Even in the darkness, there is a ray or two of light

[packman]

[NNadir]

1. Regrettably, as I closely follow CO2, there has been NO change...

...in CO2 concentration rates of change in 2020. The ten year running average has, in fact, reached 2.4 ppm/year.

This is the highest rate ever observed since the beginning of record keeping in the mid 20th century. Our annual minimum this year, reached a few weeks ago was 411.00 ppm, more than 3.00 ppm higher than that of 2019.

We seem to believe that chanting mantras about so called "renewable energy" is the equivalent of doing something.

It isn't.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

6. Human overpopulation

🤬

[NNadir]

7. One hears this type of explanation often but I find it very simplistic.

Over the last 50 years, for all the times I've heard it - and to be clear, when I was a kid I actually made the same argument - I never encountered anyone who committed suicide to save the world. It's always that other people shouldn't exist.

It is clear that the population of the planet is beyond its carrying capacity, but the question now boils down to down this: Will the population be reduced by catastrophe or can it be safely managed?

It is empirically obvious that birth rates are at, or even below, replacement rates wherever people are safe and secure and well provided with basic necessities in their homes. Countries like Japan, and Finland, for example, have birth rates below the replacement rate.

The problem is not so much people as it is poverty.

The real problem is that the people of China, India, and similar countries did not agree to remain impoverished so Americans could talk all about their "Green" $50,000 Tesla cars and their McMansions with solar cells on the roofs. In fact, people in these countries had the strange opinion that they had as much right to live in this way as Americans.

America built its economy first on human slavery and then on access to coal. Now we object when other countries behave similarly, particularly with respect to the second case.

It is technologically feasible - not simple, not cheap - to meet human development goals without destroying the environment in its entirety, but the popular representations of how this may be done - by tearing up pristine wildernesses to build wind farms and other pop daydreams about so called "renewable energy" - hasn't worked, isn't working, and won't work.

[Roy Rolling]

8. What about this?

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18922-7

It says scientists measured an 8.8% decrease year-over-year.

What gives? 😂

[NNadir]

9. I saw this paper as well. However, as I indicated, I follow the MEASURED CO2 concentrations.

This paper reports estimates based on a methodology reported here: Reduced carbon emission estimates from fossil fuel combustion and cement production in China. The corresponding author of this paper is also an an author of the paper you cite. The reference is Liu et al., Nature 524, pages335–338(2015).

Since one must have access to Nature to read this paper, I'll excerpt the method as it is described; regrettably the DU editor is not equation friendly, so the equations (summations over several variables) are not shown:

Calculation of carbon emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production
Carbon emissions are calculated by using activity data, which are expressed as the amount of fossil fuels in physical units used during a production processes (activity dataclinker is the amount of clinker produced) multiplied by the respective emission factor (EF):


Emissions from cement manufacturing are estimated as:


If data on sectorial and fuel-specific activity data and EF are available, total emission can be calculated by:



where i is an index for fuel types, j for sectors, and k for technology type. Activity data are measured in physical units (tonnes of fuel expressed as t fuel)...

EF can be further separated into net heating value of each fuel v, the energy obtained per unit of fuel (TJ per t fuel), carbon content c (tC TJ?1 fuel) and oxidization rate o (in %, the fraction of fuel oxidized during combustion and emitted to the atmosphere). The values of v, c and o are specific for fuel type, sector and technology:


For the coal extracted in China (for example, for the 4,243 coal mines analysed in this study), net heating v and carbon content c values are not directly available, and a more straightforward emission estimate for coal emissions can be obtained using the mass carbon content (Car in tC per t fuel) of fuels, defined by Car = c × v so that the total emission can be calculated as:

It is immediately clear that the "method" is based on extraction of fuels and not their use, as well as crude estimates of their carbon content, and not a physical measurement of carbon dioxide releases, a far more challenging task. It's illustrative, but not nearly rigorous.

An all encompassing measurement of the results is given at the Mauna Loa carbon dioxide observatory, which I discussed in the Science group on this website this weekend:

The apparent annual low at the Mauna Loa CO2 observatory was in the week beginning 09/20/20.

I'm happy for you that you feel the need to giggle about this vast tragedy, climate change, for which history will not forgive us. I'm less amused. But this is "what gives," in excerpts of my comments on the real deata from this post:

There has been a lot of speculation and some wishful thinking that the Covid crisis would slow carbon dioxide accumulations. The folks at the Mauna Loa Observatory have a nice note addressing people who have been asking them about this:

Can we see a change in the CO2 record because of COVID-19?

The evidence for a Covid "slowing" might be represented by the fact that the 2020 peak, again, 417.23 ppm was "only" 2.04 ppm higher than the 2019 peak, which was recorded on May 12, 2019 as 415.39 ppm. Such a figure for much the 20th century would have been terrifying, but in the 21st, where we have lots of wind farms, it's rather um, encouraging, at least in the Overton window of carbon dioxide changes. It is worth noting that the record 417.43 figure was, however, 24.80 ppm higher than the figure recorded in the same week ten years earlier, 2010.

There have been eight times in all recorded history at Mauna Loa, going back to the 1960s, where the comparisons, week to week, with data recorded 10 years earlier, have equaled or exceeded 25.00 ppm, for a rate equal to or greater than 2.5 ppm/year. Five of them occurred in 2020, our wonderful Covid year, and the other three were in 2019, including the 2019 maximum, 415,39 ppm, which was 25.27 ppm higher than the figure for the same week of 2009.

Don't worry. Be happy. Elon Musk's Tesla stock is doing very well.

This brings me finally to the annual minimum for 2020: It was recorded on the week beginning September 20, 2020.

The value was 411.00 ppm.

In comparison to the annual minimum of 2019, which was recorded during the week beginning September 29, 2019 and was 407.96 ppm, it is 3.04 ppm higher.

There is no evidence that the catastrophe is getting better, and in any case, "percent talk" is innumerate. The decade just passed as been the worst ever recorded, with numbers reaching an unprecedented 2.5 ppm/year.

[Fla Dem]

2. Good news always appreciated.

[Beacool]

3. This one is still painful.

Hillary should have been the one handling this pandemic. We could have been New Zealand, instead of leading the world in cases and deaths.

[Demovictory9]

4. Kick

[Hekate]

5. Kick!

[raccoon]

10. Thank you ! Nt

[calimary]

11. Like these graphics!

Thanks for posting them, packman!