
We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2 - hownottowrite
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/we-just-breached-the-410-ppm-threshold-for-co2/
======
acabal
Does anyone have ideas on how a mid-career software developer can switch gears
into the clean energy/climate change industry, to do something to help?

I've come to think that climate change will be humanity's defining moment, and
that we'll all be suffering greatly come mid-to-late-century. I want to do
what I can to put my professional skills to use in helping. But I'm not sure
where to even begin.

~~~
tzs
If in the US I'd suggest getting politically active. It will take long enough
even according to the pessimistic models (assuming we don't hit some doomsday
scenario like the clathrate gun) for things to actually get noticeably bad [1]
that a lot of people will choose short term profit over long term fixing the
climate.

That means that to seriously get things done _soon_ is going to require
government action, and that means politics.

Regardless of whether you lean to the left or the right, register as a
Republican and participate in the Republican primaries or caucuses for your
local, state, and national offices supporting those Republicans who
acknowledge that climate change is a series problem and that the government
needs to play an active role in slowing, stopping, or reversing it.

I say register as a Republican, even if you would normally be something more
to the left, because right now the Democrats are much more likely to nominate
candidates that acknowledge climate change and the need for strong government
action. The Republicans do have some people who believe that, but they
currently rarely get nominated.

What we need to see is general elections where it is _both_ the Democrat and
the Republican that are on the right side of climate change so that no matter
which party wins the election we get a government that will do something about
the problem.

[1] Generally what most places will see is that bad things that already happen
there will very slowly happen a little more often, and get a little more bad.
But in many places there will also be good things that start happening a
little more often and get a little bit better. It will take a generation or
two before these changes have become big enough and frequent enough in most
places that it will really be noticeable to the people there that yup, their
climate has changed.

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gjm11
This is very bad (albeit completely unsurprising) news, but I really don't see
that the word "threshold" is appropriate. Is there some special bad thing that
happens once 410ppm is reached, that's qualitatively different from 400ppm?
Nope.

The article itself is quite clear about this: e.g., it quotes one climate
scientist as saying "These milestones are just numbers, but they give us an
opportunity to pause and take stock and act as useful yard sticks for
comparisons to the geological record." I suspect it's the usual story:
journalist writes reasonable article, sub-editor puts needlessly overexcited
headline on it.

~~~
cardamomo
How we communicate climate science and its relevance to our world is just as
important as the science itself. In my opinion, if labeling it a threshold in
media intended for non-scientist audiences captures attention and calls
readers to action, great! Frankly, we need to be "overexcited" about CO2 and
stop sitting on our assess.

~~~
icelancer
This is how you end up overstimulating and oversaturating headlines and making
people distrust science.

~~~
cardamomo
Point taken. I would add that fossil fuel companies and mainstream politicians
are doing more to cause people to distrust science than headlines like this,
however.

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bsdetector
I haven't seen any talk about the health effects of rising CO2.

I know there are studies finding a difference in productivity between 600 and
1000 ppm with just hours of exposure, so isn't it possible that going from 300
globally to over 400 has had some health impact over a lifetime? Is there a
point where lower CO2 has no effect and how do we know that?

~~~
hartator
The funny thing O2 is dropping faster than CO2 is rising, but for whatever
reasons it's not really a subject of interest.

~~~
mchannon
That's because it's easily explained. About half the O2 lost through burning
of hydrocarbons becomes CO2. Other half becomes H2O. The latter doesn't
increase its percentage in the atmosphere just because there's more of it.

~~~
hartator
Yeah, but my point is that lack of O2 is very easy to explain why it's bad of
the health!

~~~
mchannon
Silly point. O2 shortages are irrelevant- 210,000ppm to 209,800ppm O2 is far
less of concern than 300ppm to 400ppm CO2.

~~~
mikeash
And keep in mind that atmospheric pressure (and thus the partial pressure of
oxygen) routinely varies by 10% or more due to weather, and people live at
altitudes where the pressure is as low as 50% below sea level.

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shouldbworking
I don't know much about climate science, but won't plants multiply and grow
faster until we eventually hit a new equilibrium CO2 level?

I guess the only danger is reaching thermal runaway before that happens? Then
again, earth CO2 levels have been far higher in the past without signs that it
killed off much life on Earth. Is rising CO2 that dangerous?

Don't humans already have effective ways to reduce surface heating by
injecting dust or chemicals into the upper atmosphere? We've seen that
throwing a bunch of dust up there reflects more heat and it sounds like
something certainly within our ability to do.

I'm not a climate change denier, I'm just skeptical that the rising CO2 level
is as dangerous as it's made out to be.

~~~
JshWright
> I don't know much about climate science ... I'm just skeptical that the
> rising CO2 level is as dangerous as it's made out to be.

Respectfully, is this a mindset you apply to other aspects of your life?

