The CO2 link to ocean acidification and 19 'mass extinctions' with CO2 levels we're now heading toward

Paddlers' Place
#321

I agree and I don’t ascribe progressivism to just one political party in the states or even any international groups or parties. It is all around us shaping our thoughts slowly everyday.

The point is to slowly accept an idea as factual truth. I don’t define myself as a progressive, but it now openly accepted when someone affirms that’s what they are.

There is nothing hidden about it and the majority of higher education now uses a progressive approach intermixed in the course curriculum to teach more than the subject at hand. It is nothing new even when I started grade school over 60 years ago we were influenced in our learning of the basics. We started each day with a prayer and the pledge and the history we were taught surely had embellishments and omissions. We were in effect taught to be patriotic, good or bad as that was. The things I learned in school were further backed up at home and in my community. We were taken to church and even a sprinkling of Sunday school. Even then there was great civil unrest, but I don’t remember being taught a single racist lesson. All men were created equal and all men are free to succeed to the best of their abilities is what I learned. Minds need to be feed information and learn based on what others have passed on. Otherwise each new generation would be starting out as cavemen. It all could have been my personal brainwashing who knows.

Yes there have always been people doing and teaching what they feel is their truths. There have always been those that twist and use facts and truths to advance an agenda. You mentioned some great ones.

Put manmade climate change thru the same filter you put weapons of mass destruction thru is what I’m saying.

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#322

Oh, I think it already has been considering it’s received lots of scientific scrutiny and will continue to do so. I think the things that should be critically assessed now are our adjustments to it as further studies roll in. It would be helpful if we could tamp down the misleading rhetoric that surrounds potential solutions (even though it’s fun to say McBugget) and debate the merits of those possibilities.

The climate will change, of that there’s little doubt now. We can choose to adjust intelligently as we’ve done before though human history (in fact, climate changes often spur innovation) or we can suffer its worst effects and lose our freedoms.

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#323

Notice how nobody mentions the influence sunspots have on climate - that isn’t because sunspots don’t influence weather, but because nobody can commandeer the platform or do anything about sunspots. Progressive is good; it was called communism in the early 1900s. Hong Kong is pleased to go.back to Chinese control, and so will Taiwan. Listen to who waxes on about how Castro and Hogo Chavez were visionaries. Venezuela is a garden spot. College kids have been inspired by the revolutionary intellect of “Che” Guevera. Only college can feed such wholesome ideals to hungry, fertile minds. They wear t-shirts that immortalize his zeal for freedom and equality.

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#324

Obviously we don’t agree on manmade climate change although we do agree there is such a thing.

I will ask you one last question and reply with your best information that you feel or you can provide on the subject.

Starting today if we do nothing or very little is done and we continue at our current rate of burning fossil fuels etc. and no natural disasters crop up like volcanoes or the earth being struck by a large meteorite.

Give me the timeline as to when and what will happen?

Say 10 years from now, 50 years from now, 100, 500, 1000 etc. When will it be over for us?

In some of the scientific publications posted above the scientists say we are only decades away. They stop short of saying decades away from what.

Paint me a picture of what I may see if I live another 20 years and what my children’s children’s children will see?

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#325

I spent a lot of time in the University of Mississippi library where, above the back entrance, this quote by William Faulkner was inscribed: “I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail.”

Though we all crave assurances, no one will be able to provide you with a firm time frame. Even rapid climate change, like that during the Younger Dryas, generally takes more time than we are adjusted to with modern lifestyles and attention spans. It’s the secondary effects of climate change, of course, that will be impactful: the movement of animals and forests, the shifting of agricultural zones, the gradual rising seas, and the corresponding migration of humans (which we’re beginning to see). However, climatic shifts (and other massive events) don’t manifest equally throughout the globe; some areas will see more impacts or different types of impacts than others. Sea level rise will not be consistent; plant and animal migration will include residual pockets in micro-climates.

