Discussion

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indoordin0saur: This actually has me just as concerned as rising temperatures. And its a pretty hard thing to argue against, no matter your politics. Elon even brought it up when he did that interview with Trump in late 2024 to convince him that we should still care about CO2 levels in the atmosphere, even if you think the threat of a changing climate is overblown. Trump really had no response.

stuaxo: Plants grow faster (but not better) with more Co2 I wonder if this could be related to global obesity ?

gcanyon: Higher carbon dioxide makes us dumber: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7229519/I wonder how long before in-home CO2 extraction becomes a thing.

ThomW: "Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.“

toomuchtodo: Clean tech will save the day (low carbon generation, batteries, electrification trajectories and rate of change, broadly speaking), but the global fossil industry will need to be dismantled faster than some will like. It is a matter of survival, not politics or economics. My hunch is there are not many globally who want to suffocate while trying to exist for shareholder value.

lapcat: > My hunch is there are not many who want to suffocate while trying to exist for shareholder value.Have you... read the news lately? You say it's not a matter of politics, but the politicians are absolutely trying to roll back the clock, push dirty tech, eliminate all environmental protections and regulations.

embedding-shape: > but the politicians are absolutely trying to roll back the clock, push dirty tech, eliminate all environmental protections and regulationsYes, in one country who seems hellbent on destroying itself.But looking globally, more and more countries seems to get it at this point, and at least move in the right direction, compared to others. The others will make themselves irrelevant faster than the others can reach a future without fossil fuels.

lapcat: > Yes, in one country who seems hellbent on destroying itself.One of the largest countries in the world, measured by size, population, economy, and military. If you hadn't noticed, the US can do a lot of damage to the rest of the world all by itself. And pollution does not respect borders. Global warming does not respect borders.

lenerdenator: I'd be willing to bet they go the Spaceballs route and make cans of oxygen a must-have item before they cut the emissions.

kibitzor: CO2 increase of 400ppm decreases cognitive function by >20% [1]I frequently send this medium article [1] to friends + family for a basic dive into how CO2 affects our thinking and abilities at various levels in common areas.The article cites a study [2] which graphs cognitive score for different activities at different CO2 concentrations. Each activity's cognitive score is worse at higher CO2 concentrations, EXCEPT "focused activity" or "Information search" (up to some point)[1, note it is from 2016] https://medium.com/@joeljean/im-living-in-a-carbon-bubble-li... [2]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26502459/

amelius: We'll have AGI not because the AI becomes smarter but because humans become stupider.

tw04: You do us all a disservice by saying “the politicians”. The REPUBLICANS are attempting to ignore reality and burn more fossil fuels. Nobody else in America. Name the problem, otherwise you’re implying it’s a bipartisan effort.

zug_zug: > Humans evolved in an atmosphere containing roughly 280–300 ppm of CO₂. The average annual increase over the past decade has been about 2.6 ppm per year, with 2024 recording a 3.5 ppm rise.So currently we're at 428 with 3.5 increase per year, yeah, that's scary if it doesn't slow down soon. Makes you wonder about what indirect health side-effects that could have on us.

lenerdenator: I'm not a doctor, but I reckon it'd be same as any other case of carbon dioxide poisoning.

davidw: And parking is abundant!

amelius: If you have the money for it.

throawayonthe: i wonder how much specifically indoor co2 levels and levels in dense/industrial affect italso is it accurate to say that the blood co2 level is mostly a snapshot of the moment blood is drawn? or is it affected by longterm environment

tonyedgecombe: If we were only eating plants then there would be no obesity crisis.

zdragnar: You'd be amazed at what you can do to yourself with enough fried potatoes and refined sugar.

beejiu: There is actually a hypothesis around this, but I don't think it's really been investigated: https://www.nature.com/articles/nutd20122

zdragnar: There's an oversimplified assumption here that the plants will be less nutritious, and so people will eat more calories to make up for the deficit.I suspect the presence of protein, fats and sugars influence the hormone production regulating appetite far more than these changes account for. I would expect the same health issues to be affecting other animal species in just as drastic a measure as humans if it were true, and also that global obesity happened at a more uniform pace rather than coinciding with the introduction of modern western eating habits and lifestyles.

