
Breaching a “carbon threshold” could lead to mass extinction - howard941
http://news.mit.edu/2019/carbon-threshold-mass-extinction-0708
======
kuu
This is the key of the article:

 _Rothman looked through these geologic records and observed that over the
last 540 million years, the ocean’s store of carbon changed abruptly, then
recovered, dozens of times in a fashion similar to the abrupt nature of a
neuron spike. This “excitation” of the carbon cycle occurred most dramatically
near the time of four of the five great mass extinctions in Earth’s history._

I'm not an expert but the term "near" in geological times is not so "near" in
life span times, I think the article is not so objective...

However, that we're creating a problem is obvious.

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marapuru
I wonder how much longer it will take before humanity will make a stand and
change habits.

~~~
antonmks
It is already too late. The extinction already started. Right now it is
insects, frogs and fishes that has got to go. Our time , together with the
rest of vertebrates, will come in 60-70 years.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
This is my feeling too. I feel that even the scientists doing these studies
are not considering all of the positive feedback loops. If we could somehow
account for everything we’d see that we are already past the point of no
return and things are going to change for the worse much faster than
anticipated.

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bronzeage
I find it funny that people blame other people for climate change. facts are,
most of the pollution comes from industries, and only the powerful CEO s and
country leaders have the power to stop the incoming disaster, while everyone
else is powerless.

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systematical
Changing the economy is too slow. Need to engineer the planet at this point.
It's and end user hack, but what are the other options?

~~~
WhompingWindows
I agree. We've been engineering the atmosphere for hundreds of years by
burning fossil fuels. We have to continue engineering it by blocking heat
energy or radiating it away from the planet somehow. We'll still have to then
sequester the carbon we'll continue to emit in various niche industries, and
sequester the massive amount of historical emissions.

I was thinking with the cheapened cost of space flight in the next couple of
decades, couldn't we lift a huge solar reflector sail in between our planet's
poles and the sun? Just block 1% of the heat energy or so, would that be
possible?

~~~
_Microft
Shading 1% of the area of Earth would mean an 'umbrella' of the size of
roughly 1.5 million square kilometers. A mylar foil at 10g/m² would weigh 12
million metric tons. With SpaceX' Starship's proposed >100t to low earth
orbit, that would mean over 100,000 launches. That's difficult.

~~~
systematical
There are small scale tests being performed to spray chemicals into the
atmosphere that would reflect heat. I hope it works and they can verify there
won't be any negative consequences.

I get laughed at when I say this, but I'd dump billions into DARPA for
researching this. Since its DARPA, you can call it defense spending to appease
the elephants. I'd charge them with finding a way to "scoop" the CO2 out of
the atmosphere. Somehow splitting it into carbon and oxygen. I envision
thousands of solar powered flyers destroying CO2 some day.

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LUmBULtERA
All is not lost, yet. It is not said that we have yet passed this "critical
threshold". We are seeing rapid adoption of renewable energy now, and new
leadership in the United States might bring about an even more rapid shift to
renewable energy. I just ask that people VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE (just once, but
definitively).

~~~
WhompingWindows
It'll make a big difference if the USA has a Democratic president, but the
Senate will still be GOP most likely, and the supreme court is majority
conservative AKA GOP, and unlikely to help. Therefore, we need massive pushes
on the innovation/cost front, we need blue states to pull us forward (thank
you NY, CA, and MA), and we need a lot of individual effort towards greening
our transport, homes, diet, etc.

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QuickToBan
When meritocrats and technocrats fail to seize power, extinction ensues.

We are extinguishing the prospect of the only intelligent life we know of in
the universe by not caring for the environment, although one could argue that
only a small fraction are sufficiently intelligent.

The oligarchs of the world have more than enough money to fix all the climate
issues, but since they derive their wealth from exploiting the climate, there
is no hope for a fix from them.

~~~
lisper
> When meritocrats and technocrats fail to seize power, extinction ensues.