To be honest, with respect to climate change, what probably concerns me the most is that we’re heavily invested in coastal areas and moving all of that infrastructure inland will be incredibly costly, especially along the Gulf Coast. Already, some coastal cities are experiencing minor sea level rise. Miami neighborhoods flood more often than they used to, and insurance companies are beginning to pull out of southern Florida. Outside the US, Venice is experiencing higher tides and more flooding than in its history and has invested in sea gates that ameliorate those higher tides from entering the city.

We all want to know what kind of world our grandchildren will live in, and, again, nobody can really give you a timeline. The vast majority of scientists aren’t in the fortune-telling business. For non-scientists like me, I think it’s equally useful to research past climatic shifts and ask questions: what animals went extinct and why? what happened to the boreal forests that used to dominate the Southern Appalachians? what did the coastline look like during the Pleistocene? That will give you a broad idea of the impacts that we’re facing over the long haul. The most important question, really, is how we can adjust in the near future to keep our society functioning well over time. Tough choices will have to be made there. Is it more important that your great-grandchildren eat cheap cheeseburgers and drive 15 mpg SUV’s or maintain the goal of a free and open society based on Enlightenment principles? Which one of those is really more “American”? We might not be able to do both like we have been lately.

I’m not a doomsayer, so I agree with Faulkner that we will prevail. But that victory will have to be over ourselves.

Edited to add this article if you can find a way to access it for free: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921818110002298?via%3Dihub

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#326

Of course, the best consensus information we have about what will happen in the future regarding climate warming is the IPCC Synthesis Report:

AR6 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2023 — IPCC

And if you want more regional specific information about where you live and play, the US Geological Survey has science centers working on more regional reports:

CASC Network and Region Maps | U.S. Geological Survey (usgs.gov)

Cheers!

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#327

Thanks for the answer and I do understand that changes will be different and costal areas like where the Obama’s have recently bought a couple homes one in the Atlantic and one in the Pacific oceans just above sea level spending something like 50M dollars. Will likely be the first impacted. The IPCC says we are talking only a couple decades and that effects are already ongoing in these areas. At their ages they will likely be fleeing both homes during their lifetimes and their children will likely never enjoy the homes in their adult lives.

I won’t go thru and list all the strong Net Zero proponents living now enjoyable lives on the coasts but the list is pretty long.

Reading the IPCC summarization report again I see they are all about the 1.5C threshold and do paint a picture such as I’m looking for out to the year 2100. At that point they paint a pretty grim picture. That’s not where they say life ends, just that life as we know it will end. Things like species loss and life expectance regressed for humans. Things like much of the world would be virtually uninhabitable, costal area will need to move inland etc. So a baby born today will be 76 year old then and will have if lucky had 1/3 of a life that was somewhat what we would conceder normal. Using the Obama’s again as an example I would think they would strongly advise their girls not to have children as who would want to bring children into such a world.

Assuming the US and some of Europe get it together and attempt to stop at the 1.5C target that by all likelihood will collapse the western world doing it. It is a little strange the IPCC tells a lot what the results need to be but not really how it is to be done. It would make it a lot easier for me to follow if instead of telling me we need to halt CO2 by this amount by this date, and in most of their writing the date is immediately. It is also hard to figure out their name starts with “intergovernmental” meaning One World Government but the breakdown isn’t around the governments in power today. My point is if we the western world do our very best and we all know that isn’t likely, and other massive populations like say China and India don’t buy in. Should we even try? Where does the IPCC address how we best force these so called developing nations to knuckle down and do their part.

The root of the problem is people that’s the heart of manmade. Too many people equals manmade climate change. Nature has a way of balancing itself I wonder why the IPCC hasn’t factored that in. Like a population of whitetails when it grows too large a bad winter and lack of food will cull the herd. Maybe there will be a reset after manmade climate change kills off 90% of the population around the year 2100-2200 things will slowly reverse and start over. Maybe another pandemic only something stronger would be a better idea. Even nuclear war might be a better solution. Get it over quick not letting mankind kill each other over a bottle of water. We have to face the fact that fossil fuels and innovation has let the population both grow and live longer while advancing well beyond what we could have without it.