Let's say you leased an apartment in a large building, and after an
inspection, numerous structural engineers said the building was in danger of
collapse. Would you say "I don't know much about engineering, but I'm
skeptical it's that bad", or would you demand the building management take
steps to correct the issues?

~~~
ythn
Not quite the same. Climate scientists are notoriously bad at predicting
consequences of climate change - kind of like how meteorologists are often bad
at predicting the weather.

Why is it okay to be skeptical of what meteorologists are predicting, but not
okay to be skeptical of what climate scientists are predicting?

It's one thing to be skeptical of sciences that have stood the test of time
like civil engineering and quite another to be skeptical of climate science,
whose models are being updated _annually_ in response to the discovery of new
variables.

Note: I am not saying we should be climate change deniers, only that we should
not blindly accept apocalyptic predictions as the gospel truth of what is
going to happen to the planet if we fail to mitigate CO2.

~~~
saalweachter
Why is there still a pop culture cliche of weathermen being terrible at their
job?

Precipitation forecasts are usually accurate several days out and temperature
forecasts are good a week or two out, in my experience. If I want to know if
it's going to rain on Saturday I check the weather on Thursday and it's
usually right. When there's a big storm comin', a local meteorologist does
rolling updates with the latest data and it usually gives a consistent but
evolving picture that matches up with what actually happens.

Are people disappointed by this? What are you wanting out of your weathermen
that you're not getting?

I know the weatherman used to be a joke, back before satellites and computers,
but I swear the cliche only survives as part of climate change denialism.

~~~
mark-r
Yes they're usually right about whether it's going to rain or not, but often
they're completely wrong about _how much_ it's going to rain. They can tell
you whether tomorrow will be warmer or colder than today, but the exact
temperature still eludes them. Since the whole climate debate is about a
matter of degrees, it's natural to be skeptical.

~~~
saalweachter
I'm also pretty satisfied with the forecasts on those numbers as well, within
the bounds of what is reasonable to forecast. During big events, snowstorms
and hurricanes, the local meteorologist will break the area I'm in into ~7
regions and give guidance like 'zones 5-7 will get 3-6" of snow, zones 1&2
12-18"' or '3-4 inches of rain north of 84'.

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gshubert17
An error in the third paragraph, which states:

It stood at 280 ppm when record keeping began at Mauna Loa in 1958.

CO2 was 280 ppm at the beginning of the industrial revolution.

"The first monthly average carbon dioxide reading at Mauna Loa was 315.7 parts
per million (ppm) in March 1958." [0]

[0]
[https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2015/06/02/am...](https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2015/06/02/american-
chemical-society-to-recognize-keeling-curve/#more-1297)

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eveningcoffee
There is an aspect that is perhaps not very well communicated.

Higher the environmental CO2 level, more of it you need to dilute the air in
the confined environment (i.e. buildings) to the desired level.

This means that you have to move more air that will require more energy
directly but also indirectly through higher heating/cooling need.

It will also decrease the comfort due to more tangible airflow.

~~~
mtempm
I'm interested by your comment, but I can't figure out what you are intending
to say. Why do you need to dilute CO2?

~~~
eveningcoffee
Mostly because you do not want to die into CO2 poisoning when inside. :)

Every building has some designed air change rate with the outside that will
keep its habitants alive and comfortable. This can happen through so called
natural ventilation or through controlled ventilation.

As far I know, the common standard for the commercial buildings is 800 ppm
(parts per million (1)) CO2 in the air. It is assumed that this level of CO2
would on average provide environment where people do not loose their
productivity due to the air quality.

This is what I mean by diluting - part of the CO2 rich air inside is replaced
with the less CO2 rich air from the outside.

Because habitants are producing CO2 with some rate, you have to replace the
air with the rate that can keep up with this CO2 production rate.

If the air outside has higher levels of CO2 then more of the replacement air
is needed and the replacement rate must be higher to keep the projected inside
CO2 levels.

Replacing air faster will require more energy.

Disclaimer: I am not a ventilation engineer, I just got interested of this
topic during the home renovation.

(1) Air contains about 21% of oxygen that is 210000 ppm of it. It follows that
when the air feels "stuffy", it is not due to lack of oxygen but due to too
much CO2 in it.

~~~
mtempm
Interesting. What would the benefit be of complicating something as simple as
ventilation.

However, 400000 to 410000 is a very small percentage incresse

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nwrk
in plain english (from article): "Right now we’re on track to create a climate
unseen in 50 million years by mid-century."

~~~
astrodust
The states hit hardest by climate change are the ones cheerleading the burning
of more fossil fuels. It's utterly bizarre.

~~~
ceejayoz
They've been told by well-funded industry groups and politicians that all
their woes are due to excessive regulation.

~~~
astrodust
I hear a lot of grief about the EPA in places where coal is winding down, and
yet it's not the EPA that's killing coal, it's rampant fracking that's shifted
the industry to a whole new method of energy extraction. If there was lots of
natural gas in West Virginia I bet I wouldn't hear a peep of complaint about
the EPA.

If we can't smack some sense into people we're doomed as a species.

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basicplus2
It would be of value to overlay actual global temperatures over the graphs
given in this document such as these..

