
Atmospheric CO2 levels accelerate upwards - tempestn
http://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/04/10/opinion/atmospheric-co2-levels-accelerate-upwards-smashing-records
======
delegate
The message I"m getting is not that I have to _prepare_ for something or
change _energy sources_ , it's that "our lifestyle is killing the planet much
faster than we thought".

CO2 levels is just one of a myriad of indicators that are off the scale now.

By lifestyle I mean supermarkets and restaurants and iPhones and planes ...
all the stuff that we're so proud of as a society.

Winning, getting ahead, being number one, outcompeting, etc. All those ego-
centric values that are the basis of our socio-economic systems - focused on
disconnecting the `self` from `other` - are wrong on a fundamental level.

Ultimately it is the lack of spirituality in people that's killing the planet.
Religions, Inc are a major part of the problem, not a solution.

By 'spirituality' I mean the deep realisation of the larger context in bio-
space and bio-time that I as a creature exist in:

My body is just a cell of a larger organism - Earth - and my life is a drop in
the river of life that's been flowing for billions of years - the constant
unfolding and re-merging of the DNA molecule.

`I` am the privileged observer of this Process and my ultimate mission is to
leave it in better shape than I found it.

Well, most of us are failing at it.

~~~
demonshalo
> By lifestyle I mean supermarkets and restaurants and iPhones and planes ...
> all the stuff that we're so proud of as a society. Winning, getting ahead,
> being number one, outcompeting, etc. All those ego-centric values that are
> the basis of our socio-economic systems - focused on disconnecting the
> `self` from `other` - are wrong on a fundamental level. By 'spirituality' I
> mean the deep realisation of the larger context in bio-space and bio-time
> that I as a creature exist in

Man this pseudo spiritual hippie bullshit annoys me to no end. This
philosophical shift toward absurdism is infuriating and every time I read
something like this my blood boils. I have nothing against you personally but
lets be honest here; the ONLY reason you can say this crap is simply because
people competed, lost, got ahead and in process elevated your living standard
so much that you can now sit behind a computer screen today and be pretentious
and ungrateful about what society have achieved so far.

You being an observer of what is does not lead to anything meaningful. And if
you find meaning in that, then great. More power to you! But to claim that
iPhones, planes and supermarkets are not things to be proud of is a sign of
nothing other than ignorance. You clearly can't see the level of pain and
suffering that had to be endured for us as a species to get to this point.
That's why you can make such claims. You simply lack perspective.

If overcoming your own biological limitations (flying) is not enough of a
miracle for you, then... I dunno wtf is.

Edit:

Just take a look at the replies below to see what I mean. People lack
perspective. Most haven't read enough history to understand that we are making
one of the BEST trade-offs humanity has ever seen. The question never was IF
environmental degradation is okay, which they think it is. Instead, the
question has always been HOW MUCH is okay and what do we get back in return?

In these people's minds, virtue signaling far outweighs the alleviation of
human suffering. They do not understand that the trade-offs we are making is
what allows them the freedom to speak their mind and gives them the ability to
effectively communicate using the medium they are currently utilizing. Rather
than focusing on solving a problem, they instead praise mushroom eating as the
way forward.

The problem with the green movement as a whole is that they do not understand
economics or trade-offs. If they could communicate and argue from a reasonable
and realistic position, there is no doubt in my mind that the green movement
would have been embraced by all.

~~~
qplex
Except here what you label as "pseudo spiritual" is actually the more
realistic, scientific and moral way of seeing things.

The iPhones and Supermarkets are of the dream reality.

A world without consequences, where the Foxconn Factory Workers (or the mines
of Congo) do not exist.

~~~
adrianN
Foxconn factory workers have a lower suicide rate than the average Chinese.

~~~
qplex
Can an average Foxconn worker afford an iPhone?

~~~
obstinate
What does that have to do with anything? I build search engines, but cannot
afford to buy one. I don't count this as a great injustice.

~~~
qplex
Probably because you can use a search engine without owning one.

And yes, I would definetly say it's a problem if workers in a factory can not
afford the goods the factory produces.

~~~
dagw
_I would definetly say it 's a problem if workers in a factory can not afford
the goods the factory produces_

Even if the factory is producing high end sports cars or precision engineered
industrial machinery?

For that matter I doubt even the CEO of Boeing could afford most of the
'goods' made in his factories.

~~~
qplex
I get your point.

The CEO of Boeing can probably still afford to take a flight on a plane made
by his company, and that probably is true of an average worker of a Boeing
factory as well.

So let me rephrase: if people working in a factory can only afford the very
basic necessities and the actual goods the factory produces get shipped to the
other side of the globe (and waste gets left behind), something is not right.

~~~
dagw
But certainly in the case of the iPhone a lot of them do get bought locally.
Perhaps not by Foxconn factory floor workers, but certainly by a lot of other
people in China.

I mean I kind of get the point you are trying to make, but Foxconn and iPhones
aren't really a good example of that.

------
amarant
We have to expand nuclear power. Many don't like it but at this point we have
no other choice. Let solar drive the phasing out of nuclear reactors instead
of coal power plants! Sadly in my country (Sweden) nuclear is not only taboo
but it's illegal to perform research of the subject.. Laws passed by a
severely misinformed "green" movement...

