Carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere hit record high in May

https://www.noaa.gov/news/carbon-dioxide-levels-in-atmosphere-hit-record-high-in-may

by jonbaer • 7 years ago

46 69 7 years ago

b_tterc_p2• 7 years ago

Normalized to seasonality and adjusting for uncommon events like volcanoes, shouldn’t this happen all the time?

burke• 7 years ago

I’m honestly curious how one could think this would happen “all the time” in any sort of measurement scheme without things having gone wrong as a prerequisite.

mikeash• 7 years ago

CO2 is at record highs and still increasing. Every month should be a record high.

b_tterc_p2• 7 years ago

I don’t know why you assumed I thought nothing was wrong with this. It’s obviously a bad thing.

I’m genuinely asking if total carbon dioxide levels are monotonically increasing normalized to the things I mentioned. Wouldn’t you be surprised if next May there is less CO2 in the atmosphere barring massive societal change?

josho• 7 years ago

“the rate of increase is accelerating”. I was under the impression that we were reducing emissions. It’s terrifying that the progress combating climate change is nothing more than lip service.

Fishkins• 7 years ago

I think people in developed countries are reducing their per capita emissions a bit. However, population is still increasing, and people in many countries are increasing their (material) standard of living in a way that increases emissions.

newnewpdro• 7 years ago

Globally? No, not even close.

China and now India coming online as industrialized nations with increasing quality of living can't possibly happen while reducing global emissions. We're talking about billions of additional people shifting towards the western quality of living.

flukus2• 7 years ago

I was under the impression that we were reducing emissions.

Outsourced would be a better description.

dragonsky• 7 years ago

It's amazing what you can show with a little creative book keeping.

derp_dee_derp• 7 years ago

Sigh

When will we learn?

I think the answer is incentives. Ideas?

keyle• 7 years ago

I suspect at some stage it's going to become unliveable.

So, some Musk-type crazy fella is going to solve it for everyone, become the town hero, get paid handsomely.

And we will just go one with our lives like nothing's happened... Dumb and belligerent.

waingake2• 7 years ago

I agree, setting the correct incentives seems like the obvious fix here. Environmental degradation is an externalized cost. It should be much more expensive to pollute than to not, until it is, things will not change.

One of many examples; single use plastic packaging should be expensive, but it's long term costs are all externalized away.

People do what makes economic sense, don't expect an individual let alone a corporate body to act in any other way. Which means that this is going to require regulation.

mac010215• 7 years ago

There is a bill in the US House of representatives[1] that is _exactly_ the right idea, but it doesn't have nearly enough support at the moment.

1. The state charges a fee to emit greenhouse gases.

2. The proceeds of that fee are divided equally amongst all residents of the nation in the form of a monthly check.

3. The actual bill imposes the fee upstream where the fuel is produced rather than where it is burnt, and imposes border adjustments to prevent outsourcing of emissions to other nations, but I don't want to get into all of that in this post.

4. It's a reasonably short bill[2]. You could probably read and understand every word in an hour.

You can look at this as a two-sided incentive - if you emit less than average, your dividend will be bigger than the fee that you pay and so you get extra spending money. If you emit more than average, then your fee is higher and you come out in the red. Some economic modeling dudes predict this incentive will cause the USA to emit 40% less within 12 years after the policy is implemented, but I honestly have no idea how reliable that prediction is.

However, while that incentive is great and probably exactly what we need, this policy would be the right, just thing to do even if it were not going to move the needle on our emissions rates.

The reason is that, every time [insert your favorite celebrity or business tycoon here] crosses the country in a private jet, they do a little damage to my future and my daughter's. They should reimburse us, and reimburse everyone else they're harming. When I decide to keep my 3000-square-foot house at 70F all through the New England winter, I'm harming your future and those of everyone you love. I should reimburse you.

This policy doesn't place hard limits on any kind of activity or consumption. But any time you're externalizing the cost of your emissions onto society at large, you have to compensate society for the damage.

[1]https://energyinnovationact.org/how-it-works/

[2]https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/763/...

rexpop6• 7 years ago

1. Organize your workplace.

2. Enact an industry-wide boycott of unsustainable firms.

3. Enjoy the weather.

tomglynch3• 7 years ago

I feel like a small fish incapable of making significant difference. I have reduced my emissions, ride a bike everywhere and am trying to eat mostly plant based foods. What else can I do?

Is there anyone here on HN that can make a bigger difference - any lawmakers, anyone connected with lawmakers, any high ups in a large company, any influencers? It is your obligation to help us - we need you to be our voice.

natch5• 7 years ago

The masses of macho guys and Trump voters aren’t converting to bike riding and veggie eating any time soon.

That’s why Tesla creating eco cars that out-muscle most muscle cars is so brilliant. It can show people who would never back down from big powerful cars that their fuel of choice is weak sauce.

