Planet-Heating Pollutants in Atmosphere Hit Record Levels in 2023 52
The concentration of planet-heating pollutants clogging the atmosphere hit record levels in 2023, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has said. From a report: It found carbon dioxide is accumulating faster than at any time in human history, with concentrations having risen by more than 10% in just two decades. "Another year, another record," said Celeste Saulo, secretary-general of the WMO. "This should set alarm bells ringing among decision makers." The increase was driven by humanity's "stubbornly high" burning of fossil fuels, the WMO found, and made worse by big wildfires and a possible drop in the ability of trees to absorb carbon. The concentration of CO2 reached 420 parts per million (ppm) in 2023, the scientists observed. The level of pollution is 51% greater than before the Industrial Revolution, when people began to burn large amounts of coal, oil and fossil gas.
People aren't evolved for this (Score:2, Flamebait)
The average person lacks the capacity to comprehend the risk or evaluate corrective actions. It's too big, too slow, and the evidence is too complex. Understanding is easily overwhelmed by short term concerns and greed.
Things will need to get very bad before enough people will care to act, unless we get a nice wave of existential panic going in the mob. Which would bring other issues that might be just as problematic.
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Indeed.
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The average person lacks the capacity to comprehend the risk or evaluate corrective actions. It's too big, too slow, and the evidence is too complex. Understanding is easily overwhelmed by short term concerns and greed.
Things will need to get very bad before enough people will care to act, unless we get a nice wave of existential panic going in the mob. Which would bring other issues that might be just as problematic.
People, can hold the capacity to understand.
Corporate Greed, doesn’t have the patience for that shit.
A perfect example of this, is Corporate Greed insisting on putting millions of tailpipes back on congested roadways in a post-COVID world that was finally forced to validate how WFH can be both effective AND planet-saving. Then watching Greed demand carbon credits for their “massive” green contributions that amount to replacing the plastic straws with paper ones in the coffee room, in a ma
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People are instinctively short term focused. It is in our DNA. If you die of starvation/dehydration in the next few days it doesn't matter what happens a month from now. Things you can see or feel also make much more of an impact that abstract things like "You'll have heart disease 30 yrs from now." People will eat poorly and not move then act surprised when they are falling apart later. The problem is once X happens it can usually be far more expensive or even impossible to reverse the damage.
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Since I started explaining it like this, I'm pleasantly surprised how many people get it.
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Uh, doesn't really work though. Trapped in a burning house the only real option is escape. The fire will collapse the building. And you don't really ever burn to death - you are asphyxiated by the smoke first. And as to putting out the fires? Putting out one of the fires amplifies the smoke 10x or more. So you die faster trying to put out the fires.
Now my dad had a story that might work better. He was drafted and ended up as an MP just after WW2. He was stationed in Albuquerque NM. As part of a new
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Being trapped means lacking an avenue of escape by definition. But yeah, your story is great. Although it's also smart and carries historical references, which tends to make slow-witted people tune out early on. If they can't immediately relate the story to themselves, they don't consider it important.
The need to act (Score:1)
Pollution Controls For Cargo Ships Made Global Warming Worse [hackaday.com]
According to the paper [nature.com] from the article, abruptly reducing the sulfur emissions from global shipping resulted in a 0.2 W/M^2 increase in the amount of radiative (from the sun) energy over the entire ocean, which is predicted to double the global warming rate in the 2020's as compared to the rate in the 1980s.
I highly recommend everyone take a look at the YouTube series "Great Moments in Unintended Consequences [youtube.com]". Each episode is short (~ 3 min), fa
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It also sounds like shipping emissions might be a good mechanism to implement remediation efforts
After they spent all that time and money working on how to create chemtrails? Such a waste.
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Don't be stupid. Real Scientists have told us we are destroying the planet and the only fix is mass global government control from the top down.
Nope. The real scientists have told us "things we are doing are warming the planet. What are we going to do about that?"
You are proposing one solution, then saying you don't like that solution. (This is called a "strawman argument.") So: propose another one.
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So: propose another one.
Well, Mr. Critic, why not go first and give us your take on how to solve problems with pollution or CO2/warming? You're quick to jump his ass and cop the attitude that there is a more enlightened way. So, lets hear it! Just don't be surprised if once you reveal your level of authoritarianism, someone like me might point out that that most "green" plans smash the poor, and ignore China while hand waving about the imperative/impending-doom nature of the problems. Let's hear yours and see if it's any different
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So: propose another one.
Well, Mr. Critic, why not go first and give us your take on how to solve problems with pollution or CO2/warming?
Shift to energy technologies that produce energy without burning fossil fuels that produce carbon dioxide.
There are many of these being worked on, and a brief perusal of slashdot would show many people arguing the advantages and disadvantages of them. And, the technology we have implemented today is not the end of development; continuing research and development is likely to produce better solutions yet..
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What, you decided you don't really care about greenhouse emissions in general any more, but what you really want is to do a deep dive into rehashing why electric vehicles are awful, no they're not, yes they are?
There's already a few million words spent on slashdot comments about why electric cars are awful, try reading some of the comments, say, here: https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
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Sorry, bye.
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Pollution Controls For Cargo Ships Made Global Warming Worse [hackaday.com]. According to the paper [nature.com] from the article, abruptly reducing the sulfur emissions from global shipping resulted in a 0.2 W/M^2 increase in the amount of radiative (from the sun) energy over the entire ocean, which is predicted to double the global warming rate in the 2020's as compared to the rate in the 1980s.
