I can appreciate that from afar, as I have no desire to dive into another hobby.  I'm about to tear down my current 20 year-old setup anyway and I do things on the cheap.

I will say this; doing freshwater in a way that lasts years with minimal maintenance is not exactly what most people with freshwater tanks are into.  They buy colorful garbage and Glo-fish because they want that sort of thing.  The planted tanks shown above have the capacity to be less maintenance intensive, more stable, and definitely more beautiful than what most people are willing to do.

I'm no scientist, but i did pass 8th grade Biology and later the engineering involved with Heating and Air Conditioning. In Biology, i learned the green plant life,  mainly microscopic plankton having the most impact, need CO2 to live. They use it and expire O2. Later i learned that warmer air holds more moisture than cold air. Seems logical that if there is a sudden rise in CO2, subsequent rise in temperature, the there will be a bloom in green plants to take advantage. Self regulating loop.

Saw something similar with that huge oil spill in the Gulf. Our government went to war with that spill, but were puzzled with why the spill dissipated twice as fast as calculated. It was later discovered that the oil was "eaten" by a sudden bloom in microbes that live in the Gulf. Oil seeps from the sea bed in small traces naturally. It is what sustains them. When there was a huge dump of thier hydrocarbon "food", the microbes bloomed, ate it, then died back.

Do you realize that people can believe such nonsense when changes have occurred for thousands of years...maybe even hundreds of millions or billions of years...and everything is fine.

Regarding the statement that the coral along the Florida coast has diminished over that last 40 years.

Is that the result of increased CO2?  Or is it the result of discharges from sewer plant, polluted stormwater discharges, or the increased pollution from shipping, or increased uses of the beaches (and subsequent pollution from people using sunscreen)?

I  highly doubt that increase CO2 can account for any or all of the demise of coral.

In the caribbean, lionfish are a big problem and if you watch, parrotfish eat coral.

I didn't selectively edit anything.

I never said, that CO2 dosing in a reef tank was a good thing, and neither did TxRabbitBane.

Are you aware that long quote strings are not allowed here?  There is no reason not to snip a string as all the context can be found in other posts, and I haven't edited any of those.

What is the problem?   All seems fine here except for Democrat policies that end up injuring or killing more people than any fake "climate change."

Correct PH is the measure of alkalinity to acidity, on a scale of 0-14 respectively, 7 being neutral. Co2 saturation absolutley changes PH, aka alkalinity and acidity levels. Corals only thrive or exist within a baseline of 8 of one point up or down an then prolonged exposure eventually stresses it enough to kill it. (I may be saying alkalinity but its basically the balance or lack of "neutrality" thats affecting corals negatively.

https://atlas-scientific.com/blog/how-does-co2-affect-ph-in-water/
The amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in a solution is one of the many factors that determines the pH of water. As pH levels fluctuate during the day due to photosynthesis, respiration, and decomposition; the extremity of these changes depends on the alkalinity of the water which is influenced by CO2 levels. When CO2 levels increase in water, the pH level drops, which makes the water become more acidic.

Absolutely 100% understand. Most astute aquarium owners strived to create a habitat that was "as self sustaining" as physically possible to assist with the maintenance.

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/great-barrier-reef-coral-cover-2022-record

The effects of CO2 on the oceans isn't something I've looked into, but I will point out:

1) CO2 levels are not going to be reduced by pushing net zero. China and India are not going to go along with that. There is no benefit to the US giving up oil and NG energy (I do think we should shift to nukes for the grid). And US fracking/NG reduced CO2 emissions.

2) The AGW focus with respect to CO2 means that other potential issues with CO2 don't have any "oxygen", so to speak. If ocean acidification is the issue some claim, maybe some solutions could be found if AGW was pushed to the margins.

Not trying to be pedantic here, but that's my point.  CO2 drives the pH lower, as carbonic acid is acidic.  If there is an appropriate buffer in the water, the pH swing will be lower.  Over longer time scales, a lowered pH leads to more dissolved carbonates and bicarbonates, which leads to a higher alkalinity, which leads to a pH increase.  Carbon has a cycle and free CO2 is just a part of it.

Read me.

Earth's heat imbalance 1960-2020 averaged .48w/sq.m. 2006-2020 it averaged .76w/sq.m That latter number equates to a little over 1 zettajoule per month, or roughly enough heat to melt 3300 cubic kilometers of ice/month.

There are so many independent data streams supporting those numbers the overall margin of error is quite low. There are multiple direct satellite measurements of incoming/outgoing heat, the ocean heat content record, ice melt record, ground temperature record, and atmospheric temp records. Atmospheric warming has increased from 1% to 2% of the total energy imbalance over recent decades.