I think it will be more effective than appealing to them with carrot juice and sprouts.

So... my advice is buy/lease a Tesla and show it around. At the very least you’ll have fun.

tomglynch3• 7 years ago

That's not a bad point - you gotta beat them before you change them.

flukus2• 7 years ago

So... my advice is buy/lease a Tesla and show it around. At the very least you’ll have fun.

If your current cars 20+ years old and on it's last legs then yes, if it's not then you'll create more pollution from manufacturing the Tesla than you'll (potentially) save.

waingake2• 7 years ago

Nope. It should be prohibitively expensive to own any other car but an electric car. Because the externalized costs of carbon should be fully reconciled in the price of fuel. With the extra tax revenue here, a government could subsidize electric vehicles.

If your fix is waiting on people ( that are wealthy enough ) to choose an electric car over a gasoline car so they feel good about themselves we aren't going to get where we need to be in time.

The economically viable thing to do, needs to be the right thing to do. This is a place for regulation, not the free fucking market.

adrianN5• 7 years ago

Tesla is not creating eco cars. While electric cars are better than equivalent ICE cars, Teslas are still too big and too heavy and have a pretty big impact just being manufactured. It takes many, many miles before a Tesla's manufacturing emissions are recouped by the electric drive.

mac010215• 7 years ago

To make a big difference you need to be social and political.

Going vegetarian makes a tiny difference. Tirelessly badgering everyone you know until 10 of them go vegetarian makes a difference 10 times as big.

Convincing 10 or 50 people to call their senators/reps about putting a price on carbon could have an impact an order of magnitude larger.

Lawmakers listen to their constituents when there is sufficient unity of thought among the constituency. And it has to be regular people that cultivate that unity of thought, through constant discussion of the problems and solutions with everyone they know.

...Now I just need to start to practice what I'm preaching...

hkyeti• 7 years ago

If everyone keeps eating steak and pork at the levels we do, then all the political effort won't be able to make up for it. At the end of the day, our individual actions need to happen or we won't be able to change the trajectory. Globally, meat consumption contributes more than transportation to climate change.

petre• 7 years ago

Tirelessly badgering everyone you know until 10 of them go vegetarian

Aka "How to get the cold shoulder" and make all your acquaintances avoid you.

rdm_blackhole2• 7 years ago

Don't have kids. Reduce the global population to a sustainable level where everybody has access to more resources in terms of healthcare and opportunities instead of having half the population barely survive on scraps. Put a price on carbon. Include the price of carbon emissions in every product sold in supermarkets.

inawarminister• 7 years ago

Number one and two has a dilemma. Those who inherits the future will be descended from those that deny that "solution". Earth is going to "die" anyway then.

But pricing carbon and other pollution externalities in is well and good solution, and hopefully will be achievable soon.

opportune2• 7 years ago

I am very far left and I definitely deny the solution of "don't have kids". A below-replacement birth rate would destroy civilized societies. We need to figure out how to reduce emissions per person, rather than just reducing the number of persons. Otherwise we end up in a world with a declining birth rate but a still-increasing median standard of living that continues to destroy the environment

adrianN5• 7 years ago

It's probably too late for population reductions to save us. If we want to stay below two degrees of warming, massive change needs to happen over the next fifteen years. Not having children, or delaying children can only help a little with this. You won't see a 90% reduction of the population in that timeframe, even if nobody had kids. Keeping population levels approximately constant or falling is important in the long term, but the climate catastrophe is by now a short term problem.

The only realistic way is a huge investment in renewable energy and storage, paired with a steep price on carbon emissions.

fulafel• 7 years ago

Global emission limiting treaties with robust incentive mechanisms are it I think. Once there's a good majority of countries on board, cajole and pressure the rest into the treaties by using trade agreements and other foreign policy casino chips.

labster3• 7 years ago

You can ensure that people vote for politicians that enact environmentally friendly policies. Most of us don't have the money to convince politicians to change their minds. But convincing 100 people to show up and vote is something everyone can do, through precinct walking, writing postcards, and just nagging your friends.

esalman• 7 years ago

Big Corp and media has created this impression that you, an individual, is responsible for this and need to do all the hard work. It basically takes the focus away from those big corps like oil, gas and other industries, which are responsible for the bulk of the emission and pollution.

The solution is nothing short of a political revolution. Need to elect and support politicians who will go after these big corps because they only fear tough legislations and nothing else.

tomglynch3• 7 years ago

Pity big corps are in both the politician's and the media's pockets. How do we work around this?

rdm_blackhole2• 7 years ago

The Earth's population keeps on increasing yet we are now facing the most prominent threat to us as a species.

This cannot go on forever if we don't start putting a maximum cap on our population, then we are heading for a disaster and the Earth itself is going to start doing what we have refused to do so so far.

