[Zer0 (OP)]

No doubts about it increasing.

No doubts that it is human caused.

But is it Really a Major Concern?

Ps - Thanks Alan for Standing your Ground.
At first, i found it a bit flabbergasting, never expected You would do that.
But Now, All Thanks to You, I've Realized correlations cannot Always be attributed towards causations.

[Bored chemist]

"Is Rising CO2 level a Problem?"
Yes.

[chiralSPO]

Climate change aside, there is another *major* problem with increasing CO₂ in the atmosphere. It is literally and figuratively changing the bedrock of our marine ecosystems!

As it dissolves in ocean water, it causes a shift in this equilibrium:

CO_2(aq) + H₂O(aq) + CaCO_3(s) Ca²⁺_(aq) + 2 HCO₃^–_(aq)

While this looks innocuous enough, here is the catch: CaCO_3(s) is the primary component of sea shells, and coral reefs. More CO₂ released into the environment means that animals at the bottom of the food chain have weaker shells, and less healthy coral reefs, which then translates to major disruptions to the ecosystems that depend on the reefs.

https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/ocean-acidification

As with climate change, the problem isn't necessarily how much CO₂ there is at any given time (over the course of geological history, it has been much higher and much lower than it is today). The problem is how quickly things are changing. Sea creatures need time to evolve shells with slightly different compositions, or attain new behaviors to adapt to their new reality. Ecosystems need time to adjust to new status quo. And it is a good time to remind everybody that many of these systems are susceptible to positive feedback loops: small but sudden disruptions in an ecosystem can lead to odd boom-bust cycles that then really mess everything up.

(imagine that the oysters' shells become weaker, making it initially easier for otters to eat them. The population of otters will grow quickly while the oyster population shrinks. At a certain point, the oyster population cannot sustain itself, and crashes. Then the otter population crashes. If this were a "normal" predator-prey equilibrium, a brief disturbance would cause some oscillation in populations for a while before settling back down on the original equilibrium. But if the "balance point" is continuously changing because the environment is changing during the oscillation, then both species could go extinct in a matter of decades!)

[chiralSPO]

Ps - Thanks Alan for Standing your Ground.
At first, i found it a bit flabbergasting, never expected You would do that.
But Now, All Thanks to You, I've Realized correlations cannot Always be attributed towards causations.

True, correlations and causations are not the same. But Alan is full of beans when it comes to the topic of carbon dioxide and climate science. I would caution against "learning" from him on the subject.

[Halc]

But is it Really a Major Concern?

You need to define this question better. A major concern to what exactly?
Earth doesn't care. Mother nature will shrug it off. You personally probably won't be heavily affected, and looking out for #1 seems to be the primary driver for whether we do anything about it.

Barring an all-out nuclear war, rising CO2 is arguably the primary cause of the Holocene extinction event, expected to eliminate something like 85% of all species. Nature will adjust to this. It will be warmer, with more plants. New species will fill the gaps.
Humanity may or may not survive the extinction event, but it remains a difficult sell to pin rising CO2 levels as the cause of our downfall. It will very likely happen even without the climate change, so the cause probably can't be pinned to one thing. You didn't specify if it is a major concern to humanity, which is why I asked for clarification.

I asked a similar question in chiralSPO's thread, saying that identification of goals comes before choice of action, or before answering questions such as the one posed here. The question went ignored of course.

I would caution against "learning" from him on the subject.

I second that. His posts are politically motivated, and politics has a different agenda than does science.

[Origin]

Thanks Alan for Standing your Ground.

I'm not sure why that is a good thing.  Is Alan a climatologist?  The experts on climate say that increasing green house gases are causing global warming.  I have to defer to the climatologists.  Alan is a smart guy, but he is not a climatologist, he has a nonexpert opinion.  His opinion does not carry much weight, compared to the experts in the field.

[chiralSPO]

I should also point out that we are essentially at the steepest part of the "titration curve."

Seawater currently has a pH of around 8.1. So if we look at this titration curve:

iJ6YJ.png (27.37 kB . 388x331 - viewed 2076 times)

We can see that very small changes in amount of added acid have a very significant effect on pH.