I hear a lot where the next generation is kind of giving up. I see celebrates saying they will never have kids as what is the point. Lots of younger people are convinced it is all but over so why try. I don’t think that’s going to be a nice world to live in.

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#328

Bud why don’t you try and paint that same future timeline you see as happening or is it only a requirement for science to predict an exact timeline. Is it not incumbent on your position to do so or do you think things will basically be the same if we just continue to pump increasing amounts of carbon pollution into the atmosphere.

Here is my take on the future. None of us can know exactly the timing or the scoop. The question is bogus. The uncertainty is inherent as we all well know. It is this uncertainty that becomes the reason for contingency planning. We all live in a small bubble of awareness. It is important to realize there is so much we don’t know.

How fast will the heat melt the majority of ice and thaw the permafrost releasing the trapped CO2 and methane? How fast will ocean acidification increase or how high will sea level rise? At what point will the added heat potentially lead to runaway planetary warming? These things will become/are outside of human control. They have also been happening more rapidly than has been predicted. Dang those onery scientist for being wrong about that, right?

The only way we can have an impact on the rapidity of these changes is by controlling our “ever-increasing” carbon pollution. We will be stuck with increasing heat and planetary impacts from the current level of atmospheric carbon even if we could be carbon neutral today. Unless the carbon currently in the atmosphere is intentionally reduced it will be with us for at least the next thousand years.

I don’t think we will prevent the ongoing human driven extinction event that is currently happening, nor do I see the world significantly reducing the carbon pollution in a really meaningfully way any time in the next twenty years (and pray I am wrong). I say this because the amount of yearly human caused carbon pollution has been increasing since the topic came to the public awareness in the 70s. Two songs come to mind Casey Jones and Locomotive Breath. I suspect many are fine with eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow may never come.

It isn’t that nature is constantly changing. It is the rapidly increasing rate of speed of this change that we are driving which is so destructive to the current life on the planet. We are unravelling the web of life. Humanity may prevail through it, but many life forms have already succumbed.

Cheers!

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#329

Can’t be too bad if the controlling body actually lets China and India ramp up emission. That’s duplicitous, telling me their spoken intentions are a lie.

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#330

Any idea on how (to what “controlling body” are you referring?) could stop China or Indian? By the way, India produces 40% less carbon pollution than the US.

To be fair the US has reduced our emissions by about 10% from their peak. But our 330,000,000 people still produce between 8 to 9 times more carbon pollution per person on average than the 1,400,000,000 people of India. It would take 2.6 billion people in India to match what our 3.3 million people produce in the US. We produce twice as much per person as China. Should we be removing the mote in their eye and ignore the log in ours?

#331

Well, saying (if I understand you) that it is all too much to do, we can’t control everything, and we might as well just keep doing what we are doing and enjoy what we can while we have the time, is one way to approach the situation we find ourselves in.

I take a different approach. Try our best to do what we can and make some difference. I do not see it in as an “either or”, as you seem to be painting the picture in your words. We can do something (collective we), and we can make some difference. The question is not so much (in my mind) if we can “prevent” climate warming from happening, we cannot. But we can change the current trajectory, reduce the warming to some amount less than it would otherwise result in. How much effect will our actions have? Well, that of course depends upon how much we (collective we) do. will it be enough to reduce the impacts in a significant way? We will find out. But I prefer to try, give it a good try, and know that we tried.

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#332

I dont trust those stats. Believe what you believe. No desire to try to convince anyone. I stated my reasons. I doubt many agree. I was trained to read deception, but my perception means nothing to anyone else. So I rest.