~~~
tobltobs
Is the radioactive waste problem solved?

~~~
tremon
That waste problem was already theoretically solved in the 1950s:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_breeder_reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_breeder_reactor)

It is mostly because of military influences (proliferation risk) and
environmental activism that these solutions have never been fully developed
and deployed.

~~~
kpil
There are actual risks with handling really dirty waste and turn it into
really dirty fuel - you can't just hand-wave away that as "environmental
activism."

It's much more risky than just leaving the waste in a pond cooling for 20
years while hoping that you will be retired before someone actually have to
get rid of it.

~~~
tremon
Of course there are risks -- but are those risks really of a different order
than having to build nuclear storage containers that will hold for thousands
of years?

I'd say that activism has left us with the most undesirable outcome: we still
have ancient reactor designs producing unmanageable waste, and every solution
to actually reduce that waste has become politically unfeasible. All that
we've done is create massive amounts of technical debt that will burden
generations to come.

------
harwoodleon
This is very simple, but something most of the HN people won't be able to do.

STOP FLYING!

Passenger numbers have gone up in a step change with CO2 count over the last
50 years, contrails compound the effect. The sad thing is - you will all look
at this message and think. Why should I have to change? Why me, surely someone
else must fix this?

Don't wait for governments, don't wait for industry. Make individual choices
that affect the output now and we will see a reduction (eventually).

The psychology in this tells us not to lose hope, but to look to technology to
solve the issues. But we must act responsibly in the meantime.

~~~
FooBarWidget
What's the alternative? As an EU company, if I need to do business in the US
then I can't say "let's schedule a meeting in a year while I go on a boat
cruise". Virtual meetings only work to an extent -- they lack a human
interaction touch. I suppose I can take a train if I go on holiday somewhere
in the EU, but insane prices for international trains as well as other
shenanigans are not making it an attractive choice.

~~~
harwoodleon
I told you, you are symptomatic of the short-termist attitude that persists -
we must carry on whatever the cost.

The alternative is that you make do, because this is a serious situation, far
more serious than a business deal.

Ironically, your future income and the income and quality of your children's
lives will be directly affected by your actions today. But, people just put it
away in their minds, file it under "well, can't possibly do that" and forget
about it.

If the worst that can happen is some scary figures pop out of the news now and
again, what's the point in changing?

We will all look back in ten years and say, we had a chance to do something,
but we didn't.

~~~
BearGoesChirp
You make the sacrifices, you go out of business and are replaced by someone
who doesn't who will continue flying. If anything you have only made the
situation worse for you.

It is a prisoner dilemma of the grandest scale that has origins predating
multi-cellular organisms.

------
scrps
I generally get funny looks and the feeling that people are imagining me with
a toothbrush mustache and a comb-over when I suggest this:

Wouldn't population control to an extent help slow the rate of emissions? Caps
on births or higher taxes on family sizes, etc.

I know political/moral/ethical issues would make it impractical but I don't
think any potential solution is worth ignoring.

~~~
givan
When debugging performance problems you always search for the biggest
bottlenecks not the minor ones, so what are the biggest contributors to CO2?

I don't think the problem is the number of people living on earth but how
modern society is making people live, for example some big contributors are
high meat consumption (cattle methane) inefficient transportation (big suvs
with just the driver inside sitting in traffic jams) consumerism that drive
all those factories to produce mostly useless products that break easily to be
soon replaced etc.

We need to change or habits not our numbers, this is the source of the
problem.

~~~
codebolt
Agreed, we should tackle the biggest sources first. And meat production in
particular is one of the biggest contributors. Scale back the subsidies for
these types of farms and replace them instead with taxes. Consumers will
change their habits once they are faced with the "real" cost of meat.

~~~
rimliu
Ok, meat calories will need to be replaced with something. Or are we going to
eat grass?

~~~
CalRobert
Given that it takes 10,000 calories of feed to make 1,000 calories of beef,
you're still talking about a massive reduction in the number of vegetation
calories produced.

~~~
rimliu
Is it calories or mass? I.e. cow eats 10kg of grass to produce 1kg of beef, we
eat 10kg of beaf to gain 1kg of weight? And in any case it does not really
answer the question.

~~~
CalRobert
My recollection is of calories but I cannot find a source for that right now.
Regardless, my point was that if you grow plants to feed to cattle to feed to
humans you are taking more resources than if you grow plants to feed to
humans. However, it is complex - it depends a lot on the landscape.

