Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

[Billzilla]

A good example of what excess CO2 can do for your cognitive abilities.

The portion of CO2 in the atmosphere will never be high enough to get anywhere near the levels shown in the video and so turn us all into idiots .... my real concern is that far too many people are already at that point. Including a majority of politicians.

[Andres125sx]

Has life existed on the planet with higher CO2 levels than today? Yes. Was life different? Yes. Will higher CO2 cause changes to weather patterns? Perhaps. Will that affect humans? Yes probably. Will it mess up your life and mine? Probably nothing more than an inconvenience, but for some people it will be life changing/ending.

Perhaps?

But even if that perhaps was accurate, you´re not sure if there will be changes in weather patterns but you´re sure for humans it will be just an inconvenience? Are you really assuming weather changes will not affect harvest for example?

Weather changes does not mean just a higher temperature, but also a lot more unstable weather with increasing storms. Same storms than today are ruining lots of harvests, not just for that season but for several more, just one storm is enough to ruin the harvest for maybe 3 seasons. If those storms are few all around the world like today we can assume it. But storms are increasing at a worrying rate all around the world, even in regions where there had never been before.

Do you know how many of those storms are enough to seriously affect our supply chain? That´s a datum I´d like to know... or maybe not

[Greg Locock]

Early mammals evolved in 1000-1500 ppm CO2, 200 million years ago.

[Just_a_fan]

Early mammals evolved in 1000-1500 ppm CO2, 200 million years ago.

Humans aren't early mammals. Humans evolved only a million or so years ago when CO2 levels weren't 1k-1.5k ppm.

[Greg Locock]

Yes, but the basic mammalian chemistry can obviously thrive at 1000 ppm. The fact that we have adapted as it sank to near plant killing levels outside is good, but since the level indoors can easily hit 1000, at worst we'd have to make sure our buildings are better ventilated.

Submariners of course routinely live for months at much higher levels than that, yes they are young and fit, but oddly that is not always an advantage. Young and fit people are over represented in mountain sickness stats, after accounting for the usual.

[Brake Horse Power]

Just over a week ago we had in the Netherlands regionally some rain fall which should happen only one in a thousand years…. What normally pours down in a month now came down in a few hours.
We have some very good agricultural ground, so there is a lot of food growing. But a lot of it is damaged because the water couldn’t be pumped away quick enough. So beside some ventilation issues we also have harvest which will fail, so less food security.

Extreme heath will also promote climate migration. The Dutch commander of armed forces called climate change the biggest threat to global security.

In Canada this week there was a major heath record in a village. Forest got fire, the village is nog gone.. it has never been so hot in the northern part of the world. Other extremes also cold on the south pole are now happening.

Quite a lot extreme events which occur now.

This week an IPCC report leaked, i still have to read it but the summary wasn’t really positive on how things evolve. Which isn’t really a surprise because CO2 is still rising.

[Just_a_fan]

Yes, but the basic mammalian chemistry can obviously thrive at 1000 ppm. The fact that we have adapted as it sank to near plant killing levels outside is good, but since the level indoors can easily hit 1000, at worst we'd have to make sure our buildings are better ventilated.

Submariners of course routinely live for months at much higher levels than that, yes they are young and fit, but oddly that is not always an advantage. Young and fit people are over represented in mountain sickness stats, after accounting for the usual.

Humans can live with CO2 above current levels. That's not the problem. The problem is that if temperatures increase, weather patterns will change, ice will melt, sea levels rise. Humans the animal won't struggle with that. Human the social animal will because food supplies will change, land will be unsuitable for habitation, etc.

That's the problem.

Whether EVs are the solution, or part of the solution, is a different matter.

[Andres125sx]

Yes, but the basic mammalian chemistry can obviously thrive at 1000 ppm. The fact that we have adapted as it sank to near plant killing levels outside is good

Great, if there´s some other natural weather change in next hundreds thousands years wich is the time any natural weather change takes, we will adapt

That does not help with current climate change wich is taking place in few decades tough, so both animals and vegetals are in a serious problem as no living organism can adapt in such a short timeframe


Negacionist keep ignoring this crucial fact for their own short term economical interests, the problem is that ignorance is extremelly dangerous for the long term of all of us, even theirselves. But we humans have always been this reckless and here we are, with sea ph and temperature increasing, with ice melting, with sea currents changing, with extremelly abnormal temperatures all around the world, with weather becoming extreme with huge storms... but negacionists still show

There´s still people claiming the Earth is flat, but those can keep thinking the Earth is flat and that will not affect myself or people I love, while negacionists promote extremelly dangerous ideas wich will affect us all, so keeping silence should not be an option for anyone after reading this sort of ignorant and dangerous statements