#333

The way to lower our percentage to that of China or India is simple. We need to assume their standard of living. I don’t believe they have a giant dome over China and India and measure what actually vents out to space from it. They know the population they know how much oil, gas, coal is extracted and how much is imported and they make a correlation based on that and other factors and come up with a number. If 1 in 50 people own a car in India and 1 in 100 in China and 1 in 2 in the USA, then similar numbers on how many heat/cool using fossil fuel or electric derived from fossil fuels except in the US the number is closer to 1 in 1 have comfortable living spaces because of fossil fuel. I know a handful of people who burn wood as a heat source and none burning dung. Then we can factor in the size of our homes per person living there. It all factors in when saying we have fewer people producing more CO2 per person.

I’m not saying burning wood or dung isn’t causing pollution and what I conceder a non pollution gas CO2 I’m just saying they likely are not factored in. When you have to shut down a 100 mile radius in order to have the Olympics because you can’t see 100 yards and need to where a N95 in order to breath, I wouldn’t call that good.

I don’t propose doing nothing and living like tomorrow may never come. What I’m saying is the messaging going out to our youth is pretty much that.

Where is the master plan? We know the goal its 1.5C and 10-20 years is the target. So on a global scale, how many new nuclear plants worldwide will be coming online per year over the next 20 years? How many in the US? How many old inefficient homes will be replaced in the US next year? Hopefully paid by someone other than the homeowner because they don’t have the money to do it. If we don’t have those new nuclear plants in mass or wind or solar farms how are we going to drive these EVs that even after the taxpayers give you 7500 bucks you still can’t afford. By the way if you work you will be in effect be giving yourself the 7500. When was the last time any of us went to the grocery store in a city bus with 40-50 other people. We don’t have subways where I live but I’m told in most of the big cities they are a very dangerous way to travel and running mostly empty are not great for the CO2 issue. How many of us have closed off most of the rooms in their homes to maybe just the kitchen, convert the dining room to a multi bunk bedroom and one bathroom. My home is 1500 sq ft and I could get by for the two of us with 500 or less. Some of this stuff is simple some not.

Lastly my God why don’t we have a national law banning carbonated drinks. I opened a root beer last night and it spewed CO2 like I was standing behind a Holstein. At least with the Holstein I could use the sun to dry the patty (solar energy) and then burned the dung inside and got some heat to offset the CO2.

I’m all in for doing my part. My social security just got a 3% raise and my electric bill went up 30%. So I will be using less electric I guess.

What’s the big plan?

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#334

And, as China adds fossil fuel fired power plants, they also lead the world in EV production. They seem to approach emission reduction from the economic and public health perspectives (we’ve all seen images of their filthy urban air), whereas we immediately get bogged down with warring ideologies. It doesn’t serve us, our environment, or our economy well.

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#335

Master Plan? Big Plan? That sounds like a government program you are wanting. Hmmm, maybe we should elect people who agree that we should be doing something about climate warming, or something…

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#336

Not really. Do you consider Italy and France to have a standard of living similar to China? Because China’s per capita CO2 production is greater than theirs.

No, that’s pretty much what you’re advocating.

Wait, you don’t believe in doing things on a global scale because (((globalism))) and the One World Government, so why ask this question?

People all over the world and in the US go to the grocery store on mass transit or by foot every day. As well, I’ve used subways in at least four major cities and have never had a problem, nor were they deserted as you claim.

#337

Don’t take me wrong. I’m not justifying China’s rush to continue building coal fired power plants. Just pointing out that we are still also a big part of this problem even though we are actually reducing our total carbon pollution. If I’m going to point fingers one has to be at us/me too.

My intent when I posted the original topic was to bring an awareness of the science that isn’t broadly covered by the media. I try to back up my points with the numbers.

Bud, no dome was required. This is the 21st century the atmospheric CO2 is measured from space. How do you think NASA generated these graphics?
NASA | A Year in the Life of Earth’s CO2 (youtube.com)

I happen to think if we are exposed to the knowledge of what’s behind things, we have a better chance of taking informed action.