[http://www.economist.com/blogs/feastandfamine/2013/12/livest...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/feastandfamine/2013/12/livestock)

~~~
logfromblammo
You also can't ignore the energy cost of running the farm and transportation.

I suspect that it may actually be more efficient to skip pesticide
applications and harvesters, and use domesticated insects to harvest grains
and fly those food calories directly to a local processing facility.

Certain species are already natural grain harvesting machines. Certain species
are already natural pest predators. Those could be exploited and bred for a
purpose. Humans plant the corn. Domesticated insect-predator insects patrol
the fields and protect the corn from unauthorized eating before it is ready to
harvest. They return to the hive, breed for the next season, and get eaten.
Domesticated harvester insects then mature, fly out to eat the corn, and then
fly back to the hive, breed for the next season, and get eaten.

Whatever is not eaten directly by humans can be fed to farmed fish or poultry.

------
d_theorist
I don't understand why more isn't done to implement large-scale carbon capture
and storage technologies. There are quite well-understood and proven
technologies to do this, but they don't seem to be on anybody's agenda.

Trying to bring down CO2 concentration by convincing people to give up cars,
food and planes is obviously a losing strategy.

If we're serious about preventing climate change we're going to have to
actively _remove_ carbon from the atmosphere. But nobody seems interested.

~~~
mikelyons
Aren't trees the ultimate carbon-capture devices? They are solar powered, turn
co2 into building materials, and require very little maintenance.

~~~
d_theorist
Not really. There's something called the "Forest Carbon Cycle". Forests do not
statically capture carbon long term. They are constantly taking carbon in but
also releasing it through the death of trees and through the soil. Trees can
temporarily capture carbon, but ultimately it will be released again unless
they are burned.

They also take up a lot of space.

[EDIT] I should probably clarify that I have nothing against trees, and they
definitely can help with sequestration, and they have lots nice properties. I
was mainly reacting against "the ultimate carbon-capture devices", which they
really are not.

~~~
jonstewart
I would love to see engineered wood, like Cross-laminated timber, replace
concrete as a structural building material.

~~~
Neliquat
Why? And laminates are typically petro products.

~~~
jonstewart
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_laminated_timber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_laminated_timber)

There's some glue involved, but it removes the carbon stored in the wood from
the normal carbon cycle of trees and it would also displace cement/concrete,
whose production emits loads of carbon dioxide.

------
lpolovets
Are Canada's CO2 stats material to global warming, or are they being over-
dramatized because this is a Canadian publication? The graph in the article
shows that Canada has 5x the per capita CO2 extraction of China, but on the
other hand China has 40x as many people.

(For context, I think global warming is very real and addressing it should be
a top priority, but I also believe that sensationalist articles often do more
harm than good.)

~~~
hannob
> Are Canada's CO2 stats material to global warming, or are they being over-
> dramatized because this is a Canadian publication?

Canada has an extremely important role in the future of CO2 emissions, because
it has some of the largest left resources of oil on the planet with its tar
sands. And it's a particularly nasty one with an emission footprint far higher
than "conventional" oil.

Whether or not Canada will leave a substantial part of that untapped is quite
significant.

~~~
RandyRanderson
TO add to this I believe at ~60$/barrel the oil sands become economically
feasible. So we're not a big factor today but as soon as the easy fracking
fields start to dry up and the oil costs rises a bit we're going to be right
back in the game!

~~~
narrowrail
Suncor, one of the largest players in tar sands oil said in one of their
earnings call transcripts that their cost was $30/barrel. I can dig it up if
you need a citation, but it was right around the time the WTI dropped below
$30.

~~~
RandyRanderson
You're probably right. Thanks!

------
retrac98
How does animal agriculture affect this? Are there any authorities on the
subject on HN? Everything I've heard suggests the greenhouse gas emissions in
support of animal agriculture far outstrip those of pretty much anything else,
but nobody seems to really talk about it.

Pre-empting a couple of replies here - I already don't eat meat, and yes I've
seen "Cowspiracy". :)

~~~
morganwilde
As far as I know, this issue is not comparable to our carbon economy, I.e.
Natural gas extraction, coal mining, oil, etc. Key difference is that
agriculture is a closed cycle, animals produce a lot of green house gas, but
it's gas that's already a part of our ecosystem. When we did stuff from the
ground we add new carbon to the ecosystem, and this feat is what's
destabilizing the environment. I heard this argument from an interview Elon
Musk did about agriculture after someone posted a tweet at him about the
documentary "Cowspiracy".

~~~
retrac98
> Key difference is that agriculture is a closed cycle, animals produce a lot
> of green house gas, but it's gas that's already a part of our ecosystem.

How is it a closed cycle? They require a lot of food and water to be grown,
all of which has its own greenhouse gas cost to produce, and then they fart
methane while they're alive and require more fuel to process/transport. All
the while the world demand for meat is increasing pretty quickly, right?

------
std_throwaway
I don't like sensationalism as it clouds the mind with short-lived buzzes.
Instead of always trying to alarm people of the big invisible terror lurking
in the dark, we should educate people on how to handle the situation. What are
the scenarios? What can we do ourselves for those scenarios (not to prevent,
but to prepare)? Which cities and countries will be lost at what point in
time? How do we protect ourselves?

