Subject to abuse

since there's evidence of glacial receding in the Nashville area thousands & thousands of years ago, there's no denying that there is climate change. The trickier part is attributing it to the cars that existed back then. maybe the Fred Flintstones of that era didn't have catalytic converters.

.

 

Change happens, it is the rate that is the problem. The rate of CO2 emissions is much faster today. It happened at times in the global past, but the source was something like massive lava fields. Think the size of a state or country. The rate of change was faster than most life could handle, and a mass extinction event occurred.

We are measuring the increasing CO2 emissions in real time. If not from human activity, where are the Poland sized pools of exposed lava?

 

Problem is "Annual energy spending by humans now averages 0.5 zettajoules and keeps on growing like a succession of rocket blasts to Mars." The Earth's Battery Is Running Low - Resilience

Meanwhile we're running up against the hard limit of our planet's ability to absorb all that heat: "Earth’s Ocean Absorbed 338 Zettajoules Of Heat Energy From 1991 To 2016" https://www.rankred.com/ocean-absorbed-heat-energy-in-zettajoules/

In other words if our planet was an engine we'd be past the redline in RPMs with radiator about to blow and the foot on the gas pedal floored while the people doing it are totally oblivious to the risk of engine failure and want to keep the engine past the redline to prove it's not a realistic limit for the needs of capitalism.

Meanwhile at the latest global climate gathering in Egypt all climate protesters are illegal and 600 fossil fuel industry lobbyists use these events as a trade show to gain more oil production subsidies from the governments of the world that they're in control of.

 

Until we figure out population control, everyone is pretty much just pissing in the wind trying to control climate change. Population is the driving force of more problems and more demand.....I seem to remember when I was a kid growing up that the number was around 3 billion....look at us now...woohooo!!!!....

World Population Clock: 8 Billion People (LIVE, 2022) - Worldometer (worldometers.info)

 

That's a bunch of dismissive BS to excuse bad human behavior... It's not our population's numbers it's our behavior and a small number of people are responsible for the majority of the damage:

Billionaires emit a million times more greenhouse gases than the average person, study finds: Study finds billionaires emit a million times more greenhouse gases than average | CNN

The problem we have is a failure to control the most harmful human behavior if it's profitable for a small number of people and most people who don't want to "give up their lifestyle" zealously claim the only problem is there's too many of us doing awful things and it's normal and acceptable to do awful things and there should be no limits on harmful behavior, only the number of people allowed to do it, which in itself is an extremely harmful behavior that has perpetuated genocide and enslavement for centuries.

 

Very long research history on this aspect of silicate weathering. This research pulls a lot of it together and (I think) expands the time scale. Authors draw their own conclusions but it is interesting to me that silicate weathering is unresponsive at 1000-year timescales or shorter.

Such time scales are important for the (expected) few hundred window during which humans quickly return fossil-C to atmosphere. Silicate weathering can be accelerated as we've discussed elsewhere. There are plenty of suitable rocks at the surface. All that's needed is to grind them up and move them to high-[CO2] environments (notably soil burial). Costs have been estimated at $80 to $180 USD per ton CO2.

In that sense, we can set atmospheric [CO2] wherever we'd like it to be. But not for free.

 

As I said, until we can figure out population control we're pissing in the wind. What good does it do if I never piss in a pool,, but the 42 people in the other corner do? All I have is self-satisfaction, but I'm still wasting my time....that's the reality of it. We can wish all we want, but you're not going to change human nature. It's just not going to happen. At least not in our lifetimes, or even probably our children's.

 

Eight billions is undoubtedly important because each one needs water, food, housing, energy, health care, and transportation. That list could be extended.

There are unavoidable (but perhaps hard to define) costs associated with each need. Most of those needs are strongly associated with non-renewable energy production at present. That association will be much reduced in 100 years. That's the plan.

After a population peak at about 10 billion at about 2050, there will be a slow population decline. That's the prediction.

Meanwhile, about 37 petagrams of CO2 are emitted to atmosphere annually. Of which half persists and absorbs outgoing infrared radiation, and temperatures increase.

It gets sticky when concerns turn to the 57 million millionaires and 2208 billionaires on earth. Their lifestyles embody much more per capita CO2 emissions. I'm not saying it's bad, but there is a dominance of CO2 emissions, which is a knowable number. Sure one can say talking about the very rich in this way is a punching bag and/or distraction, but it's still there.

It is I suppose a widely recognized good thing to lift the poorest billion people out of their poverty. Next 2 billion to be born (towards that peak) will mostly arrive in poor countries. So that work will not become less.

 

Population is a women's right issue... Your dismissiveness about population numbers not getting addressed is dismissiveness of women's rights... And again anyone who thinks the problem is numbers, not behavior is wrong. If we respected women and respected the earth by our own behaviors alone, the population numbers will go down. There's already proof that this is happening and we need way more if it!