#338

I dont buy statistics from people who have conflicting goals. Cities like New York, Detroit, Chicago and California. The first to complain about pollution, crime, overcrowding, homelessness, growing budget deficits are the loud mouths who boast of being SANCTUARY. They’re also first to label others as bigots, as they pack up the people they invited and export them. Like the Martha Vineyard welcome. Oh, welcome brothers, we already have low paid waiting staff, house cleaners and nannies, but Chicago has some street space for more tents. They now want to stop the flow they ignored or years. I call them liars and opportunists. It breeds crime, pestilence, overcrowds the schools and the health system, yet the local population has no clue or just ignores it. Iran stirs war in the region, deflects responsibility by imported terrorists to our country to disrupt our daily routines. One astute opportunist left Somalia and entered the US under a false identity, grts elected to represent the intellectuals on her NY district, then occupying a seat in the House of Representative, she goes on to blast this country as racist. She can go back home where her warlords wre stealing the humanitarian aid to starve out the opposition. She supports green energy, and she knows first hand what kind of hell.hole she fled.

China and Russia sending weapons to this latest debacle, while the US sends Billions in support to Hamas and Iran. We stop competing in the global oil market, which grows the Russian economy so it can continue its global domination. Save the planet, stop the CO2. Still waiting for an explanation about the above duplicity. Not buying anything else they spew until I cam sort that out. If someone lies to you, expect the next thing they say to be a lie!!!

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#339

No such justification inferred.
My observation was about the stark difference between China (either support the party line or go to prison) and our dueling tribes of ideological purists who will block any sort of progress if it involves the excommunicable offense of compromise.
China builds coal plants and is heading toward domination of global EV production with no sense of irony whatsoever. It’s simple. Support the autocratic pronouncements and be quiet. No additional thought required (or recommended).
Not so simple here, where just saying certain words in some crowds can get blood boiling and send any possibility of rational conversation down the rat hole (or worse). As RFK Jr said, “Democracy is messy, and it’s hard.” Still, if autocracy is the alternative, I’ll take our system, complete with all of its inefficiency and foolishness.

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#340

France has a high percentage nuclear and being much smaller than the US is second to us in nuclear production they are also an exporter of electric power. Italy is not an energy rich country and imports a large amount of it energy from countries like France. Both natural gas and pure electric are imported. We could follow France’s lead and start building a couple hundred new nuclear plants. The same crowd that wants green energy are also the NIMBY crowd. Maybe we could follow the Italy model and convince Canada to build the nuclear plants and send us down the power that would make us much cleaner or even if they want to burn coal it would make us look better.

One of the reasons for our improvements over the last 20 years is we have outsourced most of what we used to make here. I understand we all live on one earth and share it. I’m not an isolationist and understand we have a global economy. I happen to not think communism, socialism etc are models I will chose to live under and yes I’m against a one world government.

One great thing about our country is no one is keeping you here. If you don’t like living in a free country no one is going to make you stay here, and I use the term free lightly as things are changing. China may not take you but you are free to go or any of the socialist countries of your choice. In the last 3 years we have had between 10-20M people come here by simply crossing our southern border. We for the most part know little about them and they are coming from over 150 different countries and are being spread around the country with no real plan of what they will be doing. I don’t know how much of a CO2 footprint 20M people make but I bet it’s a little. The bigger question is how many US citizens have snuck into Mexico, China, Russia etc over the last 3 years seeking a better life.

You may be correct it may just be safer going shopping in our big cities by train or bus than actually shopping at the downtown CVS. My son lives in Phoenix and he called the other night and said he was at a liquor store and watched a guy push a shopping cart of bottles out the door as the person working there said Sir are you going to pay for that. My son went up to the counter with his one bottle and the guy said are you really going to pay for that? My son told him yes I am. That’s just how I was brought up.