Even if we stopped emitting entirely tomorrow, the heat imbalance wouldn't reach zero until the Earth warmed up enough to radiate that additional heat, and the additional .5C or so currently being masked by particulate emissions.

Anyone who tells you we have any chance at all of holding overall warming below 2C without massive geoengineering is full of shit or doesn't understand the data. Median estimates for regular ice-free Arctic Septembers occurring is 1.7C over an 1850-1900 baseline, and at 2C we can expect regular ice free Julys. There are large natural variability/weather bars around those numbers so it's almost certain we'll see an ice-free July much earlier. Open ocean under weeks of constant summer insolation will double air temperatures at the pole which will have significant impacts on weather patterns in the northern hemisphere, allow the ocean to warm significantly, increasing cloud cover in the region during the winter, reducing ice formation in the freezing season, further increasing the energy absorbed under insolation, and eventually releasing the 1.5 trillion tons of carbon currently locked in arctic permafrost over several, perhaps many, decades, much of it as methane. This represents about 40 years of current human carbon emissions, with a much higher methane proportion, which combined with the loss of albedo in the summer will produce additional warming which then will have additional effects.

We've set three significant record lows in antarctic sea ice extent in the last 6 years, it has essentially caught and probably surpassed arctic melt at this point with 80%+ of the volume lost. When antarctic sea ice runs out that's when we start to see significant, rapid sea level rise as it will no longer support and protect the fast ice. You've probably been told the lie that Antarctic ice was increasing, until recently Antarctic sea ice extent was increasing as the ice broke up and drifted north. Fast ice in Antarctica has been melting at about 150 billion tons/year. This sea ice area loss also has effects on albedo and ocean temperatures and so on.

The Quaternary ice age our genus developed in is ending. Earth has been ice-free for much of its history, often at temps 12+C higher than today.

Watch?!  Just jump into the water and listen!  *crunch *crunch *crunch*

Explain billions of dead species as being "fine". Im pretty sure they werent "fine" as they were DYING. Imagine believing such nonsense, being so closed, narrow, and single minded you can only see such a limited view of the entirety of EVERYTHING, as it benefits that very point of view which only benefits the viewer and his feelz...

All of the above, pollution is a major factor. Instead of doubting go do a tiny bit of research and come to your own conclusions. Corals that are millions/billions of years old are all now dying off in a matter of decades in the peak of human existence and consumeristic ways and you have "doubts" or question which is the "silver bullet"??? Its ALL a factor.

Yeah, but they poop sand and sand is good!

Land plants that respirate through spiracles loose water when they are open. Higher CO2 levels means that the spiracles don't have to stay open as long to exchange enough gas, and thus their water requirements go down, and plat yields go up.

Science is an artificial construct of racist white oppressors.

Any use of science-based arguments is a thinly veiled attempt to keep POC’s in their current subservient roles.

You are correct in the observation of what may appear to be obvious. I just came across this if you want to take a peek. Ultimately Im pretty positive we still dont know the full story (good or bad) on a lot of things and we arent as smart as we think we are as a species. A few points here did stand out though.

How much acidification is too much?

"Our research incorporates the nuances of coral skeletal growth, enabling more precise projections of how, where and by how much ocean acidification will affect tropical reef-building corals," said Nathaniel Mollica, lead author of the study and affiliated with the MIT-WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography.

The research team also included Weifu Guo, Anne Cohen and Andrew Solow (WHOI); Kuo-Fang Huang (Academia Sinica in Taiwan); and Hannah Donald and Gavin Foster (University of Southampton in England).

The scientists developed a numerical model simulating the skeletal growth mechanism and coupled it with projected changes in ocean acidity.

"This important study determined the specific way a coral species is affected by ocean acidification and modeled the effect of future environmental conditions," said David Garrison, director of NSF's biological oceanography program, which funded the research.

It all comes down to aragonite

Coral skeletons are made of aragonite, a form of calcium carbonate. Corals grow their skeletons upward by stacking bundles of aragonite crystals on top of each other.

They thicken the bundles with additional crystals, strengthening the skeletons and helping them withstand breakage from currents, waves, storms and the boring and biting of worms, molluscs, and parrotfish.

Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, mostly from burning fossil fuels, cause ocean acidification. When carbon dioxide is absorbed by seawater, it's harder for corals to accrete their aragonite skeletons.

Reefs face multiple stresses, including rising sea levels, changing nutrient regimes and warmer ocean temperatures, Cohen said, but unlike ocean warming, which causes visible bleaching, the impact of ocean acidification is more difficult to detect and harder to predict.