[https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Five_Myr_Climate_C...](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Five_Myr_Climate_Change.png)

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tajen
How do we measure the average concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, given
all the disparity and local extremums?

~~~
mturmon
The article describes an in situ (ground based) measurement, that is sample
based.

You can get CO2 concentrations from satellite remote sensing, as well. Usually
they use spectral analysis of CO2 emission/absorption lines in the infrared.
This is a passive measurement, but active measurements with lasers are used in
ground based and airborne measurements now.

These measurements are of CO2 within a given (vertical) column of air -- where
the infrared light came from -- whereas the Mauna Loa measurement in TFA is
localized to air moving past the sample station.

One starting place for CO2 data is:
[https://co2.jpl.nasa.gov](https://co2.jpl.nasa.gov)

This summary of Los Angeles area ground based measurements hints at some of
the complexities of integrating these different data sources:
[https://megacities.jpl.nasa.gov/portal/collection-
network/](https://megacities.jpl.nasa.gov/portal/collection-network/) .

Other pages on that site indicate the extreme spatial and temporal variability
of CO2 in an urban setting. That's why the comparatively pristine Mauna Loa
site is so important.

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crush-n-spread
This post is intended for folks upset and concerned about the state of the
climate, that are unsure about how to make an impact, but are very interested
in doing _something_ ; it does not directly discuss the article (sorry dang.)

First off, I suggest you disregard politics and convincing your friends:
Telling the ignorant masses to change their firmly held opinions and way of
life is a waste of time. Do not delude yourself into thinking you'll get 5
billion poor folks (there are about that many) to not use coal power, or to
not get gas scooters/cars. They will all do it - unless we provide a better
alternatives. So your first action is to help make electric cars, solar power
generation, and batteries as good as possible, and that means you go work hard
as an engineer at one of these companies. Not an elec/mech/whatever engineer?
Stop thinking so small; you have the internet, teach yourself enough to do a
thesis level project and start applying. You can do this.

The second, more dire action is to help with Carbon Sequestration (taking
carbon out of the atmosphere). What you need to do is replicate the Elon Musk
model of directing the Human Colossus [0] towards Accelerated Silicate
Weathering [1] - That is, crushing and spreading silicate minerals along all
coastlines and wet tropical climates. There are two links; the first covers
how Elon Musk uses commercially viable businesses to fund research and
advanced engineering to create leverage. The second link covers the science
behind accelerated weathering; The abstract is that the oceans naturally
uptake carbon from the atmosphere by reacting C02 with cations in the water
that come from dissolved silicate minerals. This uptake de-acidifies the
oceans and produces food for ocean life; for us to collect all the carbon
produced in the USA last year, we would need to crush about 60km^3 of silicate
rock (which is in abundance) and spread it along coastlines.

To successful sequester enough carbon to save the ecosystem, this might one of
the best options we have.

The way you go about this is you copy Elon's model and make a business
crushing rock. Thus, you must make mining machines and get into the mining
business. Take a software based approach and use electric vehicles if you can.
Vertically integrate, hire more engineers, get more clients and build a _lot_
of machines. I think that's a good starting point.

Anyways, I've thought a lot about this and if you are concerned then these are
the two things you ought to focus on. Don't try and convince people! We need
engineering solutions not talk.

[1][http://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html](http://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html)
[2][http://www.greensand.nl/content/user/1/files/rog20004.pdf](http://www.greensand.nl/content/user/1/files/rog20004.pdf)

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EGreg
Show this to any conservative who claims that global warming has nothing to do
with human activity. I guess it's just a giant coincidence that we live in the
time of the highest CO2 concentration in millions of years? And the highest
disappearance of species?

~~~
Turing_Machine
"Millions of years" is an eyeblink in the history of the earth. In fact, the
CO2 level has been _much_ higher than this level in the past (like, orders of
magnitude higher). The earth was fine.

And no, this isn't the era of the "highest disappearance of species". Not even
close.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event)

~~~
EGreg
Regardless of all this, it's pretty clear what's causing this currently
buildup of CO2. So why deny that man's activity is a major factor?

As for "the earth will be fine": yes the planet will still be here, but will
humans survive this? In the past, these changes were far more gradual, letting
life adapt.

As for "not even close", please show me a period when the rate of extinction
was higher:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene)

~~~
akvadrako
1\. Historical temperature changes were often quite abrupt and of greater
magnitude than our current one.

2\. Life is anti-fragile, so I think you're really underestimating humans and
animals in general if you think a few degrees is something we can't handle.

~~~
EGreg
I think you need to prove both these assertions. They are quite startling
responses to "we have produced a quick rise to the most CO2 in millions of
years" or "we have seriously damaged the biodiversity of large animals on this
planet". It's as if someone said "we set the entire rainforest ablaze" and
someone said "Relax! Nothing to worry about, this happened a few times
naturally in the history of the Earth."

Can you at least admit that _humans_ are behind this rise in CO2? I mean, it's
not like wind and solar energy generation is going to kill the economy. So why
is this even debated so much?

~~~
Turing_Machine
"The highest level in millions of years" is just rhetoric. The Earth is
_billions_ (with a b) years old.

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crimsonalucard
Just in time for earth day!