Except that the reduction of our population will happen through heatwaves, pandemics, droughts...

Then what?

devoply• 7 years ago

Population follows production which is a result of technology and progress which is intrinsically linked with capitalism. Take away the population and consumption will still not decrease (as those left over will simply consume more) and neither will the pollution it produces. It's just an easy out to say hey if we could just get those other people to stop producing more people we'd be set though we know that's not really true. They don't consume nor produce nearly as much pollution, money, or technology as your average developed world person.

That being said yes we need to drastically reduce the population, but that really can't be done and will have to happen itself by appealing to the vanity and self-interest of people once they are integrated into the logic of the modern religion. Though as I said that still will not solve the problem. But hey at least there will be fewer people.

And if you think that this is not true, that development leads to declining population then why are all the rich countries still growing through immigration? Their local population has stopped reproducing due to logic of the markets and self-interest and narcissism sure but they continue to grow and if they stop growing everyone talks of it as if it's a horrible thing.

rexpop6• 7 years ago

the reduction of our population

What a dangerous idea.

Besides, it's not the issue of absolute population: it's emissions per capita that we should care about.

We could be doing a lot better per capita in these dimensions: - plastics & packaging, - energy use, - military pollution, - advertising & marketing bullshit, - bullshit products manufacturing

There's a lot of inefficiency in current economy, which is supported by industrial consent manufacturing.

vraid2• 7 years ago

The atmosphere doesn't care how much or little we emit per capita. Total emissions is what should worry us.

nonbel4• 7 years ago

One thing that bugs me is they measure CO2 levels in ppm instead of moles/m^3 (or whatever would be appropriate). Why is the denominator assumed constant? Why can't nitrogen, oxygen, argon, water vapor, etc be changing too?

In fact people have been extracting N2 from the atmosphere at scale for ~120 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process

And apparently O2 has been depleting as well: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5138252/

We are at the point where gradeschoolers are questioning why the tables of atmospheric constituents don't add up to 100%:

Two recent reliable sources cited here have total atmospheric compositions, including trace molecules, that exceed 100%. They are Allen's Astrophysical Quantities[5] (2000, 100.001241343%) and CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics[4] (2016–2017, 100.004667%), which cites Allen's Astrophysical Quantities. Both are used as references in this article. Both exceed 100% because their CO2 values were increased to 345 ppmv, without changing their other constituents to compensate. This is made worse by the April 2019 CO 2 value, which is 413.32 ppmv. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth#cite_note-...

gregallan• 7 years ago

If you're saying that moles/m^3 of CO2 might be constant while pmm of CO2 is increasing, that implies that atmospheric pressure at sea level is dropping. And it isn't.

rabidrat• 7 years ago

The temperature is increasing, though...

nonbel4• 7 years ago

I'm not saying it is constant. Where do you see that?

Also, who says the pressure isn't dropping? Can that even be measured to detect such a small difference?

And the volume and/or temperature of the troposphere could change instead.

Finally, what about water vapor compensating?

surge3• 7 years ago

How much of it is actually us though? I thought most of our emissions are going down overall its overseas developing countries with few if any regulations and little enforcement of the ones that do exist causing most of it? WTH can we do about it?

All we can do is plant trees.

adrianN5• 7 years ago

Our emissions aren't going down fast enough by any measure. Per capita "the west" is still outproducing China and India by a very large margin. We're doing basically nothing to meet the goals of the Paris agreement.

rexpop6• 7 years ago

most of our emissions are going down

I don't think so. [1] Besides, we're still #14 in emissions per-capita. [2]

developing countries with few if any regulations and little enforcement

Not sure where you're getting this idea.

All we can do is plant trees.

On the contrary, we can do much more. The first step is to organize your workplace. The second step is an industry-wide commercial boycott of polluting firms. In solidarity with similar worker-led movements in the Global South, we can collectively bring the Climate Change Industry to its knees, allowing sustainable business to thrive.

1. https://i1.wp.com/fabiusmaximus.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhous...

surge3• 7 years ago

Not sure where you're getting this idea.

The amount of smog observed overseas. Just reading the news.

labster3• 7 years ago

Logic like this leads to no one addressing the problem, ever. Buy local products that use less energy to transport. Reduce, reuse, recycle -- in that order. Pay for energy efficiency. Lobby your government. Stop blaming other people when you are part of the problem too.

surge3• 7 years ago

What if I'm already doing that, and the CO2 emissions are still going up every year?

What if the feedback loop is causing a run away effect?

I feel as an individual, mostly helpless. You say buy local but most of the things your suggesting actually cost more (like buying local and becoming vegetarian).

anigbrowl• 7 years ago

I posted this the other day and nobody was interested but it seems relevant here: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/148cb0_b2c0c79dc4344b279bcf23...

Carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere hit record high in May

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