1y ago

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are surging "faster than ever" to beyond anything humans ever experienced, officials say

www.cbsnews.com

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."

US News @lemy.lol

TVgog56789 @lemy.lol

1y ago

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are surging "faster than ever" to beyond anything humans ever experienced, officials say

www.cbsnews.com /news/carbon-dioxide-levels-surging-faster-than-ever-noaa-scientists/

Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics. @slrpnk.net

Five @slrpnk.net

1y ago

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are surging "faster than ever" to beyond anything humans ever experienced, officials say

www.cbsnews.com /news/carbon-dioxide-levels-surging-faster-than-ever-noaa-scientists/

Environment @beehaw.org

Chris Remington @beehaw.org

1y ago

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are surging "faster than ever" to beyond anything humans ever experienced, officials say

www.cbsnews.com /news/carbon-dioxide-levels-surging-faster-than-ever-noaa-scientists/

112 comments

Luckily, the fossil fuel companies told us it isn’t anthropogenic and not to worry about this so we will be okay. /s
- They’re also gunning for precedent of immunity from repercussions of wrongdoing through SCOTUS as we speak.
  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/09/fossil-fuel-allies-pressuring-supreme-court
  
  Won't save them from the mobs and pitchforks.
- 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.
  So that's a third taken care of right there!
  
  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.
When do we eat the rich and begin sabotaging these assholes private jets?
- Sorry best we can do is misunderstand the root causes and misdirect our rage to marginalized people and turn to full blown fascism
  
  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!
  
  And they're banning tracking private jets.
- 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.
  Bread and circuses.
  
  Most of those people are on the right fighting the valiant fight against 15 minute cities.
- You can start now.
- Fun fact: Teton County, Wyoming has the most billionaires per capita. Their jets are parked at the airport.
  Do with this information what you will.
  
  I like the cut of your jib.
- Wait... we aren't supposed to eat them yet?
  ...uh oh
- And stop dredging the ocean
- Because although likely immensely satisfying, it will not actually accomplish that much on it's own.
"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."
- Uh-oh
- The source:
  https://research.noaa.gov/2024/04/05/no-sign-of-greenhouse-gases-increases-slowing-in-2023/
- 7 degrees Fahrenheit would only cost like $20 a month more than what I already pay, if that.
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 seems like our only hope is a breakthrough in carbon capture.
  
  Carbon capture is a fools errand.
  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 :)
  
  Like planting trees? And stopping chopping down the rainforests?
- 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.
  
  Devalue money.
Climate scientists should have lit themselves on fire in public places to warn us.
It's their fault!
- If only they'd have said something. Repeatedly. For the last 50 years or so.
  Oh well, too late now. Better burn a bit more so oil execs can finish the game with a high score.
  
  For the last 50 years or so
  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.
  
  it's so true. i love your "high score" comment. we're all fucked right now because of this and there's no going back.
  i wish i knew you in real life
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.
- But an ice age would be a considerable change in climate.
- Bold of you to assume we aren't largely sterile as a species by the time the current generation has great grandchildren.
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.
What do you want from me?
I already gave up everything, life is just work eat(if lucky i get to eat enough) sleep.
You ate up the value of my income and keep making everything more expensive while not adjusting my wage AND telling me to work harder. Fuck no.
You fix it, i don't have the means.
- I feel like this was always the plan. Put the plebian frog in the pot of 9-5 corporate hellscape and slowly boil it. We're all too exhausted to fight.
  
  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
We are all going to die!
- 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.
  
  I hate to break this to you, but you’re not immortal. You will die.
  
  sings Descending...unrelenting...beauty of annihilation...
All those bombs and planes and tanks and drones and machinery of death emit CO2 - also the burning rubble and bodies
Look around, we're killing ourselves at every possible opportunity
- It's the factories in china, dude. Just like it has always been.
  
  Yeah cause only china has factories.
  
  At least lower your phone if you are going to bring china into this. China is producing for us all.
  We seriously need to lower consumption and sacrifice our way of life
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.
- That's hilarious. They could put a large dent in the climate problem for the same investment. Instead they're going full dystopian sci fi.
  
  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.
  
  On that id rather die with everyone living outside than the callous fuckers in their mountains. Ain't no I in team.
This fills me with anxiety and dread.
"It's fine"
...it is not the fall that hurts after all /s
Oopsie poopsie.
Burn baby burn it’s the disco inferno
https://youtu.be/u5lSeYd_riw?si=oOKOcSwpFt6H9Lcm
I am so fucking glad I don't have kids.
Americans gonna drag the whole world into hell with them.
- Really? Just America? Ok.
  
  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.

112 comments