Laboratory experiments and field studies have been ambiguous, showing clear impacts of ocean acidification on skeletal growth in some cases but not in others. The new research suggests this inconsistency reflects the complexity of coral skeleton growth.

So it is all a factor.  What is the contribution of CO2?  1% 5% 50%?

Scuba divers touching with their fingers might be a larger contributor.

How much research has been done on current pH changes?  I don't know and don't plan to "research it myself" because I don't believe the "Carbon Crisis" is science based.

How many times has the MSM claimed the CO2 has increased 50%.  WE have to do something, when in fact the increase is minuscule relative the the other components of the atmosphere.  Ya know 0.03% to 0.045%.  I just don't believe the "science".  

Could I be wrong? maybe.  But until China and India do something we are pissing in the wind to reduce our contribution.

Edit: you know that burning cow dung produces a lot of CO2

So if I understand you correctly the glaciers at Glacier National Park are going to melt and this time you really, really, really, mean it????  

Attached File

I meant societal or social engineering standpoint because the apparent goal is zero change.  Which isn't even possible, never has been, that's actually the point.    And the fact that life thrived at many times our current level doesn't seem to enter into the discussion.  

It's an odd set of priorities. We don't discuss the massive good that carbon based energy has done for humanity as a species. Millions upon millions of lives saved that other wise wouldn't have been.  Elevating more of humanity out of poverty in a couple generations than in all of human history combined, directly attributable to carbon energy.  So the benefit of the species doesn't seem to actually be the point.  We have a quasi religious obsession with protecting the earth, which doesn't give a flying fuck whether we exist or not.   The earth will be just fine regardless of any human action.   The hubris required to elevate our impact to planet killing levels is stunning.  We can kill ourselves, yeah, and that's something to be concerned about, but we don't evaluate that on an unbiased scale either.

In the green religion all human activity starts as inherently bad because humans are doing it. That's the default answer. Despite the evidence that use of carbon energy has lead the greatest good that we've ever observed in any species.

The green movement at it's core is anti-human.  The only way to appease the movement is to reduce humanity, and it will be an ever changing set of goal posts.   There is an active discussion in this country about banning gas stoves.   I can't imagine the emissions from gas stoves in the US are anything but a rounding error in global CO2 emissions.  This makes no logical sense.

None of this means we can't do better, and we should do better, but we should do what's actually better for the species after an unbiased examination of all the factors. Limiting the options for cooking food shouldn't be anywhere near the top of the list.

yes, absolutely, and there isn't a fucking thing we are going to do about it.  We aren't that special.  99% of all species that have ever lived are extinct.  Shit happens. The earth has always changed and those existing species often died because of it.  We are the most adaptable life we know of.  We stand a better chance of adapting to a changing world than anything that came before us.

One thing we don't stand a chance of is preventing change.

Im not going to argue most of your points as I do believe a lot of the "science" is utter politically driven bullshit. Which makes finding any real data near impossible and questionable at best. which only drives the envirowackos further left and other to not believe anything is  factual. However If I can change my footprint then I will. Its up to you what you do and what you leave behind. Im sure AF not gonna go burn a pile of tires and pour chemicals in my yard just because india and china do it. lol...

For 30 years the environmental engineers that did industrial remediation knew for a fact that chlorinated solvents, typically a DNAPL in an aquifer, were a forever chemical.  Then they discovered through long term monitoring that there is a microbe that eats chlorinated solvents and breaks them down in a predicable decay chain to less and less dangerous substances.

Microbes that eat BTEX compounds have been known even longer, at least on land.

I think you do understand me correctly and because you have no response to anything I said you bring up something else I didn't, where at least one unknown person got one detail wrong trying to estimate a particular local occurrance in a complex system.

Much like posting a video of a group of transportation bureaucrats who can't answer simple scientific questions, as if that's relevant evidence.

If you want to understand me correctly, I posted a source.

The relevant question isn't whether the climate will change. Of course it will.  The question is whether trying to prevent the change is a net good or if the methods we are using to combat the change are even useful.

If history is any guide they aren't and in fact the effort is being co-opted by multiple groups to further their own ends. My impression is that we don't yet have a good enough grasp of the system to form a predictive model that can accurately back test past observations.  Maybe I'm wrong on that.

I think the entire topic needs to be re-framed in a more realistic and practical manner.

