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Comment by lucb1e | Hacker News Reader

> CO2 makes up 0.04% of the atmosphere and humanity is only responsible for 3% of its creation

What explains the remaining percent points then?

Atmospheric CO2 at the first measurement in ~1958 was ~318, latest in 2022 was ~419 (reading a plot on wikipedia[1]). Note that in 1958, the industrial revolution was already in history books, idk what pre-fossil-fuel values were. Going from 318 in 1958 to 419 in 2022 is +32%, you said 3%, so there's a few missing there

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_at...

Edit: just noticed the article lede says +50% since mid-18th century, I don't need to be interpreting graphs here lol. Either way, you missed an order of magnitude somewhere. But it also doesn't matter, because if 3% would have changed our habitat then it still would have been too much right?

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What explains massive shifts in the climate? Why do we have ice ages? Why do they end?

The climate is millions of years old. We have at best 200 years of data.

If we are wrong about this Putin wins big time as Russia is sticking to its fossil fuel revenue sources and keeping the majority of the developing world on fossils.

Russia is turning Africa as we speak. Do you have any idea of what the implications are of Russia achieving global dominance, in alliance with China?

So we agree that you were an order of magnitude off, or are you just ignoring that?

I'm not sure what conversation we're having if you start a new topic without replying to the old, but sure I'll humor you on those points as well

> The climate is millions of years old.

At best, it's a few thousand years old. The climate was quite different 20k years ago during the last glacial period.

> We have at best 200 years of data.

Why are you're ignoring ice cores and other things we've drilled up and measured?

> Putin wins big time

Okay. I really don't care that one human, who will be long dead by then, turns out to have been right that climate change is a hoax, though I'm not aware that he made any statements on the matter. I'd be really happy if we're all wrong and the last dozen summers were just coincidentally hot and everything goes back to normal of its own accord. Better that and a rich Russia than the world being too warm for most of today's animals and sad Russians to boot!

You are quite right, we better burn more gas and coal fast to defeat Russia! /s

Russia and Opec will take the western fuels and sell them to the developing world at lower cost because western demand has left the market. That will increase demand and usage in those markets.

Even without considering climate change, having diverse energy sources is massively important. Being reliant on a handful of countries like Russia for oil and gas leads to bad geopolitics.

Surely the answer is to give those markets access to cheaper solar/wind/renewable power, and not to just burn the oil ourselves?

Once those markets have functioning solar/renewable industries of their own they will need less and less fossil fuel.

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