That's not the problem. The problem is that the meritocrats and the
technocrats have failed to grasp the real problem. The real problem is that at
the end of the day the dynamics of living systems are determined by Darwinian
evolution, and Darwinian evolution has no foresight. It optimizes for
solutions that reproduce well (relative to competitors) in the short term. So,
for example, genes that build brains that have an instinctive revulsion
against things like abortion and birth control will reproduce better than
genes that build brains that think it's perfectly OK to choose not to have
kids. As a result, the world becomes populated by the former sort of brain,
along with all of the ancillary effects that building such brains has, such as
having a resistance to certain kinds of objective facts, like the long-term
consequences of overpopulation.

The fact of the matter is that there is only one environmental problem here on
earth, and that is an overabundance of humans. But saying that is taboo, even
here on HN. I try to make this point here on occasion and every single time I
do I am downvoted into oblivion, not because I'm wrong, but because the world
is full of brains with an instinctive revulsion towards the idea that there
are, or even could be, too many of us, because the genes that build that kind
of brain reproduce better than the genes that build brains that think it's
perfectly OK, even necessary, to have fewer people.

This is a very hard problem to solve. It's not at all clear that it even has a
solution. It could even be the answer to Fermi's paradox. I hope not, but it's
starting to look like a real possibility.

~~~
joefourier
> The fact of the matter is that there is only one environmental problem here
> on earth, and that is an overabundance of humans.

How does your argument deal with the fact as nations becomes more developed,
birthrates plummet? If it were not for immigration, populations would already
have started declining in the western world. And even with it included, almost
all rich countries are facing an aging population.

Yet despite that, the richest countries produce far more greenhouse gases, not
just per capita but often on an absolute scale, than countries with
tremendously higher population and fertility. E.g., Canada produces more than
2x more CO2 than Nigeria despite being 5x less populous.

Fewer humans != more pollution. Even in rich countries, a single wealthy
businessman with a private plane, or luxury cruise ship, pollutes far more
than an average worker with a petrol-powered car.

I can certainly envisage a scenario where with increased automation and lack
of environmental consciousness, you could somehow reduce the population of
Earth tenfold, yet keep on polluting the same. Why bother with efficient
engines when petrol is cheap? Would you rather have a million people each with
an automated personal helicopter, a pleasure barge and a gas-guzzling SUV, or
ten million people using public transport and bicycles?

That's not going into the details how you would go about reducing the human
population. You even made the argument yourself, those who refuse to go along
with the anti-nativity plan would eventually outbreed those who do. So unless
you want to carry out global campaigns of forced mass sterilization, the best
solution is still focusing on making our current technology more
environmentally friendly.

~~~
rocgf
Apologies, but I am not sure about what you're trying to say. Yes, pollution
is not evenly distributed across countries and populations, but that does not
mean that the original idea is wrong.

The truth is that overpopulation is a huge issue, but it is politically
incorrect to bring this up. Given that our economy is really a Ponzi scheme,
nobody wants to touch this topic. Everybody talks about declining fertility
rates like a huge catastrophe, when in fact, that's some really good news.

~~~
joefourier
And how do you plan on solving overpopulation? Rich countries already have
birthrates below replacement threshold. Do you think that reducing them in
India, Nigeria and other developing countries is the most effective and
feasible way of combating CO2 emissions?

I think not. While the number of humans certainly contributes to the total
amount of pollution, it is not, in my opinion, the "only environmental
problem".

~~~
rocgf
Apologies for being blunt, but you are heavily strawmanning. I don't think
anyone said that it is "the only environmental problem" anywhere in this
thread, and especially not me.

I did not say it is the only environmental problem, but I am saying it is
among the big ones. It is completely illogical to say that it is not. If you
agree with the fact that consumption leads to pollution, then you agree with
my premise whether you like it or not, it's simply a logical conclusion.

> Do you think that reducing them in India, Nigeria and other developing
> countries is the most effective and feasible way of combating CO2 emissions?

Again, kind of strawmanning here. I never said it is _the most efficient way_
to tackle it, but we need to realise that if our population keeps going up,
the problem will become more and more exacerbated.