Be constructive, be creative.

~~~
vesak
>Be constructive, be creative.

Ok, solution time. Let's immediately ban everyone who denies that climate
change is human made from all positions of power. That implies stripping them
of both titles and wealth.

~~~
stale2002
Why bother?

The IPCC, which is the official authority on climate change, says that over
the next 200 years sea levels will rise by a meter or 2.

Damaging, for sure. Trillions of dollars in costs. But not exactly world
ending.

Thats the scientific consensus. I look at the official statistics that the
scientists provide, and I go "meh".

If I had the choice between magically stopping climate change forever, and
stopping, I don't know, a single Iraq War (trillions in damages!), I'd have an
awful hard time choosing between the 2.

~~~
scarmig
Luckily, those aren't mutually exclusive choices. And climate change
potentially causes wars as countries are strapped for resources, so acting to
fix climate change is a twofer.

Also: you are understating the cost of climate change. These estimates are
tricky to get right, but the IPCC estimates a ballpark figure of 1-4% of GDP
for a 4 degrees C increase in global mean temperature. That puts the cost on
the order of trillions _per year_ , not in total.

~~~
stale2002
4 degrees C is an absolute upper bound in the temperature predictions. The
kind of thing you'd get if the world attempted to explicitly maximize CO2
output, instead of only pretending to minimize.

And then imagine if they did that for the next 80 years.

We are not going to climate change tomorrow, but I'd be awfully surprised if
we haven't made some very good progress in the next 2 decades.

Solar prices have something like 10 to 100X decreased over the last 20 years,
and there really isn't that much further (comparatively!) to go before they
reach grid parity.

What I am saying is, that there are a whole lot of reasons to be optimistic
about the future, and that panic seems a litter premature. We are currently
easily on track to solving it, solely through normal capitalistic efforts that
have created the amazing technology breakthroughs that we've seen over the
last 2 decades.

~~~
scarmig
Why wait for the free market fairies to magically fix climate change decades
from now, when we can tax and mitigate the pollution that's destroying other
people's lives and property right now? That's a well understood solution
within the scope of already known science, and economics can easily predict
what happens when you tax something: use of it goes down.

~~~
stale2002
The free market fairies can, and already ARE fixing the problem.

It is thanks to them that we got our 30X decrease in solar prices, and made it
even plausible to run the world on renewables.

But sure, do a carbon tax and externalize the externalities. I am all in favor
of making people pay for the damage that they cause, directly proportional to
the cost of the damage.

That is the most free market solution there is.

But my original comment was not responding to someone who made a reasonable
proposal for 50$ a ton tax on carbon or something.

I was responding to someone making an outlandishly, crazy proposal.

Climate change is a problem. But it is not a world ending problem. It is a
reasonably sized problem that can be solved with reasonable solutions and we
do not need to kill of half of the surplus population or ban all cars or go
back to living on the land or anything.

All we got to do is maybe make owning a car 20% more expensive, and then the
market will figure it out, as it has been figuring it out and making a whole
lot of progress for the last 20 years

~~~
tempestn
I don't think you deserve the downvotes, and I agree with you that using taxes
to price in the externalities of releasing carbon will help contribute to a
solution. That said, I think you might be underestimating the problem. We've
been trying for decades to get it under control, and as the article shows, the
problem is rapidly accelerating, not improving, or even worsening at a steady
rate.

We also don't know what the effect of a rapid multi-degree temperature
increase will be. It's possible that it could set off positive feedback loops
that will make the problem much worse. Maybe it won't, but it would be nice
not to take the risk.

I agree that CO2 is very unlikely to end human civilization. But it could
certainly make things much less pleasant than they need to be for a long time.
In my opinion it's worth a significant amount of short-term pain to rein it in
as much as possible.

------
alistproducer2
IMO a large part of the failure to deal with this problem has to do with
political cowardice on the part of the left. Sometimes if you're just honest
with people as opposed to constantly trying to sugar coat, lie, or guilt trip
people things go better.

It's truly baffling to me that dim-witted local politicians can constantly
convince local populations into tax increases and blowing up of local coffers
to build sports teams new stadiums when they already have functional ones. On
the other hand you're telling me it's impossible to sell a tax that is going
to be used to literally save the world?

~~~
chasing
> IMO a large part of the failure to deal with this problem has to do with
> political cowardice on the part of the left.

The LEFT?

[http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/10/04/the-politics-of-
climat...](http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/10/04/the-politics-of-climate/)

------
ghouse
It is less expensive (for society) to prevent the release of previously
sequestered CO2 than it is to deal with the consequences of introducing the
CO2 into the carbon cycle.

