‘We are in trouble.’ Global carbon emissions reached a record high in 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ener...c=al_news__alert-world--alert-national&wpmk=1
Thats great given the greening of the planet this has been causing over recent decades. Longer growing seasons with greater crop yields. Whats not to like ?
"Don’t get your hopes up. We don’t know how far into the future the greening trend will continue as the CO₂ concentration ultimately peaks while delayed global warming continues for decades after. Regardless, it is clear that the benefits of a greening Earth fall well short compared to the estimated negative impacts of extreme weather events (such as droughts, heat waves, and floods), sea level rise, and ocean acidification." https://www.iflscience.com/environment/rising-carbon-dioxide-greening-earth-it-s-not-all-good-news/
So how far back exactly does this so called record high take into account? Record since man started keeping records is a blink of Earth's eye and completely meaningless.
Is this a serious question? If it was meant as sarcasm then I apologize for the explanation below. This record goes back ad infinitum. The reason is because we don't have any evidence that man was releasing CO2 in any significant quantity until about 1850 (give or take). So whether you're thinking 3 billion years ago, or 3 million years ago, or even just 3 thousand years ago it's safe to assume that man's emissions were close to 0 gigatons. The idea is that if man did not exist or if our technological capacity was inferior then we couldn't have possibly released any CO2 with any significance into the atmosphere in the distant past. This is called first principal reasoning because it's so obvious that it does not require any formal evidence gathering step. Now, if you do have evidence that man's emissions were > 37 Gts prior to 1959 then I will concede the point. But, I'm feeling pretty good about my statement above.
+37 Gts/yr of CO2 is equivalent to +4.7 ppm/yr of emissions. The ocean scrubs out on the order of 50% or so which is why atmospheric concentrations come in around +2.0-2.5 ppm/yr. As a point of reference the 1990-2000 average growth rate was +1.5 ppm/yr. From 2000-2010 it was +2.0 ppm/yr. And from 2010-2018 it is +2.3 ppm/yr. On a related note...the ocean's ability to scrub out excess CO2 emissions declines as it warms.
Well, no sense being accurate, or honest about it. I suppose that your feeling good about it indicates that cloud of smug I normally associate... Good job.
I take it you don't feel good about it? What evidence can you present that would indicate that humans were pumping out > 37 gigatons of CO2 in the past?
In the intervening time, how much natural CO2 was pumped out? Are we really supposed to be that concerned when nature pumped ~1000 GT during the same period? That seems to be the purposefully omitted stat in your little discussion. Now, that ~1000 GTs may actually be significantly more, our ability to calculate it in it's entirety is super immature and statistically well outside of any actual exact measurement...
Funny you focus in man's emissions while the headline of the OP never mentions man, it merely says "global emissions" This is an obvious scare tactic to convince people earth has never seen these levels of CO2 before. If you want to concentrate on man's emissions though how's that Paris Accord working out for you guys? Not so well I guess.
Again, based on first principal reasoning alone I can tell you that natural CO2 emissions have always been greater than human emissions and by a long shot at that. Yes. Why should we not be concerned? Natural emissions are irrelevant to the discussion of human emissions. In other words, it doesn't matter at all what the natural emission flux is. It has absolutely no influence on how much humans are emitting. It also has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that human emissions are at all time record highs. It also has nothing to do with the fact that this record goes back ad infinitum. That was the original question I was responding to. I'm not saying that natural emission aren't an important consideration. I'm just saying they don't have anything to do with the article in the OP or my response to Josephwalker.
It was obvious to me from the get-go even from the headline alone that the article was specifically addressing human emissions. I do agree that the phrase "we are in trouble" in the headline is pandering though. I would say that the Paris Accord has been ineffective at least so far. In fact, a couple of studies in 2017 concluded that many ratifying countries have not met their pledges and the 2.0C is warming target does not appear to be realistic at this point. And we know that one country has said they will not make any pledges to lower emissions and instead will enact policies that may work to encourage even more emissions. So yes, I would agree that it's not working out so well. I'm starting to realize that tecoyah's viewpoint that 3.0C+ of warming really may be inevitability.