Makes sense

So a such low levels even going to 600ppm it ain’t anything to make a difference

I think trying to minimize our negative impacts can only be a net benefit. We arent smart enough to figure out just what that is exactly because of many reasons, from still learning/understanding the sheer scope of it all to the utter ignorance/denial and/or greed. I dont think humans are capable of eternal self salvation/preservation as a species even with such awareness that we currently possess.

I don't disagree with you, really. Climate models have actually been fairly accurate for at least 60 years, and have gotten significantly better over that time, but there's so much bullshit surrounding the topic it's hard to actually talk about the data.

Unfortunately since the right has effectively ceded the issue to the left via denial there isn't any real discourse about what can and should be done. I'm entirely cognizant of the fact that our entire civilization is built on fossil fuels, and how silly leftist policies are in light of that reality and the data we have today.

Whether we can stop the change or not is a question that's pretty much answered at this point IMO, perhaps we can still slow it down enough to make adaptation possible, there is probably a balance point between mitigation and adaptation efforts that is optimal today, but that may not be an equation we can solve under current conditions.

My take is we're almost certainly going to lose all the ice over a long period of time, with occasional large, rapid shifts in the climate as various systems are disrupted, the sea ice runs out, the forests/rainforests and oceans reach certain tipping points, glaciers run out and rivers run dry, etc, and the cost of maintaining civilization in an unstable climate over centuries is going to be extremely high. Given human nature it's likely to result in a lot of conflict, particularly as breadbasket failures become much more common in an unstable, unpredictable climate.

1000 years from now the climate may stabilize in a condition that's quite nice, or not, but either way getting there is going to be rough.

I also think the days where denial is politically viable are very near their end now, for a number of reasons reality is going to become much more evident as we get closer to blue ocean conditions at the poles.

Dude, Biden is our President.  Everything is not fine.

Seems like an opportunity for other species to take over. As has happened before.

Not sure why you're against science and evolution.

Seems like your making a societal argument for good stewardship vs an environmental one.

Climate models have been changed so many time in 60 years [remember, we were supposed to be 20 feet under the ocean by now. Even ex presidents would NEVER buy property by the oceans now] that I can't even count the changes. Hell, I'm still waiting for the global cooling I was promised in the 70's. At least I'm stocked up on sweaters, gloves, coats and hats if it happens. Hell, one really really good volcanic eruption [or even a decent meteorite] could throw their entire graphs and accurate theories to the wind and what would we do then?

The oceans were 400 feet lower only 20,000 years ago.

Man's industrial contribution of C0₂ to the atmosphere is somewhere around 4% of all C0₂

If we killed all industrial (by that I mean burning fuels and not including natural things like breathing) we only affect global C0₂ by that 4%.

Seriously doubt any reduction made are going to help anything anytime soon.

I ain't no science guy, I'm just some rube who barely made it through high school, went to tech school, and drove an 18 wheeler for a few years...

So, of course I know more off the top of my head than the politicians who are supposed to know this stuff. (This is off the top of my head, not googling this so I might be wrong)

Yes, it is around 400ppm or 0.04%. It is rising slowly and steadily, probably due to human activity.

There are two kinds of photosynthesis, C3 and C4. The plants that use C4 handle heat better, but most plants use C3. And C3 plants do struggle to reproduce when you get below 200ppm "effective" CO2 levels. I say effective because those numbers are for plants at sea level and at higher altitudes you need more than 200ppm to keep the plants from dying.

C4 plants handle low CO2 levels better.

And the CO2 levels of the planet have been on a downward trend for millions of years and it is believed that, without human intervention, CO2 will fall below the levels needed to sustain plant life eventually. I don't remember the time estimates on that and even if I did, this is all theory and estimates.

Yeah, except none of that is true.

You can look at the presidential briefings and published papers from the 60's-70's, the first congressional reports from the 80's, the first IPCC reports from the 90's, and they've all got the basic concepts and rough predictions right, mostly they're surprisingly accurate. If you adjust the contribution of CFCs to the early estimates to match actual emissions after they were regulated, the most applicable scenarios match observations for actual warming to date quite closely, the things they tended to get wrong were underestimating how quickly secondary effects would kick in. CO2 emissions tend to kick in last in natural interglacials that are our best analog for what's happening now, so there's some uncertainty about how much primary warming from emissions translates into secondary warming from albedo and secondary changes in the carbon flux, which it's turning out are mostly worse than predicted. OTOH some people were afraid the arctic was going to melt out before now, but it turned out the heavy melt years slow down the AMOC current and reduce the amount of heat pumped into the Arctic.