davidw: In the US, people bend over backwards to ensure that there is free storage for automobiles. And that housing and businesses are forced to include that expensive (parking spots can run into the 10's of thousands of dollars for some kinds of construction) amenity. Fortunately that's starting to change, but it is a big battle. And meanwhile, CO2 levels keep rising.

slibhb: People say shit like as if fossil fuels aren't the single biggest reason we aren't starving and living in thatched huts.

wat10000: Two things can both be true. Fossil fuels greatly improved quality of life for a large number of people in the past few centuries. And their continued use on a massive scale now threatens to hurt a lot of people.

AlexandrB: > My hunch is there are not many globally who want to suffocate while trying to exist for shareholder value.I hate this kind of hyperbole because it obscures the real dangers. No one is going to suffocate any time soon. Atmospheric CO2 is around 450ppm. The CO2 in a meeting room of a typical office can easily reach 1500ppm or more[1]. Is everyone in meeting rooms "suffocating"?[1] https://www.popsci.com/conference-carbon-dioxide-tired-offic...

johnboiles: Yes in one way or another

lapcat: Obama takes credit for U.S. oil-and-gas boom: ‘That was me, people’ https://apnews.com/article/business-5dfbc1aa17701ae219239caa...You have to be born yesterday to believe that Democratic leaders haven't merely hand-waved and virtue-signaled about global warming for decades. I realized this back in the 1990s.Democrats have superior rhetoric, and they are less openly hostile, but their long record of doing nothing to help is unsurpassed. They will fiddle while Republicans burn Rome. And don't forget that Joe Manchin for example was a Democrat, one who dominated Democratic policy during the Biden administration.

knowaveragejoe: You do the people causing this problem a great service with false equivocations like this. It is clear one group would prefer us to ignore the problem and do nothing at all - in fact encourage the problematic behavior - and the other would very much like to take action on the issue if they had the political power.

goodpoint: I think you are being downvoted because people only skim "Clean tech will save the day" without reading the whole text.

Karawebnetwork: The high school my friend's kids attend installed CO2 sensors during the pandemic as an indirect way to measure airflow.It turned out the building had been sealed extremely tightly to keep out the winter cold and because it is old, it does not have a proper HVAC system.They discovered that CO2 levels stayed around 1200 ppm throughout the entire winter, sometimes even higher. This had likely been the case for decades.It is a school in a small, low‑income town. I cannot help wondering how many kids were labeled as underperforming when they were actually struggling with the effects of chronically elevated CO2 levels.

throw0101a: For those unaware, this is the dialogue/caption in Tom Toro's 2012 New Yorker cartoon:* https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995* https://tomtoro.com/cartoons/* https://condenaststore.com/featured/the-planet-got-destroyed...

RobGR: I've thought about making a C02 scrubber for indoor use. The simplest way, using commercial lime, would mean replenishing a consumable to keep it going. The C02 scrubbers that acquarium owners use also don't seem to be able to be regenerated.I think it would be interesting to see what effect, if any, an indoor C02 level of near 0 would have on humans and mammals. Because your blood has to stay in a narrow PH range, and C02 is part of maintaining that, I wouldn't presume it would be good.I think a small desktop C02 scrubber might have a market in the same demographic that pays for air ionizers, de-ionizers, HEPA filters and incense burners.

bob1029: [delayed]

tw04: I think you’re grossly underestimating how much the average American can deny with the assistance of social media.The number of people I personally know who thought the country was going to end on J6 who now call the entire thing a “political hoax” breaks my brain.Not to mention the endless posts about “where are all the people claiming COVID was so deadly now?” Who literally completely ignore the MILLIONS of deaths caused by COVID…Until these people have their own son or daughter killed by X - they’ll happily claim it’s not actually a problem. Or find something completely unrelated to blame instead if it doesn’t align with their Twitter feed.

toomuchtodo: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/27/solar-powers-newest...https://www.pewresearch.org/2025/11/05/impact-of-climate-cha...https://www.pewresearch.org/2025/08/19/global-climate-change...https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2024/12/09/how-americans...https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/09/what-the-...