Another thing to see about this is that we are almost at the equivalence point where we will shift from a CO₃^2–/HCO₃^– equilibrium to a HCO₃^–/CO₂ equilibrium. ie carbonate becomes completely unstable.

[chiralSPO]

I asked a similar question in chiralSPO's thread, saying that identification of goals comes before choice of action, or before answering questions such as the one posed here. The question went ignored of course.

I seem to have missed your excellent point in the midst of trying to debunk all of Alan's bull$1t . My apologies!

I will address it here briefly: I suspect that the "best" outcome for humanity will be the one in which our environment changes the slowest. There is plenty of room for debate on what the exact trade off is between our present economy and our future economy (often called the discount rate — ie "ok, putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is bad, but if we can make enough money now by doing it, we may be in a better position to pay for solutions later.")

The question is how MUCH do we have to make now for it to be worth the trouble later, and unfortunately, there are two big problems with the question: the first is that almost inevitably it will be a question of "what's better, me incurring a definite but small personal cost right now now? or somebody else maybe having to deal with something inconceivably bad at a later time?" and we know how that analysis ends up every time. The other problem is that so much of the damage has already been done, that we may feel like we are "in for a penny, in for a dollar"

[Bored chemist]

Alan is a smart guy, but he is not a climatologist, he has a nonexpert opinion.  His opinion does not carry much weight, compared to the experts in the field.

There's not much point beating about the bush here.
Alan gest this stuff wrong.

[alancalverd]

Alan merely looks at the facts, and comes to a very disturbing conclusion. Boring and frightening, so let's ignore him.

[Zer0 (OP)]

Interesting this OP got alot more responses than I'd have guessed.

Honestly, I'm just Happy this OP is still here, & not sliced & diced & locked up.

I have a humble Request, let's Please not make this personal.
Let's Please just stick to facts & evidences.

If i enter an OP created for a cordial discussion with a closed mindset, then it won't remain a discussion, it would simply evolve into an argument.

& Please do not misunderstand.
I'm not a denier, nor a skeptic.
Climate Change is Real, i bear witness to it.


In Regards to Alan...

I should Not have Thanked him openly here, perhaps a subtle p.m. would have sufficed, & done him more good.
I see my ill fated & uncalculated move has brought upon harsh criticism to him.

ALAN...I sincerely Apologize.
I Really did Not mean to do this.
If i could turn back time, I'd definitely choose a different course of action.
I'm Sorry!

To All the Others...

I judge people based on their responses/words.
I don't like to, wise do not judge, but still it's sort off in-built auto response which i can't control.

If another new user, or troll would have made similar points such as Alan did...i might have not paid much attention.

But when a few Users & Mods end up making abstract points in here, it forces me to think, to question, to be skeptical...
& It mostly ends up benefiting me, coz i end up learning stuff, Understanding things at a much deeper level.

I look up to quite Alot of You, I've learnt Alot.
& Perhaps i should learn to look up to facts & evidences, that way I'll learn even more.
Bcoz Mentors might change or lose their minds, but the Truth remains unchallenged & unchanged.

Reverting back to the Topic...

1) Rising CO2 feeds the loop...
Making drastic changes in weather patterns.
But climate anywhich ways is Unpredictable, Right?

2) Would people in North Americas or specifically in the E.U. mind or dislike warmer climate?
Won't thermostating the globe be a bit beneficial economically?

3) Why deny Greenland  potential opportunities for farming & agriculture?

Ps - My neighbour has alot of plants.
She's overtly sensitive & a staunch believer of Mysticism.
Speaking to plants is a bit beneficial.
They respond in kind & grow faster.
Quite miraculous, isn't it?

I on the other hand, am a bit skeptical & perhaps dumb...
Coz i feel it's not the kind words the plants are reciprocating to, rather it's the CO2!

[Bored chemist]

Alan merely looks at the facts,

Well, you may look at the facts, but you then ignore them.
Do you remember posting this?

Or 27% if you look at the actual figures in the previous paragraph. That's government statistics for you.