For comparison, the total anthropogenic forcing (primarily due to carbon dioxide) is currently about 2.8 W/m^2, so that 0.2 W/m^2 is about 7% of the warming. It's the other 93% of the warming we have to deal with... because it is is not constant, but is increasing with time.
... Cause, 'ya know, that one change about sulfur emissions will *by itself* double the rate of global warming.
Be careful here. The article didn't say it would double the rate of all global warming, it said that removing the cooling effect has doubled the rate of warming over the 2020s (i.e., that removing the cooling effect equaled the added h
Re: People aren't evolved for this (Score:2)
It is procrastination on the level of the global society.
It reminds me of kids not wanting to study in high-school. Same excuses.
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People are way too aware of this, far, far aware. Every day is another event that shows stuff is starting to collapse.
But there is jack and shit (and jack left town) of what people can do. A few years ago, during a hot summer, my neighborhood all chose to not water at all. The result? Cracked foundations, replacing trees and such... and guess what, the golf course down the road used more water than what we as a neighborhood saved.
The problem is that the entire climate change thing is pushing on people t
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People are way too aware of this, far, far aware. Every day is another event that shows stuff is starting to collapse. But there is jack and shit (and jack left town) of what people can do.
Yep, this is why it is a hard problem. It can't be solved by what any single individual does. In essence, the atmosphere of the planet is a commons (no one owns it), and the problem of the effects of what people put into the atmosphere is a tragedy of the commons [wikipedia.org].
Nope. Possibly YOUR proposed solution is to push on people to give up all their quality of life. MY proposed solution is to switch to better technologies which don't put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
This will take time. While we do that, the
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What's interesting to me is that the common person produces very little CO2
Right. No individual person is the problems. The problem is the aggregate of all the people.
relative to the uber wealthy.
The über wealthy indeed produce more CO2 per person, but there are so few of them that, no, they are simply not the main drivers.
But the media loves billionaires, so they're who gets the media spotlight.
...But there are so many commoners I guess
Ah, you do understand. Exactly.
it is more important to cut the quality of the life of those
I disagree with your proposition that we need to cut the quality of life. This is a technology site: we need to improve our technology.
... To me at least part of the solution has to be the high emitters pay higher CO2 taxes. At this moment, I don't think true as Av gas is not taxed, although ironically a tax credit is given to syn av gas. How about we start with a 2 dollar a gallon av gas CO2 tax if nothing else to pay for the tax credit for the synthetic gas.
I'm not opposed to that, as long as you und
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Average person lacks the forethought to even figure out what they want before they see the menu at the mcdonalds drive thru.
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The average person lacks the capacity to differentiate religion from reality.
Almost zero (Score:2)
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Sure. Ever tried water with 1000ppb of arsenic in it? Way less than 1%.
Good (Score:1, Troll)
> The concentration of CO2 reached 420 parts per million (ppm) in 2023
I'm hoping we return to 600ppm
Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Humans have noticable cognitive impairment as CO2 approaches 1000ppm. We like to stay inside a lot, with other people, all exhaling CO2 and increasing the amount present. Typically we deal with this by bringing in outside air. Such systems are usually designed to keep CO2 below 800ppm, but those designs include the assumption that 'fresh' air is ~400ppm.
Basically, if (as) CO2 in the atmosphere goes up, we're going to get a lot dumber or spend a lot of money increasing HVAC capacity and adding CO2 scrubbers to them.
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Humans have noticable cognitive impairment as CO2 approaches 1000ppm. We like to stay inside a lot, with other people, all exhaling CO2 and increasing the amount present. Typically we deal with this by bringing in outside air. Such systems are usually designed to keep CO2 below 800ppm, but those designs include the assumption that 'fresh' air is ~400ppm.
US Navy, NASA...etc have done extensive testing under far worse conditions. Submarines run at 8000ppm, ISS at 5000ppm. There is no evidence of cognitive impairments among crews.
I can understand how people can be confused about this. A number of studies use CO2 as a **proxy** for indoor air pollution because it is easy to measure and directly correlates with air changes and human occupancy. This doesn't mean CO2 is **responsible** for observed effects. There is also some evidence of temporary effects th
Re: Good (Score:1)
You may be confusing carbon monoxide with carbon dioxide here. OSHA sets safe working limits at 5000ppm and short time exposure at 15,000ppm.
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4 out of 5 dinosaurs agree
Not News (Score:1)
The main "planet heating pollutant" in the atmosphere is carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is increasing, has been increasing, and continues to be increasing; and hence every year is a "record level."
You can see the historical record of it here: https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/tren... [noaa.gov]
(methane is also a greenhouse gas worth paying attention to (more heating effect per molecule but lower concentration, and not as long lived in the atmosphere)... but it's not d
Errr yes of course they do (Score:2)
Planet heating pollutants disappear at an incredibly slow rate. They will keep hitting record levels for many MANY years to come, year over year. Planet heating pollutants also hit record levels in 2020 while the world massively scaled back an insane amount of industry and consumption during COVID. That alone should tell you that this is not newsworthy.
Newsworthy would be this obvious trend doing something different.
Helps explain Mount Fuji (Score:3)
Japan had its joint hottest summer on record this year with temperatures between June and August being 1.76C (3.1F) higher than an average.
In September, temperatures continued to be warmer than expected as the sub-tropical jet stream's more northerly position allowed a warmer southerly flow of air over Japan.
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