What is the net zero CO2 level?

[Joe P]

David,

Maybe the summer wildfires will burn it to desert?

I wasn’t close enough to this summer’s wildfires to worry about my casa burning to the ground — thankfully — but the air was so thick with particulates that several outdoor events were cancelled. Prevailing winds sent the worst of it south of the border to New York and other states. Sorry about that.

I’d like to submit this as evidence that (a) environmental predictions of doom have come true and that (b) climate change has affected life, moderately for me, significantly for any one and any thing in and near the forest fires.

Joe

 

[clivem2]

Climate change is of course having serious impacts already…with I / we expect much more to come. The “I’m alright Jacks” will no doubt deny to their very end.

I’m another person who’s not doing anywhere near enough to help reduce emissions so I’m little better. I have modified my lifestyle in some ways but like many feel, it seems a bit futile until we majorly restructure the way the world works. Doing this bottom-up is part of slowing the impact of climate change but serious top-down changes are needed too. This will I fear only happen when the planet is in a much worse state and even then a few countries will capitalise on the situation to build an empire…

 

[stevec67]

Dan,



It’s nuts. The evidence is staring us in the face and yet we're still doing far too little. I’m in Canada, it’s winter, and the temp is +14C right now.

Joe

I think that the situation is that most people have become fatalistic about the future events, it's all too difficult. I liken them to my close friend, who spent the 30+ years I knew him being catastrophically overweight. He was about 6'1 and 20st (280 lb, 120 kg) giving him a BMI of 37 or so. Up to 40 he didn't care. He carried on eating and drinking as before. After 40 he was going to sort it out, lose weight and get fit. He didn't. By 50 he was skirting Type 2 diabetes, which his brother had. So he was going to sort it out, lose weight and get fit. He didn't. At 60, we will never know because he didn't get that far. He died this year aged 59 of a stroke, his second in a year. He was going to sort it out, lose weight and get fit, though. He didn't. He always talked a good game, but didn't do it. I suspect that most people do this in the face of an oncoming climate disaster.

 

[stevec67]

Are you ignoring trees and plants consuming CO2?

Are you serious? Read the article. Then, in the light of the article, the points made and the science therein, consider how likely it is that Dan hasn't factored in that plants capture CO2.

 

[matt j]

I’ve suddenly noticed lots of TV adverts for ‘BYD’. UK consumers will lap them up because they’re ‘cheap’. Well, as long as folk ignore the coal being burned and the effective funding of a communist state, which they will….

A stand-out trait of the Brits, knowing the price of everything but the value of nowt.

 

[Joe P]

Steve,

Your story rings true for a few I’ve known over the years. In fact, I have a blood relation with exactly the same name who had a fatal heart attack at ~50. The other Joe P struggled with weight as far back as I can recall. One day he struggled no more.

———

Not Steve,

About plants … they are obviously adept at taking carbon dioxide out of the air. It’s their raison d’être after all. But they don’t remove anywhere near enough to offset emissions. If they did atmospheric CO2 concentration wouldn’t be rising year after year, decade after decade since the Industrial Revolution.

Joe

 

[stevec67]

Steve,

Your story rings true for a few I’ve known over the years. In fact, I have a blood relation with exactly the same name who had a fatal heart attack at ~50. The other Joe P struggled with weight as far back as I can recall. One day he struggled no more.

———

Not Steve,

About plants … they are obviously adept at taking carbon dioxide out of the air. It’s their raison d’être after all. But they don’t remove anywhere near enough to offset emissions. If they did atmospheric CO2 concentration wouldn’t be rising year after year, decade after decade since the Industrial Revolution.

Joe

Here's a thing. The plants spend millions of years turning atmospheric CO2 into more plants, they eventually die and some of them turn into coal. Millions of tonnes of them. Meanwhile millions upon millions of sea organisms die and turn into oil over the course, once again, of millions of years. Then all this carbon, that has been hidden away in the earth for millions of years is burnt over the course of about 150 years. The burning of these billions of tonnes of oil and coal over a short timespan of 100-150 years may (a) not really make much difference to things or (b) have an absolutely huge impact on life on Earth. Let's see now, what do we think?

 

[Joe P]

Steve,

I’m going with option B. And the mass are just the icing on that

Joe

 

[davidsrsb]

I watched a YouTube video last night explaining how all the Earths coal is the same age.
360 million years ago, plants developed lignin, which allowed woody stems. Nothing could digest lignin, so dead plants built up and became coal. Then 300 million years ago the fungi could digest lignin and dead plants no longer built up unchecked. End of new coal.
So what we are burning now is 60 million years of carbon capture