by Tanada » Thu 09 Nov 2017, 22:04:03
dissident wrote:The heat trapping does have a logarithmic dependence on CO2. But that does not mean that adding more CO2 above 800 ppmv has no relevance. How says we will only add 100 ppmv above 800 ppmv when TSHTF. We could hit 6000 ppmv at some stage (like in the past). log_e(6000/800) = 2 or a doubling.
Even though I do not believe the run away Venus greenhouse effect is possible on this planet. The conditions found in the past when CO2 was 6000 ppmv are not relevant today since the Sun is shining brighter. It is also likely that we would reach 6000 ppmv much faster than in the past as well, which is a big deal.
Fair enough, but getting from here to 6000 ppmv is a very long road indeed. IMO, and I grant it is just an opinion, the emission rate once we pass 800 or even 1000 is liable to be very much slower than what we emit today for two basic reasons. One I think human population will peak before we get that far and already be in decline, perhaps even steep decline, by the time those levels are reached. Two, I am a historian by training so I see civilizations in terms of rise, plateau, and fall. This patter has repeated with every civilization we have ever identified for a plethora of reasons and IMO our current civilization is already off the plateau and in slow decline. I expect that slow decline to last up to several centuries by which time only isolated outposts will have high technology which means emissions will decline once civilization has declined past the point of sustainable extraction. Knowing Petroleum, Natural Gas, and Coal are buried in the ground and valuable energy sources is great so long as they are easily accessed. If all the Petroleum available in the 19th century had been shale LTO that technology could not access easily it wouldn't have mattered how many trillion barrels of potential was in the ground. As we go on in the future and our civilization continues to decline at some point we won't have the trained people to maintain and operate the fracking equipment needed to produce large quantities of shale oil even if the resource has not peaked out at that time. The education system in the USA/Canada now focuses on kids growing up in touch with their emotions which is great, but it discounts their ability to maintain or even use technology. Shop classes that teach even the most basic home owner level skills have been eliminated from almost all public school systems. As our culture dedicates it more and more to the abstract and focuses less and less on the practical the fundamental skill base is rapidly eroding.
I should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, write, balance accounts, build a wall, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, pitch manure, program a computer, cook, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.