Though since the costs of releasing sequestered CO2 are socialized, but the
benefits are privatized, the US (at the federal level) continues to choose
inaction.

~~~
TeMPOraL
So does, unfortunately, the rest of the world. With the recent anti-nuclear
craze, the EU is sadly not stellar in this regard either. And all of this
forgets about Africa, which continues to improve the living condition of its
people and thus grow in energy demand. If there isn't green infrastructure
ready to be used there, they'll go for the easiest thing, which means fossil
fuels.

And so do many individuals. I mean, I can ask anyone about the climate, and
they'll all tell me that "climate change bad; clean air good". But when I say
something about emission tax, the most polite response I get is "what's wrong
with you, mate?"...

~~~
kilotaras
I have some hope that Africa can do what they did with telecommunications.
Skip fossils to renewables.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I hope that too.

------
diafygi
Howdy! I work in cleantech, and I guess it's that time again for a what-are-
we-going-to-do-about-it post :)

To start, here's my favorite climate change joke: "They say we won't act until
it's too late... Luckily, it's too late!"

==So what can you do about it?==

The biggest thing this article doesn't say that is most relevant to the HN
audience is that you can work at a new energy technology company! Our
industries are out of the R&D stage and are currently focused on scale and
growth[1], and we need as many smart people as we can get. There are lots of
companies hiring software engineers.

==How do I find a job fighting climate change?==

I'd recommend browsing the exhibitor and speaker lists from the most recent
conference in each sector (linked below). Check out the companies that
interest you and see if they are hiring.

    
    
        * Energy Storage[2][3]
        * Solar[4][5]
        * Wind[6]
        * Nuclear[7]
        * Electric Utilities[8][9]
        * Electric vehicles[10]
    

Also, if you're in the SF bay area, I'd recommend subscribing to my Bay Area
Energy Events Calendar[11]. Just start showing up to events and you'll
probably find a job really quickly.

[1]: [https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/22/energy-is-the-new-new-
inte...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/22/energy-is-the-new-new-internet/)

[2]: [http://www.esnaexpo.com/](http://www.esnaexpo.com/)

[3]: [https://www.greentechmedia.com/events/live/u.s.-energy-
stora...](https://www.greentechmedia.com/events/live/u.s.-energy-storage-
summit-2016)

[4]: [https://www.intersolar.us/](https://www.intersolar.us/)

[5]:
[http://www.solarpowerinternational.com/](http://www.solarpowerinternational.com/)

[6]: [http://www.windpowerexpo.org/](http://www.windpowerexpo.org/)

[7]: [https://www.nei.org/Conferences](https://www.nei.org/Conferences)

[8]:
[http://www.distributech.com/index.html](http://www.distributech.com/index.html)

[9]: [https://www.greentechmedia.com/events/live/grid-edge-
world-f...](https://www.greentechmedia.com/events/live/grid-edge-world-
forum-2016)

[10]: [http://tec.ieee.org/](http://tec.ieee.org/)

[11]: [https://bayareaenergyevents.com/](https://bayareaenergyevents.com/)

~~~
xor1
Do you have any recommendations for major metro/tech hubs to avoid settling
down (i.e. planning to spend the next 10-20 years) in due to significant
threats from climate change? And/or any recommendations for regions in the US
that are expected to fare better?

~~~
100k
The New York Times published a visualization of estimated number of extreme
temperature days over the next 80 years which may be useful for you.
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/20/sunday-
review...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/20/sunday-
review/climate-change-hot-future.html?_r=0)

You can also find maps of areas affected by sea level rise. As you would
expect these are mostly low-lying coastal areas. Here's some maps of the
effect of a 25 foot rise in sea level on San Francisco:
[https://urbanlifesigns.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-streets-
of-f...](https://urbanlifesigns.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-streets-of-flooded-
san-francisco.html) (This is beyond most estimates for the 21st century,
anyway, but interesting to look at.)

------
taneq
I don't like the way they fudge the graph axes to make it look more dramatic.
It's a significant rise all on its own, why make it look suspect by messing
with the presentation?

~~~
tempestn
I wouldn't call this fudging. It's just easier to see the effect when the Y
axis starts at the low point of the line, rather than at 0. Especially when
you consider that the atmosphere always contains a baseline level of C02, and
we wouldn't want it otherwise; it protects us from a significant chunk of the
UV spectrum. This choice could actually be seen as less arbitrary than
starting at zero.

------
SamPhillips
Elected officials follow public opinion, and large-scale protest is an
effective way to demonstrate and shape opinion. Join other technologists at
the Climate March in 2 weeks (April 29).
[https://techsector.peoplesclimate.org/](https://techsector.peoplesclimate.org/)

Something needs to change, we're on the wrong track, and now is the time for
you to take action (plus, meet nice people!).

------
cmarschner
NASA scientists wrote the first article on effects of CO2 on the climate in
1981 [1]. We are in year 36 after this, and people like the president of the
United States are still denying that it exists.

[1]
[https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1981/1981_Hansen_ha04600x.pd...](https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1981/1981_Hansen_ha04600x.pdf)

~~~
harwoodleon
The truth is it took us 80 years to get into this mess, it will probably take
80 years to get us out of it. Hopefully technology can provide a path.

