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greynolds17 t1_ivw156r wrote

And next year, and next year

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BobbTheBuilderr t1_ivw9cgn wrote

No one ever explains why this matters.

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Flicyourbic t1_ivwadkj wrote

It matters because more carbon in air = more trapped heat on Earth

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groveborn t1_ivwddnv wrote

This isn't a very thorough explanation.

The greenhouse effect of certain gases, including carbon dioxide released from burning most flammable substances, increases as the gasses accumulate in the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide, at current levels, is bad. As the air retains more heat, it also holds onto water more, which is a much more potent greenhouse gas - which accelerates the warming.

The air then can hold more water. This reaches a point where no more will be held, but it's bad for most animal life. Plant life usually doesn't mind.

With the planet getting warmer, other things start happening. The polar ice caps melt and cause the oceans to rise, flooding coastal areas. The warm air also has more energy (that's why it's warm), making it go faster - hurricanes, tornados, that sort of thing get worse and more common.

The weather completely changes so we have trouble knowing from history where all the rain will go - causing areas that normally don't flood to flood, and lakes to go dry.

The ocean also warms up. This has a really negative effect on ocean life. Lots of it dies because they're evolved to live in cold water. Evolution requires a bit of time to adjust, so it's a mass extinction.

Things that can survive the change in temperature can't survive the loss of their food. Much of our breathable oxygen comes from plants in the ocean, which also die.

The warm water can hold carbon dioxide better, which offsets the stuff in the air to a point, but this acidifies the ocean, killing even more things, like reefs. More plants die. More animals die.

All of this is happening right now, within our lifetime, which means evolution will largely fail to accommodate our food. We die.

Then it all goes back to normal over the next few thousand to million years, new species rise and take all the unoccupied niches.

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PPQue6 t1_ivwd4t3 wrote

And carbon has residence time on average of 5 years in our atmosphere. So as the polar ice caps melt they will release more methane which has a residence time of 9 years. So yeah.....we're going to be properly fucked here in the not too distant future.

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LionlyLion t1_ivxgyzz wrote

No one, except for the thousands and thousands of people who do explain why it matters, including in the very article posted which of course you didn’t read.

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Subvoltaic t1_ivx2jb2 wrote

The current trajectory is human extinction during your childrens lifetime.

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[deleted] t1_ivy29vy wrote

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Subvoltaic t1_ivy52re wrote

Yes, humans have understood the consequences for decades, yet the problem grows larger every year.

Do you understand how that makes it worse?

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[deleted] t1_ivy6kei wrote

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Subvoltaic t1_ivy7ouy wrote

It's wild to me that so many people still deny climate change is real, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Good luck with pretending your way to a better tomorrow!

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[deleted] t1_ivy89k7 wrote

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Flicyourbic t1_ivyob18 wrote

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of anthropogenic climate change if you think you’re being smart to compare it to previous times on Earth when high amounts of CO2 was in the atmosphere.

Like sure, CO2 has been high before...but 1. That was before humans. And 2. The rate at which we are emitting CO2 far exceeds anything in the past. The rate of change is the issue.

I mean it’s fairly easy to see, just look at this graph:

https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/24/graphic-the-relentless-rise-of-carbon-dioxide/

In the past, CO2 rose/fell on geologic timescales. This meant plants and animals could adapt. But CO2 is now, because of us, rising rapidly on human timescales. Leaving no time for adaptation. We’re quite literally in an extinction event, and climate change is a massive factor in that.

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[deleted] t1_ivyotby wrote

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Flicyourbic t1_ivys8wl wrote

Ah I see what’s going on now. Nice trolling job 👍

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[deleted] t1_ivyz8qd wrote

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Flicyourbic t1_ivz1bld wrote

😹 is that how you’re interpreting things? I’ll give you a 3/10 on the trolling. Needs some work

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[deleted] t1_ivz4sso wrote

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Flicyourbic t1_ivz62ja wrote

Alright I’ll entertain this one final time.

Do you accept or deny the fact that greenhouse gasses cause an increase in temperature?

Assuming you accept that fact...it should be a pretty straightforward realization that putting more greenhouse gasses at an increasing rate is going to lead to more warming at an increasing rate.

I mean the concept of acceleration/rate of change is taught in high school, this shouldn’t be that hard to understand.

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[deleted] t1_ivz6enu wrote

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Flicyourbic t1_ivz7b3n wrote

Increased drought in some areas, increased flooding in others. Deadly heatwaves. Ocean acidification. Stronger hurricanes. More earthquakes, disappearing of glaciers that supply fresh water, mass biodiversity die-off, massive wildfires. Those are just the most obvious effects. All these increase in severity, frequency, and size as warming increases.

And that doesn’t even get into the non-direct effects on humans; droughts or flooding lead to famine, mass displacement, rise in climate refugees, geopolitical conflict, more volatile supply of fresh water...I could go on and on.

We’ve only warmed by an average of ~1.1C so far and the amount of weather disasters has increased five-fold in that same time period. We’re reaching the point many people are still dealing with a past weather disaster when they get hit by another. Think about that - in a growing number of places, weather disasters are happening so frequently that there is no time to rebuild from the previous disasters, let alone prepare for future ones. And this is only at 1.1C of warming. Under conservative estimates we’ll reach 2.5C within a human lifetime.

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Tony_Sombraro t1_iw0j8vr wrote

Looks like your fishing expedition didn't work out, next time use better bait.

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Subvoltaic t1_iw0dkw9 wrote

You have probably heard of staying under the 2C goal.

At 2C the warming feedback loop is self sustaining and will grow to 8 or 10C. At 2C, the permafrost melts, a LOT of methane is released. The oceans turn acidic and with a higher temperature can no longer support the algae that supplies most of the oxygen on the planet. By that point most of the planet will already be a desert because the majority of plant life and animal life cannot survive routine 130 or 140 degree temperatures.

Good luck surviving without plants, animals, or oxygen.

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