another gloomy milestone reached

[Seeker]

We have just reached 415 ppm of C02 in the atmosphere.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/12/co...human-history/

[SV650rules]

https://www.climatedepot.com/2013/05...pecial-report/

Plants grow much better with more atmospheric Co2, which is what we need to support the massive number of humans we expect the planet to absorb. Birth control will save the planet not electric vehicles and wind turbines.

Originally Posted by SV650rules

https://www.climatedepot.com/2013/05...pecial-report/

Plants grow much better with more atmospheric Co2, which is what we need to support the massive number of humans we expect the planet to absorb. Birth control will save the planet not electric vehicles and wind turbines.

You are so right, the biggest problem we have is human over population, but politically that is a really unpopular thing to say. We keep avoiding the issue with lots of daft green ideas like using lots more power to produce slightly more efficient new cars or wind turbines that don’t work on still days, but avoid the real issue because it isn’t going to win many votes.

Ho hum. I do my bit by limiting myself to two cars and 4 bikes (although the Bloop may produce as much smoke as the rest of Northamptonshire).

This is the much gloomier prediction:




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[Seeker]

Originally Posted by SV650rules

Plants grow much better with more atmospheric Co2

unfortunately, that is not as true as once believed (2018 article):
https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...nefit-plants1/

The article you quoted is from Marc Morano a Republican climate skeptic who works for a group that denies the scientific consensus on climate change.

yes, CO2 has been higher in the past but not with 7.5 billion people. We lose 50% of food production through wastage but what happens when major crop growing areas no longer are capable of producing - the US mid west for example. CO2 is going to be the trigger for a massive methane release which will be unstoppable. Methane levels are already climbing and methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. There is a wide range of predictions on the amount of methane hydrates store in stable form in the world's oceans ranging from 100 to 500,000 gigatons but it is only stable when kept very cold (and under extreme pressure), warm the oceans and it gets released. As someone in his 60s, I used to think this would not affect me directly but now I am not so sure and it will definitely affect my children.

Personally, I think we're screwed, but I'm unsure whether that's a good thing or not (but I have a cynical outlook). Unless we think of this as a species survival problem we are all candidates for Darwin awards.

Climate change happens anyway of course, the world would have been inhospitable to us humans lots of times in the past (we have only been around for 2,000,000 years), so it may be the thing that kills us off. Are we affecting climate change - very probably yes, and the biggest driver is inexorable human population growth, which we do nothing whatsoever about.

Maybe what happens is that climate change kills off our species, earth recovers and some other species adapts to take our place (and wonders where all that concrete came from)? That is just evolution.

Electric cars and wind turbines won’t do much to stop that happening.

Ho hum.


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[SV650rules]

The dinosaurs were a lot tougher than us and they got wiped out. Think of humans as a cancer on the planet, committed to expanding whatever the cost and a not very clever parasite which will kill its only host. Let's face it we are just a naked ape who got too greedy, and thought we were oh so clever but we are obviously not..... Good planets are very difficult to come by, we had the best and blew it with our stupidity, all this talk of colonizing Mars is pie in the sky ( well actually its a pie that is a bit further away then that ).

Originally Posted by SV650rules

The dinosaurs were a lot tougher than us and they got wiped out. Think of humans as a cancer on the planet, committed to expanding whatever the cost and a not very clever parasite which will kill its only host. Let's face it we are just a naked ape who got too greedy, and thought we were oh so clever but we are obviously not..... Good planets are very difficult to come by, we had the best and blew it with our stupidity, all this talk of colonizing Mars is pie in the sky ( well actually its a pie that is a bit further away then that ).

It is just evolution - all species are programmed by nature to maximise themselves. Whatever we do I don’t think we will destroy the Earth, but we may make it so it is not viable for us humans and similar mammals. You are right, Earth is a nice place, a Goldilocks planet and possibly even unique in the Universe (although there is a compelling statistical argument that says there must be some other good places that might support life as well).

We (our species) won’t do anything about the overpopulation problem, rather we will make ourselves feel good with some daft green ideas - drive electric cars whilst people install hot tubs in their gardens - what nonsense.

Ho hum ... on with converting some dinosaurs into noise.


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[SV650rules]

Humans are also hooked on cheap air travel and cruises, massive amount of Co2 produced. Did anyone see the number of private jets flying to Davos for climate change conference ? At least 1500 flights which is a massive amount of Co2, makes me wonder if it is as serious as they make it out to be or is a massive tax scam, making climate change into a developed country problem means it is taxable, trying to tax children in the third world would produce no revenue at all....

I did notice that when 9/11 happened and no flights for two weeks in USA people were posting pictures of how blue and clear the skies were. Also when the volcano in Iceland erupted and they stopped flights in UK and Europe how clear and blue our skies were, just as I remember them as a kid growing up....

I saw an article years ago that worked out how much resources the average person would use in a 70 year lifetime, it was a frightening amount, now multiply that by 9 billion, this planet simply cannot afford humans so will simply get rid of us and then start recovering itself ......

There was an item on the news last week - a big fanfare about being the first day in UK we had not had to use coal to generate electricity, what they didn't say was we now use massive amounts of gas to make electricity, we would rather burn gas at 50% efficiency to make electricity to heat homes than use it in domestic boilers at approaching 95% efficiency for heat - madness. Until heat pumps become cheaper and more common will we get equal or more overall efficient heating than condensing boilers.

[Adam Ef]

I did this recently...
https://footprint.wwf.org.uk/#/
and got a score of 92% of the 2020 target.


If I'm only just making the target and I don't fly (mainly due to not being able to afford it), mostly cycle everywhere, hardly ever buy new items (electronics etc), rarely buy clothes etc and am vegetarian, I imagine it's going to take some massive changes to the average person with disposable income's lifestyle to get anywhere near the target.


George Monbiot was on the radio a while back talking about what we could do to improve the situation. He said that part of the problem was that we all think we're doing the right thing and solving it all by reusing drinks bottles and not using plastic bags, but in fact those things will make hardly any difference at all. We all just consume too much of everything.


There was a video that did the rounds online a while ago of a huge strong track cyclist trying to power a toaster with a bicycle linked to a generator. He put out a crazy amount of watts of power for as long as he could before nearly collapsing and just about managed to turn a piece of bread very slightly brown, just starting to toast. If we all had to do that for all the power we used I think we'd all be sitting in the dark every night and eating cold, raw foods.

[Adam Ef]

+ reports like this don't really help clarify the problems...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBD2qNFXpI


Pack your bags lighter so that the plane uses less fuel, but more people packed into the same space (cheap seats tip) and the extra weight doesn't make the plane use more fuel?