------
6d6b73
The real problem is not with type of tech we're using to power our devices,
but with how many of these devices we have, and how efficiently we're using
them. From the they we're born we are molded into customers who will want m0re
stuff.

The other problem with our worlds is that our economies are ponzi schemes that
can't grow forever. To keep our economies viable we need to increase our
production by few % every year. While 1-4% does not seem too much, in reality
for economies at current scales this is enormous amount of stuff that needs to
be produced just to support our current employment rates. To support that
increase we need more energy, and since that energy comes at a higher and
higher cost (environmentally, economically and energetically) we need to add
more generation capabilities every year.

This broken system needs to be changed, not because it's unfair, wasteful, and
plain stupid but simply because it's physically impossible to grow at a 3%
rate forever.

------
mavhc
We've already felt the first major problem (to the west) of global warming,
mass migration. Most recent wars have had environmental issues as part of the
cause. Syria's mismanagement of the water table, Rwanda's water shortages.
Most conflicts seem to occur near the equator, and in deserts.

Our political system won't cope when a billion people start migrating

~~~
spangry
Sadly, I think you're right. When you get down to it, wars are usually just
one group trying take another group's stuff. The common precursor to large-
scale war appears to be 'resource scarcity'. I'm almost beginning to think the
'billions of people migrating' scenario is the more optimistic one.

------
nielsbot
I am terrified. Should I be?

~~~
tajen
I often wonder what we'll die of. Direct consequence of global warming like
flooding, tornado, or heat wave? A worldwide epidemic? Will wealth be relevant
in saving us from mass famines? A more indirect way such as massive riots
caused by, say, the global disorganization of wealth? A global methane event,
bursting out of the oceans, and burning the whole atmosphere? Or simply Trump
deciding that global warming can only be dodged by erasing half of human
activities, killing 4bn people with some atomic bomb, "for the survival of the
rest"?

I also wonder what will remain of our cities. Will scavenger humans haunt them
for the next thousand years? How fast will they decay?

~~~
stale2002
Please read up on the scientific consensus.

No respectable scientist believes that a meter or 2 of sea level rise over the
next 200 years is going to literally cause the world to end.

Read the science. Go with the facts. Not the fake consequences that no
scientist believes is going to happen.

~~~
scarmig
Yes. No one believes the world is going to end.

The scientific consensus is trillions of dollars in annual damages globally
along with plausibly millions of lives lost. No big deal.

~~~
CalRobert
Not to mention massively reduced biodiversity as a result of mass extinction.
But hey, if it doesn't kill you or cost money, it doesn't matter, right?

------
frevd
Nobody seems to mention cars, they run on burning fossils and they are a large
factor due to the amount of cars in use (ever increasing worldwide). Forcing
the industry to replace the exhaust by whatever thing which does not consume
fossils to create energy (directly or indirectly e.g. by electrical power that
needs to be generated by burning coal) is what might contribute a lot to a
better atmosphere (at least in the cities), and could even be good for the
economy (as opposed to cost). Renewable energy production without burning
fossils should be invested in. The only candidate for now to cover the
consumption is nuclear (solar or wind power requires too much space and looks
bad, so here you go with your efforts).

~~~
ajdlinux
Apart from every article you see on Tesla Motors and Elon Musk...

~~~
frevd
Yes, but there is the major problem that charging electrical car batteries
today still requires burning of fossils to create the energy in the first
place.

Beside, that's controversial, Musk has got both electrical cars and space
rockets.

Germany afaik wants to have predominantly electrical cars driving around in
the next decade. Forcing a ban on exhaust cars might create some incentive on
producing renewable energies due to the demand, so companies can invest in
that. Of course, banning exhaust cars should go hand in hand with banning coal
power plants (by way of regulating CO2 limits by law/tax, so that it is
expensive to create CO2). Then the demand has to be covered by solar+wind and
mainly nuclear energy (the latter not being very popular and the former too
space-needy), way to go for clever businesses to come up with solutions (one
of them might even be to develop ways to convert created CO2 to solids).

------
qwtel
> Limiting the global mean temperature rise to below 2°C with a probability of
> 66% would require an energy transition of exceptional scope, depth and
> speed.

It seems that sovereigns don't quite think like individuals: If this was a
personal decision, I'd just put my hopes in boarding a plain that has a 66%
chance of making it to its destination (or at least that's what the pilot, in
an effort to look respectable, is telling me). But since I got the ticket on
sale, I've convinced myself that it's "rational" to take the gamble. There's
other tickets on sale, but they'd cost 30 - 50% of my total net worth.
Clearly, I think to myself, it's better to die in a plain crash than to live
in a smaller house.

~~~
spangry
Although it's fashionable to denigrate 'economists' nowadays, I see this as a
consequence of sovereigns not thinking like economists.

At the macro level, it's a classic collective action problem - the tragedy of
the commons [0]. There are many well-known and efficient solutions. So I guess
the real problem is a lack of political will. The US and China are mostly to
blame for the lack of global action. Yes this is probably 'unfair', but it
still happens to be the case. Everyone comes to the bargaining table when
those two are there. Heck, they could easily enforce a bilateral agreement on
the rest of the world if they really wanted to.