Hmm.. This seems super myopic. It's like suggesting that it doesn't matter if the sun rises. Every once in a while, you must get out of the tiny little bubble of group think. Even if human contributions entirely ceased, the acceleration of natural CO2 production wouldn't, and if our CO2 is problematic, how on earth are you going to get mother nature to stop her contributions? It's like asking the world to stop oxidation. It isn't going to happen.
I'm not making a broad and generalized claim that natural emissions don't matter. I'm saying they don't influence human emissions and are thus irrelevant in the discussion of human emission fluxes. Why would I want to stop natures contributions? Why do you think natural CO2 production will accelerate?
You say.. CO2 bad. Ok, all CO2 bad. You don't get to have it both ways here. Natural emissions of CO2 have been expanding, our meticulous record keeping on the subject tells us this. What, suddenly a data denier? Now isn't that rich. Of course, adding a superficial qualifier like "acceleration" indicates that you believe you can demonstrate a trigger that frankly, you know you cannot, but you tried it anyways..... The question cannot be overlooked. If suddenly man stopped all CO2 contributions, the ~<4% of total CO2 suddenly stopped, and within say 10 years, natural CO2 production filled the gap, and total CO2 was what current plus Anthropogenic indicate, you're still faced with the same math. You cannot escape this. So, ask the sun not to rise. It would be about as effective. And while we're at it, what do you suppose the cost of dumping the availability to sustainable renewable energy will be on the environment? I mean, all those little kids digging out cobalt are dying, literally, on your decision.
I don't think all CO2 is all bad. Afterall, if it weren't for CO2 the Earth would be really cold. CO2 concentrations have been locked into an incredibly narrow range of 260 to 280 ppm over the last 10,000 years during the current interglacial period. And when you zoom on the most recent 1000 years you'll see that CO2 concentrations had actually been declining, albeit at a very slow rate. Natural emissions of CO2 were not expanding. It was only during industrialization starting in the 1800's did the expansion of CO2 concentrations happen and that was a direct result of anthroprogenic emissions. FYI, I'm not the one who added the "superficial qualifier" like "acceleration". That was all your doing. Let's talk about this shall we. First, understand that CO2 is both in a feedback with the temperature and can catalyze temperature changes itself. Second, understand that the oceans scrub out ~50% of the excess emissions that are not yet balanced with absorptions and that the effectiveness of this scrubbing behavior declines with increasing temperature. So what would happen if we ceased all anthroprogenic CO2 emissions? Would natural emissions fill the gap so to speak? It's a good question. We don't think so. Or at least we don't think the feedback is runaway such that any catalyzation of temperature will cause the system to runaway indefinitely. And there's good reason to think so. Remember what I said about the ocean. The natural CO2 flux is actually negative at about -2.3 ppm/yr. Once the anthroprogenic pulse ceases the natural flux should decelerate as it declines from -2.3 ppm/yr to 0 ppm/yr due to the fact that the ocean absorption is anomalously high as nature tries to fight the anthroprogenic source. Once the anthroprogenic source ceases the ocean won't have to fight as hard to re achieve the equilibrium. What the IPCC is largely silent on though is tipping points. Is there a point at which the temperature rises so high that it activates a tipping point such that natural fluxes flip from negative to positive? If that's the case then natural emissions might "fill the gap" where anthroprogenic emission left off. But, who is responsible for that tipping point activation? We are because it wouldn't have happened had humans not interfered with the system. That is, an increase in temperature activated the tipping point and we are responsible for the initial increase temperature. Again, there isn't a consensus regarding this issue yet which is why the IPCC mostly ignores it. Although recently research since AR5 was published suggests that we should be concerned about the possibility. It's all the more reason to keep our CO2 emissions in check so that we don't activate a tipping point and cause further damage. I don't know. But certainly the consequences of the introduction of a new energy source needs to be weighed against what we currently have. You don't want to replace one harmful resource with one that is more harmful. Of course, this ignores the fact that new energy sources WILL be introduced whether or not an environmental impact study is completed because fossil fuels are a finite resource that WILL run out. Nevermind that we only just began the environmental impact study for fossil fuels in the 1990's with the IPCC long after we started using them so it's not like humans have a stellar track record in regards to our concern for the environmental. We've learned though.
