
Azolla Event - baq
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event
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Gravityloss
And it was estimated to last 800,000 years. Drawing down CO2, reducing it to
other forms and burying it, with solar power is bound to take some time.

Going in the other, exothermic direction is going naturally much faster.

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kijin
Could we grow this thing artificially in a suitably stratified sea or lake to
cause a meaningful drop in the atmospheric CO2 level?

If growth is only limited by the availability of phosphorus, well, we already
know how to supply phosphorus on an industrial scale.

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christkv
I would caution a easy solution as frankly we are but cavemen in the
understanding of a complex ecosystem like earths. Attempting what amounts to a
terraforming experiment would be a extremely high risk endevour with possibly
catastrophic ends.

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BjoernKW
What's the alternative to deliberately trying to change the environment in
order to combat the effects of global warming or even reversing that process
entirely?

We've effectively, though inadvertently and not to our benefit, already been
modifying our environment for quite some time now. Simply limiting CO2 output
might just not be enough to avoid a catastrophic outcome in the future. Even
if it were, that 'simply' in 'simply limiting' might not be so simple after
all. Even if all relevant political bodies in the world agreed on this - which
they currently and unfortunately sometimes emphatically don't - the exact
means of how do so in any meaningful way isn't entirely clear. You can't just
order industry and traffic to produce less CO2 overnight.

It certainly won't be an easy solution but such approaches need to be
discussed and not ruled out entirely beforehand.

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mytailorisrich
> not to our benefit

That remains to be seen, IMHO because it would be very lucky that the current
global climate is the optimum for human activities.

For example, with a bit more CO2 in the atmosphere plants grow bigger. Warming
might also open more land to agriculture than is lost. Etc.

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abraae
Yeah, possibly, or more likely it's incredibly dangerous making rapid changes
to the chaotic but balanced system that we live within.

The plants might grow bigger - until a voracious pest migrates into the newly
available area and destroys them, or wildfires raging in the newly warmed area
burn them to the ground.

The current global climate is probably _not_ the optimum for human activities
- perhaps that was some time ago, before the extreme weather events that we
are ushering in started wreaking havoc. There's no reason to believe that
fucking up the planet is somehow leading us towards a better, more optimum
situation.

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mytailorisrich
My point is that a warmer climate does not imply a worse climate for human
activities overall.

Currently the narrative is change = bad.

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polotics
What narrative? There are extensive models! More climate chaos = bad!

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mytailorisrich
Using the term "climate chaos" in a discussion about changing climate is
indeed pushing a narrative.

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zeristor
A certain amount of irony in that the Azolla blooms were deposited on the sea
floor, and people are now looking to see if they've become large deposits of
oil and gas.

How long do we have to wait before people give up on fossil fuels?

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ian0
Somehow I thought that a significant proportion of oil ended up in non-fuel
products (plastics, lubricants etc). So I was going to comment on how
difficult it would be to give it up. But after a bit of digging I found
this[0] and it seems the vast majority of it is used for fuel.

Question from someone who knows nothing about refining, if we did move away
from oil/gas as fuel, would we still have to extract as much to gain the same
amount of non-feul petroleum products?

[0]
[https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/In_a_barrel_of_oil](https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/In_a_barrel_of_oil)

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atemerev
If we keep the current levels of consumption, then yes, we won't need that
much oil. However, if oil will stop being used as fuel, petroleum products are
expected to become much cheaper, which could raise the demand.

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tom_mellior
But first demand would drop, making a lot of extraction less profitable than
it is now. Wouldn't a lot of the oil suppliers go out of business (forever)
before we could "rescue" them by buying even more plastic crap we don't need?
Also, even if we started building our houses out of plastic or something, I
can't imagine that covering as much use of oil as we are currently burning.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Saudi oil is still quite cheap to extract, so Canadian oil sands producers
going bankrupt wouldn't stop all production.

Also, a producer going bankrupt means their assets are sold for pennies on the
dollar which would enable a low cost producer to take over without the huge
sunk costs of the original producer.

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jellicle
Yes, so over {checks notes} 800,000 years, the growth of plant life may
sequester enough CO2 to bring Earth's climate back into what we call
reasonable.

{sets Android timer}

Shouldn't be long now!

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gmuslera
Is there a risk that with the present Artic heathing a significant percent of
that carbon gets released?

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sword_smith
I have found that exactly this story is the strongest argument against the AGW
narrative: Humanity is merely returning the state of the atmosphere back to a
earlier state.

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ajuc
To a time when there was no humans and no animals and plants we depend on.
Sure.

Planet will be fine, we won't.

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dsfyu404ed
We'll be fine as a species. There will be a lot more sob stories about this or
that village in some less developed nation starving because they can no longer
farm their land, there will be wars over resources, etc. Humanity will be just
fine.

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baq
a million villages will try to move away from the equatorial zone and the
tropics at the same time. this ends in war, famine and every other
humanitarian crisis you can think of.

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dsfyu404ed
I didn't say it was going to be fun. Humanity will be fine though.

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ajuc
For vast majority of people climate change as currently predicted (not even
the pessimistic scenario) will mean suffering, lowering of living standards
and risk of premature death jumping a few orders of magnitude.

And no - it won't just be people in 3rd world countries. If that's fine for
you then sure. We will be fine.

EU just had a so called "immigration crisis" because a few million refuges
came and people disagreed how to deal with them, to the point of populist
governments being elected and some countries considering leaving the EU.

Now imagine not 3 millions but 500 millions of refuges. How will the world
deal with that? All of this while food is becoming much more expansive, and
there is a need for many infrastructural projects to save coastal cities. The
likely answer is - political turmoil, mass crimes against humanity, wars,
failing states.

The biggest problem with global warming is that people reject solutions
because of well-estimated costs, but they don't even try to estimate the cost
of not doing anything, and when it's estimated for them they just ignore it
like it's not there.

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dsfyu404ed
JFC. I'm not endorsing it or saying we should do nothing and the tone and
content of your comments seems to imply you think I am. Yes it will suck but
humans will keep on existing, just probably not 7.5 billion of them.
Furthermore, it will happen over generations so from the perspective of the
people who have to live it it will be a steep decline where things get worse
and worse, it won't be a cataclysmic event like a war (expect for those
unlucky enough to live in times and places that will see war as a result of
this).

Yes we should do things to make it suck less but to imply that the end result
will be a planet with no humans on it is hyperbolic and farcical.