And at the national level, there's so much well-intentioned yet nonetheless
sub-optimal, or frankly stupid, policy responses to this issue. Targeted
technology subsidies, target abatement schemes, 'renewable energy targets'
(i.e. picked winner targets, or 'cap and trade' without the trade) etc. It
makes me want to scream.

[0] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons)

------
rodionos
>extraction of fossil fuel CO2

What is the definition here. Specifically, on Canada, does it measure the
amount of CO2 contained in the produced oil, gas, coal fuels which is then
physically extracted where it's consumed, i.e. in the US?

------
randomerr
For their pretty graphic it looks like Asia is the biggest offender. So why
doesn't the UN slap sanctions on them until they comply with international
standards.

------
Const-me
Russians fail to manage their swamps and forests. They burn regularly.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_wildfires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_wildfires)

I bet that contributed a lot to the 2010-s CO2.

~~~
projectorlochsa
Deforestation of Argentinian and Brazilian agriculture tops that any day.

Phytoplankton loss does that too.

~~~
Const-me
There’re important differences.

When you just burn a forest, you release carbon that was in the atmosphere a
few years or decades ago. Those trees would die eventually, and most of the
carbon would go to the atmosphere anyway.

When you dry a swamp and burn a peat bog, you release carbon that was in the
atmosphere centuries ago. Under normal circumstances, that carbon would stay
underground for millennia.

------
p0nce
By now it would be good manner for the richest people to invest massively in
carbon sequestration.

------
sundvor
That's scary. I guess we all ought to go vegetarian, and protest those coal
power plants.

~~~
yjgyhj
Being vegetarian is easy and healthy. I recommend it. If nothing else, buy a
nice cookbook and make it a habit to cook nice non-meat food one night a week.
Make it a date with your partner!

~~~
hyperbovine
It's worth reiterating that there's a whole continuum between eating meat and
eating no meat called "eating less meat". Always amazes me how people overlook
this when writing off reduced meat consumption as not for them.

Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison is a great way to start
down this path.

~~~
CalRobert
Thanks for pointing that out. I'm not a vegetarian, but when I order a veggie
burger I'm often asked if I am.

I eat meat once a week or so, and would have a hard time passing on some of
the cultural norms around meat (Thanksgiving turkey, etc.) but eating 90% less
meat means 90% lower meat-related emissions.

Of course, if your reason for being vegetarian is animal welfare and ethics,
then this rings hollow ("I commit 90% fewer murders!")

------
partycoder
It has been said that methane from decaying organic matter such as the bottom
of reservoirs and melting methane permafrost are significant contributors to
atmospheric presence of greenhouse gases.

~~~
lutusp
That's true, but unlike atmospheric CO2, atmospheric methane is relatively
short-lived. Not to diminish the effect of methane, which while short-lived,
is a very potent greenhouse gas. And not to diminish the various feedback
effects in the global circulation system that are likely to create a self-
sustaining pattern that will long outlast the originating atmospheric gases.

------
yodsanklai
On the issue of global warming, I highly recommend this talk:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w6ruZ_5nPE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w6ruZ_5nPE)

------
polotics
Wow thanks for the Mulvaney quote. Not spending money on climate change maybe,
you just wait for what climate disruption will cost.

------
beloch
One problem with the section on Canada is that they look at CO2 extraction.
Canada looks like a big contributor here because it's a net exporter of fossil
fuels. However, focusing on supply hasn't worked at any point to date and
isn't likely to work at any point in the future. As long as people are buying
fossil fuels, extractors are going to produce them and find (less
efficient/more dangerous) ways to get them to market if infrastructure like
pipelines are blocked. The only efforts that have ever successfully curbed
fossil fuel production _temporarily_ were OPEC's self-imposed caps, which were
entirely motivated towards maintaining high oil prices and _not_ reducing CO_2
emissions.

It seems logical to address the demand instead, but this is hard too. EV's are
a promising technology, but have next to no impact at present. A few of the
richer people in the richest nations on Earth can afford them, but that's it.
We need to find ways to curb fossil fuel consumption by typical drivers in
places like Mumbai and Shanghai. The problem is, battery technology just isn't
getting cheap enough fast enough. If we could produce a sub $5000 compact EV
_today_ , it would still take several decades for them to replace the majority
of cars currently in use. EV's also need to be able to compete in agriculture,
where vehicles need to be capable of endurance well beyond road cars.

If we want to get CO_2 levels under control quickly we're basically going to
have to tax gasoline to the point where people are _forced_ to drive less and
pay more for everything that uses fossil fuels in their production, including
food. We might even need a mileage tax that scales with income so that the
rich are forced to drive less too. Unfortunately, this basically means asking
politicians around the world to fall on their swords and take one for the
planet.