embedding-shape: Right, but again, it'll matter less and less as the US hegemony is dying and other countries will pick up the torch, and the ones who are taking over seem to be a bit more willing to both commit and execute on plans to reduce pollution and global warming in general.

api: This is honestly much, much scarier than climate change. We can adapt to a changing climate but not if we're losing IQ and focus.

microsoftedging: Op was referencing a comic [0]Furthermore, yes, getting to the point where we're no longer starving and in thatched huts did require fossil fuels, but now we know what they do, and that they're actively having an effect on the environment, and clearly us, are we so stuck in our ways we can't change our actions to secure a life for those that come after?[0] https://www.bureauofinternetculture.art/memes/shareholder-va...

slibhb: What difference does it make what they're referencing?I'm glad we agree that fossil fuels were necessary. It has nothing to do with "shareholder value" -- it has to do with minimizing human suffering.Also, it's noteworthy that US emissions peaked in 2007. We're down ~20% since then. The world is absolutely addressing climate change, and the worst case scenarios have already been avoided. Faster would be better but we're moving reasonably fast.

ChromaticPanic: Consumerism is the problem. If fossil fuels were used on necessities sure. Single use plastics, individually packaged consumables, planned obsolescence are examples of things that are not necessary. These examples have all to do with shareholder value.

slibhb: Consumerism is not the problem. Human beings don't stop wanting to improve their lives once they have the bare necessities and there is nothing wrong with this.We can have our cake and eat it, we just need to transition to cleaner forms of energy. Which we are doing.

lapcat: > the other would very much like to take action on the issue if they had the political power.They had political power! During the Biden administration, during the Obama administration, during the Clinton administration.Al Gore is a famous environmentalist... for making a movie after he was out of power. What the hell did he do for the environment when he was literally in the Oval Office, at the side of the President?

ceejayoz: > What the hell did he do for the environment when he was literally in the Oval Office, at the side of the President?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_activism_of_Al_G...Guy tried.

api: This was true until the advent of nuclear energy, and became orders of magnitude less true after the addition of solar PV and Li-Ion (and now Na-Ion) batteries.I'd say this statement has been almost entirely false since 2020. The only areas where fossil fuels aren't readily replaceable are long-haul aviation (only a few percent of global emissions) and long-haul shipping (also a few percent). So we can probably cut emissions by 80-90% with no meaningful impact to standard of living.

mrguyorama: >During the Biden administration, during the Obama administration, during the Clinton administrationThe president doesn't actually control much in the USA, despite the nonsensical shit republican congresses let them get away with. Obama, Biden, and Clinton could not do anything that wasn't approved by congress.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_Stat...Democrats have not really held enough power to do anything at all in like 40 years. A 1 or 2 vote "majority" in a chamber is not really meant to allow you to do anything.Hell, that very first graph makes it pretty clear why shit is so bad in the US, we used to actually fire congress and replace them with different people.

lapcat: > A 1 or 2 vote "majority" in a chamber is not really meant to allow you to do anything.1) Democrats had a filibuster-proof super-majority during Obama's first term.2) The filibuster is not in the Constitution. It can be abolished at any time by a simple majority vote.The Democrats don't do anything because they don't want to do anything. There's always a convenient excuse. You can blame Manchin or Sinema or whomever, but they're Democrats too.

myaccountonhn: No, just cleaner energy is not enough.

gamerdonkey: > and the worst case scenarios have already been avoided.Do you have a source on this?

lapcat: > Guy tried.Give him a sticker.

fullstop: I went to a Catholic school and had to attend services. I thought that I was just bored, but I'm pretty sure that my yawning had more to do with elevated CO2 levels.

chucksta: There was democratic control of the presidency and congress during Biden's term

OutOfHere: A rise in blood bicarbonate, even if in the normal range, particularly at the upper end of normal, is still dangerous at times. The problem is that it has an effect of diminishing extracellular potassium which leads to spikes in heart rate, risking a cardiac emergency. I have witnessed it first hand.