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deevolution
The single best thing as an individual you can do for yourself[1] and the
planet[2][3] is adopt a vegan diet. we could reduce global greenhouse gas
emissions by 24% simply by abstaining from meat and dairy products.

[Edit]Other key insights from J.Poole's study _addressing climate change thru
food_ [1]

>Eating vegetable products - even the highest emitting products, will still
have a better impact on the environment than selecting only low emitting meat
products

>Food responsible for 31% of global GHG

>High impact beef producing 5000% more emissions than low impact beef

>Agriculture sits at heart of all environmental problems

>Population size highly correlated with global c02

1\. [https://www.drcarney.com/blog/health-issues/diet-linked-
to-h...](https://www.drcarney.com/blog/health-issues/diet-linked-to-heart-
disease-reduction-during-war)

2\.
[https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b0b53649-5e93-4415-bf07-6b...](https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b0b53649-5e93-4415-bf07-6b0b1227172f/download_file?file_format=pdf&safe_filename=Reducing_foods_environment_impacts_Science%2B360%2B6392%2B987%2B-%2BAccepted%2BManuscript.pdf&type_of_work=Journal+article)

~~~
nightski
How is that possible when animal agriculture only accounts for ~3% of
greenhouse emissions? Even if you take into account the entire agriculture
sector it's only 9%.

Let's not use this as a grandstand for pushing political agendas. There are
much larger contributors that can be addressed. It just dilutes the entire
climate change message by pushing a vegan agenda.

[https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-
emis...](https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions)

~~~
deevolution
I challenge you to commit to a vegan diet for 3 weeks and let me know how your
body feels. Personally, I'm much more energized and more productive than when
I was 4 weeks ago eating meat everyday. I breathe easier, my sleep has
improved, I dont feel bloated. And to top it off I'm reducing my carbon
footprint.

~~~
manfredo
This is completely departing from the original claim that going vegan is "the
single best thing an individual can do" for the planet.

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ttul
Real question: why isn’t some billionaire using subversive techniques to
manipulate the population into doing something? If it can work for Russia to
put Trump into the Whitehouse, can it not work in support of carbon reduction?

~~~
halfjoking
If I became a billionaire I would mine, crush and spread olivine rocks in the
ocean:

[http://www.innovationconcepts.eu/res/literatuurSchuiling/oli...](http://www.innovationconcepts.eu/res/literatuurSchuiling/olivineagainstclimatechange23.pdf)

Weathering is exactly how the earth brought itself back into equilibrium over
millions of years after the mass extinction events. We just have to advance
that process dramatically, and specifically target beaches and critical places
in the ocean where ocean acidification would devastate ecosystems.

Edit: Also this is an affordable plan. It costs about $12 per metric ton of
carbon removed compared to other carbon sequestration technologies which
usually cost $100+/ton.

~~~
fouc
Don't need a billionaire, just need a kickstarter or indiegogo to make that
happen.

~~~
halfjoking
Luckily someone else is already doing that and I've already donated to it:
[https://projectvesta.org/](https://projectvesta.org/)

If we want to offset a huge chunk of human emissions we still need billionaire
or government backing.

~~~
carapace
Olivine weathering seems very hopeful! Some links:

Same folks as Vesta, I think: [https://climitigation.org/olivine-can-reverse-
climate-change...](https://climitigation.org/olivine-can-reverse-climate-
change-and-ocean-acidificaiton/)

Some general information: [https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2016/07/olivine-
weathering-...](https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2016/07/olivine-weathering-
to-capture-co2-and-counter-climate-change.html)

Another research group, I think: [https://olivoa.eu/](https://olivoa.eu/)

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aldoushuxley001
Yeah, it's 150ppm. Anything less than that and we're definitely heading
towards mass extinction, as proven by history. Anything on the upper bound is
theoretical and based on shaky models, whereas the lower bound is proven based
on historical examples.

Edit: Bring on the downvotes, but it won't change the science.