If we can't address supply or demand, all we can really hope for is to develop
the technology to get us out of this bind. Either a magical battery/capacitor
technology, scalable carbon sinks, or some kind of geoengineering project like
a space-sunshade to partially block the sun. It's risky to wait for tech to be
developed, and perhaps even riskier to engage in geoengineering projects that
may have unintended side-effects. I like the sunshade idea[1] because it's
easily reversible, but it's still risky and nobody is seriously working on the
idea as far as I know. However, it seems as though putting payload into orbit
might become radically cheaper before EV's have a global impact. This option
may be more attractive in a decade or so, and may be a more important use of
commercial spaceflight capability than starting a colony on Mars.

A lot of people are against any form of geoengineering because they believe it
will give people hope for an easy solution without the need to curb our use of
fossil fuels. The problem is, people are _already_ hoping that easy solutions,
like EV's, will enable them to carry on as usual without serious sacrifice.
Given the global lack of will to sacrifice quality of life for the good of the
environment, we need to have other options available.

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

------
dorgo
Maybe we start reducing CO2 level in the athmosphere (not only reduce CO2
output) ? Any plans for that (besides plant more trees)?

~~~
DanWaterworth
AFAIK, planting more trees by itself doesn't really help in the long term,
because trees eventually decompose releasing the carbon they captured.

~~~
pveierland
My understanding is that if you create a new forest, the amount of carbon
needed to create it is taken from the atmosphere. Even if trees in the forest
die and decompose, the forest will on average consist of carbon which
previously was part of the atmosphere, in effect removing carbon from the
atmosphere.

~~~
taejo
Yes. Planting a forest is a one-off, though. The only way to capture more
carbon with the same land is to cut down all the trees, bury them deep enough
so that they don't decompose, and start again.

~~~
DanWaterworth
There's also biochar

------
known
I just started using [http://ecosia.org/](http://ecosia.org/)

------
freeto
Cows/methane produce more global warming gasses than our petrol headed cars.
Eat less meat!!!

------
freeto
Cows produce way more warming gases than our petrol headed cars. Eat less
meat!!!

------
artur_makly
This perversion all started when we went from Hunter/Gathers -> Agrarian
Farmers -> "Luxury Trap" \- Yuval Noah Harari on the Rise of Homo Deus

\-- link updated
[1][https://youtu.be/9M7OaGXXtQs?t=3h6m29s](https://youtu.be/9M7OaGXXtQs?t=3h6m29s)

------
_Codemonkeyism
Hurray for the clean-coal man!

~~~
sgt101
Remember, this all happened before his watch.

~~~
Tepix
But he's not exactly helping.

------
andy_ppp
Are we doomed and what would a world where greenhouse gases were going down
look like? Would we still be able to fly internationally for example?

~~~
mavhc
One return flight from Los Angeles to Europe creates as much CO2 as the rest
of your life for a year, if you live reasonably eco friendly (still drive to
work, but have solar panels for example)

Best to skype

~~~
CalRobert
Or move to Europe, of course.

~~~
Neliquat
By boat. Sailboat.

------
XJOKOLAT
Everything's just fine.

------
doofus3
Stop eating animals and buying new shit every day and this problem will go
away.

------
PKop
Can someone explain:

\- since CO2 has a logarithmic effect on warming

\- the catastrophic climate prediction models have not proven effective at
predicting climate

\- we should expect moderate increases in warming, which can be beneficial
(livable climate, crops etc)

\- the unquestionable benefits of hydro carbon energy to bring people out of
poverty and into modern prosperity (food, healthcare, modern technology)

..what's all the sensationalism about? Shouldn't we be happy that the
alarmists were wrong and the threat has been overblown?

An alternative viewpoint:

[https://youtu.be/500MmY5rB1w](https://youtu.be/500MmY5rB1w)

[https://youtu.be/EaNPBZ6BZZ8](https://youtu.be/EaNPBZ6BZZ8)

[https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/10/the-diminishing-
influ...](https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/10/the-diminishing-influence-of-
increasing-carbon-dioxide-on-temperature/)

~~~
Rexxar

        - since CO2 has a logarithmic effect on warming
    

Where does this affirmation come from ?

~~~
sanxiyn
Eh, this is actually well known.

"The existing concentrations of a particular gas dictate the effect that
additional molecules of that gas can have. For gases such as the halocarbons,
where the naturally occurring concentrations are zero or very small, their
forcing is close to linear in concentration for present-day concentrations.
Gases such as methane and nitrous oxide are present in such quantities that
significant absorption is already occurring and it is found that their forcing
is approximately proportional to the square root of their concentration.
(snip) For carbon dioxide, as has already been mentioned, parts of the
spectrum are already so opaque that additional molecules of carbon dioxide are
even less effective, the forcing is found to be logarithmic in concentration."

From page 49 of
[http://ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/wg_I/ipcc_far_wg_I_chapter_02...](http://ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/wg_I/ipcc_far_wg_I_chapter_02.pdf)

~~~
Oletros
The question should be why the OP made this observation regarding the other
claims he made