It said "Key headlines
In Quarter 2 2021, renewable electricity generation was 26.9 TWh, the lowest value since Quarter 2 2019,
and 9.6 per cent lower than the same quarter in 2020.
The growth rate of renewable capacity remains muted, with 134 MW added over the quarter. During the last
twelve months, capacity grew by 1.4 per cent (681 MW), most of which was in wind (both onshore and
offshore) and Solar PV. "

That paragraph didn't mention any such figure.

[Halc]

I have a humble Request, let's Please not make this personal.
Let's Please just stick to facts & evidences.

Careful. Most of your post was personal, which I shall try to ignore.

Reverting back to the Topic...

1) Rising CO2 feeds the loop...
Making drastic changes in weather patterns.

Rising CO2 raises global temperature. There's not much loop to that. Methane is something else. It also has that effect, and rising methane causes more methane to be released into the atmosphere, which is a feedback loop of sorts.

But climate anywhich ways is Unpredictable, Right?

Long term climate is very predictable. We know the oceans are heating up and that there will be more hurricanes and more severe ones. We can predict that this area will receive less rain than it used to, and this other area will get more. These cities (or whole countries like my ancestral one) will have to be abandoned.
What is unpredictable about the weather is exactly which days the storms will hit, but it is the average that matters here, not the specific schedule of the weather.

2) Would people in North Americas or specifically in the E.U. mind or dislike warmer climate?

It will disrupt the food supply for one thing. The extinctions will destroy the ecosystem upon which we depend. Bees in particular are a critical part of the process and are very much threatened by global warming.

i feel it's not the kind words the plants are reciprocating to, rather it's the CO2!

Plants do like it. I imagine that once the people go extinct, the plants will probably come back at a level not seen in millions of years. The oceans are another story. Something needs to replace the coral reefs which are too fragile to withstand a significant temperature change. But nature will find a way to fill the vacancy.

[Halc]

I seem to have missed your excellent point

I seem to remember just asking a question and not so much making a point, excellent or otherwise. But you answered it with "outcome for humanity", something not specified in your topic.

I suspect that the "best" outcome for humanity will be the one in which our environment changes the slowest.

OK, I can buy that, but the way to change it most slowly is to stop changing it. Whether that would be a good thing for humanity I think depends on one's vision of future humanity living in a sustainable manner. Assuming we've not totally poisoned the environment with radiation and such, do you see a low-tech life (essentially living like people did before the bronze age) or a high-tech one where there's still knowledge, internet, and industry and (importantly) globally enforced peace, without which the low-tech future is inevitable.
There are other alternative futures such as one where humanity very rapidly evolves to the new state of things, but that would probably drive the extinction levels to well above 85%.

There is plenty of room for debate on what the exact trade off is between our present economy and our future economy (often called the discount rate — ie "ok, putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is bad, but if we can make enough money now by doing it, we may be in a better position to pay for solutions later.")

People, countries, and corporations rarely willingly part with money to benefit a vision of the future. It is actually probably the economy, based on growth, debt, and limited resources, which will cause the population to abruptly fall to a fraction of its levels. Global warming may or may not be the straw that breaks that camel's back, but the back must inevitably be broken, and the state of the environment at that time probably will be a significant factor in the survivability of those that remain. Hence the importance of preservation of the environment, because it's those people that are 'humanity', and not the ones with the money.

I bring this up because people, by nature, have almost zero interest in this group of people. Our morals are based on completely different goals. The moral code pushed by the religions seem designed to force God's hand, to maximize the calamity and thus force the prophesied end-times. It would be considered a completely immoral act to take actions 'for humanity' as outlined above.
And that brings me to the point I meant to spell out in the other thread: This is the lack of actual solutions from both scientists and leaders today. Viable solutions are considered immoral, so with hands thus tied, humanity is actually incapable of acting for its own benefit. If there's aliens watching us, waiting for us to mature before being invited into the 'federation of planets' so to speak, then it's probably this level of maturity that they're waiting for, and are unlikely to see.

