Planet-warming greenhouse gases are "building up, much like trash in a landfill," one researcher said.
One of the major drivers of the exceptional heat building within Earth's atmosphere has reached levels beyond anything humans have ever experienced, officials announced on Thursday. Carbon dioxide, the gas that accounts for the majority of global warming caused by human activities, is accumulating "faster than ever," scientists from NOAA, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of California San Diego found.
"Over the past year, we've experienced the hottest year on record, the hottest ocean temperatures on record, and a seemingly endless string of heat waves, droughts, floods, wildfires and storms," NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said in a press release. "Now we are finding that atmospheric CO2 levels are increasing faster than ever."
I've also been told that despite emitting close to a third of the world's over all emissions, China produces less per capita than some developed countries so climate change is giving them a pass.
That’s the scapegoat argument from US industry and politicians. The only reason the US is second to China in carbon emissions is because of the excessive outsourcing of US manufacturing to China.
The US is responsible for the most carbon emissions worldwide.
Which in turn leads to war, which destroys the environment tenfold, making sure even the slim chance of humanity coming through this as anything resembling civilisation even slimmer. We're thoroughly fucked. But hey, we created sooo much value for shareholders!
There's gotta be people who have nothing to lose who are willing to start doing crazy fucked up shit, even if dying in the process.
I wonder how many there are, and what the spark would be for them to start going nuts.
But maybe also, there just aren't that many willing or rock bottom yet. Maybe we're mostly still comfortable, albeit unhappy. Might take a few more decades of business as usual.
"The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere today is comparable to where it was around 4.3 million years ago during the mid-Pliocene epoch," NOAA said, "when sea level was about 75 feet higher than today, the average temperature was 7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than in pre-industrial times and studies indicate large forests occupied areas of the Arctic that are now tundra."
Until someone finds a way to combat climate change that also grows the GDP and makes all of the lines go up then what's the point of taking any action? Profit is the only thing that matters above the lives of any human or animal. If it's not profitable to fight climate change how can that be a good decision? Lol imagine making a decision that's not profitable. Imagine doing something that doesn't make the line go up! This is why nobody takes scientists and liberals and leftists seriously. Do you even realize the profit impact of what you're suggesting? GDP must only go up. UP UP UP
It takes just as much energy to get the carbon out of the air as it did to put it there in the first place. You can’t fight thermodynamics.
So unless we discover cheap, plentiful fusion in the next few years, or dedicate half a continent to solar and wind farms, we aren’t getting back any more carbon than we burn already.
You expect me to pay for that with MY taxes when I can already barely afford anything because capitalist business owners are sucking the wealth generated by my productivity into their own bank accounts?
Facetiousness aside you can maybe tell I have some other ideas about economic changes which might help :)
100% this. Corporate incentives need to change. Money is the only primary corporate incentive right now, everything else is secondary and works towards that primary goal. Without a change that puts that goal in check, it will increasingly bring ruin on a global scale.
Multiply that by 3 and you're nearly correct. The first "quantitative prediction of global warming due to a hypothetical doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide" was published in 1896 by Svante Arrhenius, building on research from John Tyndall as far back as 1859. Source: Wikipedia, but with appropriate citations to the works in question.
I get that it's a bit inappropriate to be flippant and make jokes but if I worried about this every time I saw a headline about it I'd die from my adrenal glands exploding and melting a hole through the back of my computer chair.
this is exactly why we should have a worldwide 4 day work week
because no one has the energy to be a decent person or improve the world when you struggle 5 days, are exhausted and recovering 1 day, and spend 1 day doing errands and bills and getting ready for the next 5 miserable days
My first guess on the title was : "this should be caused by a positive feedback with forest fires in the loop".
...so, I went and read this Wikipedia article : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_feedbacks
... and it says :
(...) Carbon cycle uncertainty is driven by the large rates at which CO2 is both absorbed into plants and released when biomass burns or decays. For instance, permafrost thaw produces both CO2 and methane emissions, in ways that are difficult to model. (...)
But it also says that this one is not the most important feedback loop.
Not all of us. Realistically not me (46) or my kids (13, 11, 11) because we are Canadian but in the next 59 years? A lot of poor and brown ppl are going to die and we are going to collectively shrug. I'm genuinely curious what is going to be the event to push rich white countries to act.
Long story short, enjoy the ride. We don't know what the fuck we're doing.
Spain has begun the planning for 100 human arcs (salvavidas as they call them). Each arc is a complex built into one of several mountain sides and each will hold 1000 people with room for hydroponics etc. The plan is that construction begins by 2030 and the lottery is held near 2037 when they’re nearing completion. But if you’re not a citizen or resident of Spain you’re not eligible for the lottery. Everyone else will fry unless your country is planning something similar.
The reason that climate efforts are being largely ignored at the top levels is because most world leaders have had it made known to them that climate is now beyond repair and we are in a death spiral. We are more or less in a countdown to collapse as each year climate worsens. The “efforts” being humored are largely pacification strategies for the masses. The masses are also self-soothing by embracing right-wing fascism.
The best gift you could bequeath your children at this point is a plot of land in a secluded cool forested place with a well and some cleared area for growing food.
Yep. China's leaving us so far behind in green investment that America's banning theyre EVs because theyre so affordable they put our ICE SUV sales at risk.