosquitoes -- many more.

Nobody is going to get out of this unscathed. It's going to cause widespread
political and economic instability and unrest. Even if you manage to find
yourself a nice little spot untouched by the most direct effects of climate
change, it's going to cause enough suffering in enough other parts of our
globally interconnected human society that you'll see the costs somewhere. The
US spent a record $306 billion on disaster response last year. Where do you
think that money comes from?

[1]: [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-
ha...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-hastened-the-
syrian-war/)

~~~
Pilfer
>It's common knowledge, especially among the scientists that publish claims
about rising CO2 levels, that Earth has had much higher levels of CO2 and
other greenhouse gases in the past, and that at those times, there was lots of
life.

This isn't common knowledge _at all_ among non-scientists. Most people have no
clue that CO2 levels were many times higher than today, and that earth and the
ecosystem in general were just fine. Scientists may be aware of this fact, but
why don't they inform the general public of this? Take the submitted article
for example. Instead of publishing an article stating, "CO2 levels are higher
than 800,000 years ago; but are likely lower than they were at any point from
20-200 million years ago" they only leave in the scary, doomsaying first part
and neglect to inform the second part. It is the equivalent of looking at a 24
hour geological clock and only telling people about the past minute while
neglecting datapoints from minutes or hours ago. Why aren't scientists
informing the public of the historical data?

I understand why the climate change community may not want to bring up this
point (it detracts from other issues) but people should be aware of this fact.
Humanity, and life in general, will survive increased CO2 levels.

>The question isn't whether [X], it's whether [Y].

I am paraphrasing, but that's largely what your comment is saying. The article
premise and its title, is about [X], where [X] is CO2 levels. It seems like
the response to historical CO2 levels is to change the topic.

 _Edit: I don 't want to reply to several comments, so I'll respond here._

Why do I believe the discussion should inform people about historical CO2
levels? Largely because I firmly believe CO2 emissions will not decrease
through 2040. The incentives to cut emissions are just not there. Petroleum is
simply too useful as a resource. The current projections I have seen predict
500ppm by 2050, and likely 600ppm by 2100. Given those numbers, I ask myself
the question, how likely is it that humanity will face extinction in the next
century? How should I interpret these numbers?

Given the geological data, I find it reassuring that biology and life on earth
survived for hundreds of millions of years with CO2 levels between
1000-2000ppm. It means that increased CO2 levels will not cause the extinction
of humanity.

~~~
Jweb_Guru
The sun is also measurably brighter and hotter than it was when CO2 levels
were significantly higher, meaning we should expect greenhouse effects to be
more severe. CO2 levels aren't the only thing that contribute to climate.
Additionally, while in the past the levels have been much higher, the _rate_
of change in CO2 levels was never nearly this swift in the geological record--
it's the sudden change that has many people worried.

~~~
Pilfer
I did not bring global temperatures into the discussion as I don't believe
they pose as serious a threat as increased CO2 levels. Wikipedia has a nice
graph showing estimated global average temperatures over time
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.svg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.svg)
. _Please note the log-time scale_.

The graph shows that between 10-250 million years ago, global temperatures
were 1-12° C higher than they are today. Given that current projections, which
include the 2% relative gain in solar irradiance, expect 3-4°C warming by
2100, the geologic temperature record suggests such increases are not
detrimental to life on earth. Let us recall that life was thriving during the
Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, when temperatures were 5-10°C higher and CO2
levels between 1000-2000ppm. Global temperatures today are actually _lower_
than than average, on a geological timescale.

>the rate of change in CO2 levels was never nearly this swift

No, you can't conclude this. You cannot show there was no other a period in
Earth's geologic history where CO2 levels rose by 150ppm (or 150%, whichever
is not relevant) in less than 200 years. The geologic record is not detailed
enough to make such a claim. It is unknowable if there was a series of major
volcanic eruptions that caused CO2 levels to rise rapidly.

And sudden change has always been a part of climate and evolution. Rapid
change can occur in just a few decades. For example, the Sahara wasn't even a
desert 10,000 years ago. Also see punctuated equilibrium.

~~~
zaarn
> You cannot show there was no other a period in Earth's geologic history
> where CO2 levels rose by 150ppm (or 150%, whichever is not relevant) in less
> than 200 years

That assumes the CO2 is also gone just as quickly. But I doubt that would
happen unless you can show a natural process that could not only increase the
CO2 level by 150ppm but also decrease it by 150ppm just as quickly.

------
xupybd
Do we have a good grasp on what that means? I'm not trying to deny climate
change but if I'm honest I don't know what it means for the carbon dioxide
levels to by the highest in 800,000 years.

Is the temperature response linear?

Are there other dangers involved in changing the composition of our
atmosphere?

Is the response likely to self regulate or avalanche out of control?

Is being the highest in 800,000 actually a significant point or is it just a
bad sign?

~~~
zaarn
Answers in order:

We dont' know. 5 times.

The rapid and huge increase in CO2 is to my knowledge unprecedented. We did
have similar CO2 levels in the past but never in such a rapid incline, only
after thousands if not millions of years time for everything else to respond.

We could be causing a The-Day-After-Tomorrow-Scenario. Or something like 2012.

Or Mad Max. We simply don't know but considering the parts we do know, it's
likely that whatever happens is not good. A 400ppm Level of CO2 was considered
a symbolic point of no return and we have passed it a while ago.

------
shmerl
Is there a way to build a closed loop system that would suck CO2 and make
methane from it for example? Methane can be used for further energy production
but again with closed loop, capturing all produced CO2.

~~~
ars
> and make methane from it

That part's easy. Where's your energy source?

The whole issue is not Co2, it's energy.

~~~
shmerl
_> That part's easy. Where's your energy source?_

Solar + methane itself fed back into the loop.

~~~
ars
If you have solar power, why are you reforming Co2? Just use the solar power
directly and don't emit the Co2 in the first place.

~~~
shmerl
You aren't controlling all emissions.

~~~
ars
If there's enough power (solar or otherwise) there won't _be_ any emissions.

------
rocky1138
On an unrelated note, I'm impressed that the Waterloo Record's webiste is
surviving the HN hug.