[Tommy Cookers]

proven 'natural weather changes' (in NW Europe) take decades/centuries not 'hundreds of thousands of years'

seemingly the most recent has been conveniently kidnapped by talkers-up of man-made warming (their 1850 start date)
having switched to 1850 as the start of the industrialisation they ignore the prior cooling apparent in 1800-1850


science also shows that current trees are far larger than science had c. 150 years ago determined & 'textbooked'
due to the CO2 rise of course (mature tree specimens measured 150 years ago grew mostly at pre-industrial CO2 levels)
so the fuel density available to forest fires is much greater

the essential difference between trees and fossil fuels is that trees pollute during their lives
eg in London there's millions of such pollution machines (a friend was in charge of 230000)


thread topic related ?
the UK public opinion controllers now admit that ......
heating outweighs EVing in the claim for our ever-larger but intermittent 'renewable' electricity supply ...
some say 'surplus' renewable electricity should make hydrogen for burning (handily storable in old offshore oilwells) ..
and the cost of 'insulating' eg for heatpump heating will be £50000-£60000 for each house

the HS2 'surface' railway will have 32 miles (x2) of concrete tunnel in the short distance from London to Birmingham
and miles of acoustic fencing ... but ....
working from home and EV/AV emergence will presumably set back the carbon break-even day to .... never ?

[Just_a_fan]

and the cost of 'insulating' eg for heatpump heating will be £50000-£60000 for each house

the HS2 'surface' railway will have 32 miles (x2) of concrete tunnel in the short distance from London to Birmingham
and miles of acoustic fencing ... but ....
working from home and EV/AV emergence will presumably set back the carbon break-even day to .... never ?

£50k to insulate a house and stick in an air sourced heat pump? I'd love to be in on that screw as someone is making some serious money out of it!

HS2 is a white elephant vanity project that no one wants except for some politicians and the construction firms that are pulling in lots of money for building it.

[Zynerji]

Is alcohol a toxin? Yes for many animals it is. Humans can take amounts that will kill many other creatures.

A handful of grapes can kill a dog. You could eat a pound and feel nothing.

CO2 in high concentration will kill plenty of animals, will aneathetise many others. It's used as a pre-slaughter device in some parts of the world for this reason.

The climate change deniers in the US use the "CO2 is plant food" argument but it's a straw man.

I hear that a lot in the US. Disregarding the most obvious of facts to make way for subjective feelings.

Critical thought, however, keeps one planted in reality.

No plants = No people.

And you call that a straw man?

Yes, I call it a straw man because it's used as an argument against control of emissions. Yes plants use CO2, but CO2 has an effect on temperature and that affects things such as the water cycle and other processes.

Has life existed on the planet with higher CO2 levels than today? Yes. Was life different? Yes. Will higher CO2 cause changes to weather patterns? Perhaps. Will that affect humans? Yes probably. Will it mess up your life and mine? Probably nothing more than an inconvenience, but for some people it will be life changing/ending.

I mean, with CAS9 and CRSPR tech, why not work on engineering trees/corn that consume 10x more CO2 during their life cycle? I can't believe that no one has thought of it, because there is no money to be made from it. Pine trees that grow 10x faster, and sequester 10x CO2 and then provide cheap building supplies would be a win/win/win.

[Zynerji]

And PS:

I'm a big fan of converting decommissioned submarines into off-shore, underwater, anchored Nuclear powerplants that are operated from the shore.

[Just_a_fan]

I mean, with CAS9 and CRSPR tech, why not work on engineering trees/corn that consume 10x more CO2 during their life cycle? I can't believe that no one has thought of it, because there is no money to be made from it. Pine trees that grow 10x faster, and sequester 10x CO2 and then provide cheap building supplies would be a win/win/win.

In order to use 10x as much CO2, they're need to grow 10x bigger. The carbon is mostly in the cellulose which is about 40% of the mass of a tree. So you'd need to make 10x as much cellulose which means being 10x bigger. For construction use, fast growing timber is less helpful than slower grown wood. Of course one could use larger pieces of timber to offset that but it increases the effort required to handle it.

Of course, the simplest way would be to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and reduce the CO2 released from them. This means a minority of the globe will have to change their life styles a little bit - remember that the majority of the world have quite small per capita CO2 production. There are a handful of big "polluter" countries in terms of per capita CO2 production. Those countries realistically have to reduce their production of CO2. That means reducing consumption of fossil fuels etc. Of course, no one in those countries wants to do that because it means possibly making their lives slightly less enjoyable.

[Just_a_fan]

And PS:

I'm a big fan of converting decommissioned submarines into off-shore, underwater, anchored Nuclear powerplants that are operated from the shore.

I'm a fan of nuclear power. We should be making more use of it but sadly there is a lot of fear out there and politicians are scared to stand up and say "we need to do more nuclear if we want to maintain our lifestyles".

[Andres125sx]

proven 'natural weather changes' (in NW Europe) take decades/centuries not 'hundreds of thousands of years'

seemingly the most recent has been conveniently kidnapped by talkers-up of man-made warming (their 1850 start date)
having switched to 1850 as the start of the industrialisation they ignore the prior cooling apparent in 1800-1850

Decades? No way, provide some source please


What cooling are you refering to in 1800-1850?