How much CO2 does a single volcano emit? | Hacker News Reader

How much CO2 does a single volcano emit?

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48 pointsfinchisko27 comments

TL;DR: Volcanism contributes 0.645 billion tons of CO2 per year. Humans contribute 29 billion tons per year. The impact of volcanism is insignificant compared to the impact of humans.

Read that as vulcanism for a hot second

They are both valid spellings of the same word. I feel like i see the "u" variant more often but im not sure which is more common.

I meant like spock

I remember having quite a few arguments with climate change denialists claiming it was natural causes for the climate change we're seeing. It's a pretty good argument until you actually look at the numbers like this.

But even "the numbers" can't convince the deniers. For example:

These numbers are clearly devised by "science" to deceive us. If we accept their liberal deception, a commie socialist future awaits us.

Did I do that correctly?

What bothers me with climate change 'apologists' is that they act all religious when it comes to the science of climate, but don't do a single thing in their life to reduce their footprint (and even if they do it's so insignificant it doesn't matter). It's like they think it's enough to convince people that climate change is real and man made to save the planet (it's not).

Myself I'm a climate change 'whateverist' ;-) I don't have the intellectual means to understand the science for myself and won't trust the scientists on their words (especially when it's the media that is talking for them).

The way I see it : if climate change is really going to happen like they say we're doomed. Even if it's man made, humans won't change until it's too late, so why bother having arguments with people, do you really think they're gonna abandon their way of life just because you're right ?

> Even if it's man made, humans won't change until it's too late, so why bother having arguments with people, do you really think they're gonna abandon their way of life just because you're right ?

Within living memory globe-spanning Fascism seemed inevitable. A bit later, Nuclear annihilation seemed practically guaranteed. Why resist when you can just go with the flow eh?

Yea bud, I'm sure you're out there "resisting".

Changing my lifestyle on my own won't accomplish anything. We need governments to stop subsidizing fossil fuels and start pushing renewables.

Since most governments are at least somewhat responsive to the thoughts and desires of their people, convincing people that climate change is real and man made is actually a pretty good way to do something about the problem.

Right now, the single largest obstacle to combating climate change is the US government's refusal to join with the rest of the world in doing so. That in turn is a direct consequence of the fact that a big chunk of the American electorate either thinks climate change is a hoax or is a natural phenomenon.

>so why bother having arguments with people, do you really think they're gonna abandon their way of life just because you're right ?

You may not be serious. I'm pretty sure next generations will condemn our time as time of total ignorance, selfishness and unprecedented killing of planet and species. What kind of planet do you want to leave to your grandchildren? Hot and uninhabitable? And what would you tell them? "Sorry kiddos, we destroyed the planet, because of our YOLO lifestyle". I don't want to participate on this. And already have reduced my carbon footprint significantly. For example I'm using my car in average twice a month. And still looking how to reduce it even more.

maybe nitpicking, but wikipedia states 36 GT as of 2015 (and they mention that estimate does not account for land use emissions or for shipping emissions,so in all likelihood the total is quite a bit higher)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_...

I love this article but in the comments I'm reminded of an issue in the discord around climate change.

It seems to be an issue of 'denial' and 'belief' to many - the same terms we use for religious belief.

We owe it to ourselves to treat doubt about climate change like any other valid doubt (see geology pre plate tectonics for an example of mainstream science being in short supply of doubt) and to stop treating climate change as a matter of belief.

'Believing' in climate change turns it into an opinion - the type of opinion that can never be truly right or wrong; "you have your opinions, I have mine."

Not all doubt is valid. Most (nearly all?) climate change doubt is based on incorrect numbers, lack of understanding, or politics.

Informed doubt is healthy, but that's not what's going on here.

> see geology pre plate tectonics for an example of mainstream science being in short supply of doubt

Did you mean to say not in short supply of doubt? I thought this was something with little certainty. Or are you saying that little certainty translates to little doubt? Honest question.

We owe it to ourselves to treat doubt about particle physics like any other valid doubt, perhaps?

There is no "valid" doubt about mainstream particle physics, or climate change, etc. because those fields embrace that doubt and then try to eliminate it.

Equating climate science with early stage geology is extremely ignorant of the data and analysis that happens in climate science. Drive-by smearing like that should not be acceptable to you, as a healthily skeptical person, because you cannot back up that claim. Such skepticism must be applied evenly and not merely against one direction of claims.

The models climate science have created have had very little success in forecasting the climate. Healthy skepticism would doubt the analysis.

Note, there is a consensus around the narrative that humans have an impact (which is quite different from the analysis of that human impact). These are totally separate and you seem to have them confused.

> The models climate science have created have had very little success in forecasting the climate

Can you give us some sources for that claim?

won't global warming merely make humans go extinct, the planet will recover and host new life.

I've heard so many times, how human contribution of CO2 is insignificant comparing to: Sun (already debunked by NASA), then Volcanoes. And just recently, that oceans are the biggest contributor. I guess this will be debunked soon too. And even if not, how deniers can explain constant raise of CO2 ppm starting from industrial era? And how many more myths has to be debunked, before we get serious about climate change and start to act accordingly?

How do you explain temperatures dropping from 1940-1975 during the same time that CO2 in the atmosphere was increasing faster than ever before?

The derivative of carbon dioxide concentration isn't the derivative of global temperature??

To sum up, anthropogenic sulfur emissions appear to be the main cause of the mid-century cooling. These emissions decreased the mean global surface temperature by approximately 0.5°C during this period, while anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions caused a warming of approximately 0.4°C. Therefore, even though greenhouse gas emissions continued to have a warming effect during this period, it was more than offset (hidden) by anthropogenic aerosol emissions, until those emissions were brought under control by government intervention while greenhouse gas emissions continued to increase unabated.

https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-mid-20th-cen...

Geologist Peter Ward fears too little CO2 in a future Earth. Below 100 ppm photosynthesis ceases. Plants and animals all die. Only alternative energy organism survive.

Earth likely began with 50% CO2 (like Mars and Venus). By the time life emerged from thebsea is was only a couple percent; just 0.04% (400 ppm) now. During ice age advances its been as low as 180 ppm.

As the Earth cools off, there will be less plate tectonics and volconism to replenish CO2. Ward predicts a half billion years or less for the CO2 apocalypse. If there still is sentient life then, there is an easy remedy. 98% of near surface carbon is in limestone. Just burn enough limestone (as we currently do for cement manufacture).

An apocalypse half a billion years away? In what context does the word "fears" make sense on that kind of scale?

If we're still around then, and still dependent on this planet, and haven't transformed it into an entirely different ecosystem (all these ifs seem incredibly unlikely), then as you say there are easy fixes that even we at our current technological level could pull off.

So I'm not clear why Ward would "fear" this.

The point is not to blindly class CO2 as good or evil.

And why would that be a useful viewpoint today?

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