The other problem is that so much of the damage has already been done, that we may feel like we are "in for a penny, in for a dollar"

Yes, the damage has long since passed the point of irreversability. Sure, the climate might eventually return to something resembling what it was like around 1900, but it might take hundreds of millions of years. No creature evolved for 1900's climate will be around then, still waiting for it to be nice outside. That's not how evolution works. Evolution will indeed fix this 'problem', as it has all the others.

[alancalverd]

Don't worry about my feelings, Zero.

Mark 6:4  "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house." This really should be Lesson 1 for any aspiring scientist.

I have no ambition to be liked, but one day to be respected. Probably too late, knowing how people work.

PS I spent half a day yesterday looking at "obvious" data and wondering what the x-ray machine was behaving so peculiarly. Then I looked at the underlying data and realised that it was working perfectly, but I was interpreting it superficially instead of wondering what was really going on. Thus I bear no malice towards the unbelievers:  Luke 23:34  "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

[Bored chemist]

Alan merely looks at the facts

Yes... eventually.

But only after posting tosh.
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=83519.msg660763#msg660763

[Origin]

Mark 6:4  "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house." This really should be Lesson 1 for any aspiring scientist.

You're a prophet?

I have no ambition to be liked, but one day to be respected. Probably too late, knowing how people work

One day mankind will remember your stance on global warming?  Bit grandiose I think.

Thus I bear no malice towards the unbelievers:  Luke 23:34  "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

I don't think Luke was referring to global warming...

[Bored chemist]

The weather is, in effect, a complicated heat engine that does things like snow, hurricanes, rainbows etc.

The more of the Sun's energy you couple into it, the more of those things it will do, and the "harder" it will do them.
CO2 increases the coupling from radiative energy to kinetic energy and thus increases the  net transfer of power from the Sun to the weather.

More CO2 leads to more "wild weather"

It's just physics.

[Zer0 (OP)]

Admitted, my post was Personal.
But it simply was my affirmation towards expressing that " I take All of You seriously, What ever You All say bears weightage to me, it matters to me, in a positive way.

Only ones who should feel offended are new users & trolls.
New users can pardon me, coz i simply do not know enough about them, as it takes time to build up Trust.
Trolls can just excuse me, coz my experience is mostly crappy with them, but yaa once in a while, a troll does accidentally say stuff that ends up making logical sense.

Now, can We All Please shift focus from Alan back to the Topic.
The subject matter the OP wishes to discuss is CO2.

Ps - *Caution*

I have never ever observed MODS disagreeing among themselves publicly.

I must really Appreciate All Mods in here, all standing up for facts & evidences.

But i kinda do not like all this.
Wish You All could mellow down.

Mods should probably have a MOD Room, where only Mods can hangout.

Y'all could discuss All you wished in private & come to satisfactory conclusions.

Think!
What if i am a Troll, who purposefully choose to raise this Specific Topic inorder to watch clash of the Titans.

What if an X irrated member chooses to capitalise on this gap/crack between the front lines of defense of the Great Spartans.

United You Stand...Divided...it's anyone's guess.

[Halc]

yaa once in a while, a troll does accidentally say stuff that ends up making logical sense.

Maybe not accidentally. Some of the most effective trolls do their work with completely valid logic.

I have never ever observed MODS disagreeing among themselves publicly.

You need to read posts more often. I correct other mods about as often as they correct me. None of us is always right. Maybe Janus, but he's not a mod, and yes, I've disagreed with Janus once in a while.

Mods should probably have a MOD Room, where only Mods can hangout.
Y'all could discuss All you wished in private & come to satisfactory conclusions.

There is one, but I've not ever seen it used to discuss science or present a unified front on scientific topics. We discuss Y'all there. Every forum/chat site has such a room if there's more than one mod.

United You Stand...Divided...it's anyone's guess.

Some of the biggest advances in science has been from those breaking new ground, not staying united with the crowd. So united we stand, divided we advance (or retreat if you don't know where you're going). But nobody with a new revolutionary breakthrough publishes it first on a forum. So those that claim such things here are invariably mistaken, pretty much by definition.