As for sea level, I can tell you with absolute certainty no credible, peer-reviewed estimates have ever suggested we'd be 20 ft under the ocean now, that would require the entire Greenland ice sheet to melt out, which hasn't ever really been a danger this soon. Actual estimates for Greenland's contribution to sea level rise are around .1 inch/decade. Extreme scenarios for 2100 may have predicted 20' rise, and some people have been saying for some time we already have significant rise built in due to the time it takes for the planet to fully react to forcing and the nature of that reaction, but sea level rise predictions have typically  been in the range of a couple weters by 2100 or less, if you look at predictions for 2050, they're measured in inches, because of the sea ice mostly.

The 70's ice age stuff was way more popular with the media than with scientists, warming papers outnumbered papers concerned with cooling 6/1 in the 70's.

Ordinary volcanism impacts are tiny, less than 1% when compared to human activity, I know that's sort of counterintuitive but CO2 emissions from ordinary eruptions just aren't that large. They're far more likely to produce temporary cooling from particulates. Same is true of mega volcanoes and large impact events, which aren't likely at all on human timescales.

Just imagine what would happen when people started burning everything they could find flammable to keep warm and to cook the food they could scrounge. Billions and billions of people using wood fires or burning other biomass would certainly cause quite the co2 bump.

No. It most assuredly is not. If you doubt that, think about rising and falling humidity, volcanic eruptions, and  accrued gaseous mass from icy meteors, etc.

Think it through.

You're only sort of right, and the people who told you that were counting on you not understanding the difference. I first heard this lie from Michelle Bachman.

Human-caused emissions are about 4% of the total carbon flux of the planet, all sources and sinks, a little more than that now, but that carbon flux has been in balance at about 270ppm during interglacials and 180ppm during glacial periods for millions of years.

The increase in atmospheric CO2 is actually significantly less than our cumulative emissions, because there are carbon sinks that are capable of absorbing some percentage of the extra CO2, although that percentage is steadily declining over time.

The 50% increase in atmospheric CO2 during the industrial age, is all us. It's the cumulative total of our emissions minus the Earth's ability to sequester it. What is true is if we'd used fossil fuels at a slower rate it wouldn't have necessarily been a problem.

It will make a tremendous difference. Plants will grow like mad. Crop yields will increase dramatically.

They are diverging:

Reducing the productive capacity of farming for example. It certainly has negative effects on the environment, but is a net good.  Millions starving to death certainly is a greater evil than monoculture industrial scale farming.

Now look at electrical generation. Moving toward cleaner sources is an obvious good, doing so at the cost of reliability or affordability making it less available to the average person is a net negative.  Electricity saves lives.

What's more important?  Are we actually working for the betterment of humanity or are we just saying that we are....and being motivated by other goals?

I'm skeptical anytime asking questions isn't socially acceptable.

If the cause for this claimed "heat imbalance" is CO2, the average should drop with time, not increase. Only CO2 at high altitude can further contribute to warming. It simply doesn't make sense that the 2006-2020 average would be higher than for the previous 46 years.

Are you claiming earth received .48 w per sq meter more heat than it radiated each year from 1960 to 2020? That is at least an increase of 5.3 K.

I don't fear for our ability to adapt.  We are the most adaptable form of life we know of.

Adapting to a warming climate may be challenging but it would be far easier than adapting to a snowball earth scenario.  Given that change is constant and inevitable I'd rather be warming than cooling.

Are you still listening to Tony Heller?

It's not my claim, it's what observations have indicated. As for how that translates into temperature, that's a complicated subject. Only 1% of that energy went to warming the atmosphere over that period, although that's increased to 2% over the same period, according to the study I linked.

Just as an additional datapoint, this year's ocean heat survey estimated the oceans (at 89% of the total imbalance, according to link) absorbed 10.7 zj of net heat YOY, and the value of .76w/sq.m works out to about 12 zj/year.

In a nutshell Im all about doing what is best for our own trajectory and longevity, or at least attempting to/continuing to explore all possibilities and use what works where and abandon what does not. Its a shame we cant use the power of the human mind to actually do something good versus the current situation of crooks, naysayers, or whatevers, and the rest of us stuck in the middle like WTF?

In a vacuum, I'd agree. Since we're very close to the phase transition from having ice caps to not having them, the relative risk is significantly different.

The snowball effect seems to have been the result of extremely low greenhouse gas levels combined with large volcanic eruptions so it doesn't seem likely at the moment.

I just state "CO2 is plant food" when anyone starts going off about climate change.


Since about 2000, just 23 years ago, plant coverage of the Earth has increased 15%. That's an area about the size of the US. It's happened because more CO2 allows plants to retain more water, and survive in more arid conditions.