I'm curious, since forest fire prevention and fighting is a relatively recent policy, how much do you think uncontrolled fires might have contributed to the release of CO2 in historic times?
A question I've asked myself. I'm a history buff especially on the old west and much of what I've read talks about not seeing the sun all summer in the west as fires burned until it snowed.
I don't know. It's a good question. Are you thinking it's possible these "historic" wildfires were anthroprogenic?
No, I don't think so, although it's quite likely ancient man started a fire or two. I imagine most fires are caused by nature - lighting strikes for example. There are species of plant that have evolved to use fire as a means of propagation. That indicates wild fire must have been consistent and frequent. Imagine the CO2 released from what must have been mega fires running unchecked over millions of acres of untouched forests around the world. Just curious if that has ever been studied.
Most were lightning but indians were intense managers of forest through burning which created browse to attract game. https://www.savetheredwoods.org/blog/forest/native-american-use-of-fire/ "contrast, the relative impact of Native American burning in the coastal portions of California was probably quite significant. Ethnographic studies and other historical documents show that California Indians were responsible for extensive burning and type-conversion of chaparral and other shrublands to grasslands in order to increase favored game species, protect themselves from predators (the favored habitat of the California grizzly bear was chaparral), and as a tool of warfare. They almost certainly increased fire frequencies over what was naturally possible due to lightning. For example, in the 153,000 acre Santa Monica Mountain National Recreation Area only 2 lightning fires have been recorded over the past 25 years. Ecosystems within the coastal region of Southern California were likely the most heavily impacted by Native American burning and may have ultimately set the stage for the successful spread of invasive European grasses in the early 1800's. Southern California oak savannas in the past, such as those seen along US Highway 101 between Lompoc and San Luis Obispo, were likely covered by an understory of sage scrub, not grass as we see today (see photos below). Native Americans probably began the elimination of sage scrub in favor of grass in these areas by burning, a process that was accelerated by Spanish and American ranching activity. Suggestions that Native American burning activity was an essential and natural part of the oak woodland environment are not reasonable when the ecosystem thrived for millions of years prior to the arrival of human beings on the North American continent. The important point is that Native American burning practices were performed to modify the landscape in an artificial manner and probably resulted in the elimination of large tracts of native shrubland communities"/ http://www.californiachaparral.com/enativeamericans.html
So, for the sake of the conversation, I deleted adding all of your stock commentary, it's there for folks to read. Clearly, you cannot create an effective argument about the non anthropogenic growth of CO2, so why bother? As to this last part of your comment. I would assert that fossil fuels are absolutely not finite. They may become more costly to synthesize from the environment, but their availability isn't arbitrarily finite. Based on that knowledge then, it makes a difficult set of trade offs then part of the future discussion about sources. We know that sources like wind, and solar are incapable of always being on, or available. Just the nature of it. we also know that they are in vast portions of the world unable to keep up, or otherwise find sufficient density to provide the necessary cheap available energy that our modern world and lifestyle requires. We know these things. And even covering vast swaths of the earth with solar still is as breakable as the next cloud bank What all of these things require then is reserve capacity. That means energy storage in something, either durable batteries, or other devices. The unfortunate reality about our current technology is that producing these batteries, and of course all of the devices that manage and store them are dependent on ripping from the ground those minerals that support them. Often at the cost of human misery and slavery in support of our technology. Kids, dying in the DRC hunting Cobalt. Intercene wars across the African continent as tribalism overcomes both technology and force projection in the pursuit of other essentials, like rare earth, silver, gold, platinum, etc. To what end? To assuage your angst over the possibility, not even the definitive, but the possiblity that we might calm the average temp of the globe by a couple tenths of a degree and satisfy those, like the UNIPCC directors in their demand for global political dominion? Really? That's the real case here. Suffer the world so the world can be reshackled to an unsustainable, fragile energy source to add additional social controls and oppression. That's truly what you are advocating for. And whether you know it or not, your advocacy continues to push the needle towards that goal that you yourself have stated which is "deep, transformative" economic restructuring. That is the world you yearn for, it seems.
