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Comment by ycombineit | Hacker News Reader

Perfect. More fodder for the anti-science idiots to prove how clean air isn't a big deal.

You show those anti-science folks with ..... more science?

Selectively reporting scientific results based on how it will be used for fodder (?) just fuels anti-science sentiment.

The messaging of this article is causing people in this very comment section to conclude that climate change is progressing slower (or even not progressing at all) based on a revision of a plant CO2 uptake study that was done in the 1980s.

Like it or not climate science is extremely political and selectively reported science (which this is) that is presented to the public needs to account for the context in which it exists or it is no better than propaganda. The fact that the Oak Ridge National Laboratory is primarily funded by the US Department of Energy is plenty of reason to be suspicious of its motivations. They have a vested interest in shaping the public's perception of energy production and its impact on the climate.

So they misrepresented the findings. I stand corrected.

Everyone wants clean air. There is reasonable debate as to what that threshold should be and what human actions should be taken to improve it and this information adds to that debate.

If you were looking for a data point to use as a cudgel against the "idiots" then you are failing in at least to known ways.

You're angry at the good news that CO2 is being absorbed by nature more than previously believed?

it's not good news if forests are disappearing faster than being regrown.

That is not at all the sentiment GP is expressing.

Say you have a terminal disease. Doctors evaluated the progression of your illness and estimated you have three years to live. Of course, when you begin treatment changes your life expectancy: start now and you may get twenty more years; start in two years and you’ll only get an extra four.

Your insurance company says “doctors are all quacks, you’re not ill, they’re just in it for the money” and don’t pay you anything. They know that’s a lie and that after you die there is a high probability your family will sue them out of existence, but the people currently in charge hope that will be far enough in the future they won’t have to personally worry about it. In the meantime they will enjoy the money they don’t pay you.

As the months go by, you visibly deteriorate. It’s obvious you are sick. Your insurance maybe pays for some token cheap medicine to make you more comfortable and get themselves more leeway. Maybe that buys you an extra four months. They’ll be horrible but you will be alive and so your family can’t sue. They continue to be off the hook but it’s getting harder to escape the reality.

Then a new doctor comes along and says “actually we overestimated the progression of your illness, you should’ve been given five years initially”. What do you think happens then? Obviously the insurance company will use that as an argument to further delay your treatment and double down on the rhetoric that all doctors are quacks. The damage is still happening but the urgent action needed to stave it off is once again delayed into the future.

That is what GP is complaining about. It’s obviously good news that you’re not so close to death as you thought, but that knowledge may end up hurting you in the long run.

Yes, this specific messaging feels motivated by the bottom lines of energy producers. The information doesn't actually change what we've measured regarding progress of climate change, but it's vague enough that plenty of people in the comments here are confused and acting like climate change isn't real after all.

> Say you have a terminal disease.

Just because a Doctor said so? Shouldn't we do some really good tests here first?

There’s nothing in the analogy which says no tests were run. You have to be arguing in really bad faith to come up with that one.

Well then it's a flawed analogy. There is no credible basis to say the planet is "dying" in same exigent sense you convey with this analogy. It's particularly bad faith to compare the lifespan of a Human with the imputed lifespan of Earth.

Analogies are never perfect, they are a tool to explain an idea by way of drawing similarities. They are not meant to overlap perfectly, that would be a tautology.

It’s not realistic to think one’s family could simply sue an insurance company or of existence. It’s pretty obvious to anyone engaging in good faith that the example is making a point for humans, not attempting to be taken literally by obtuse robots.

You said it derogatorily, but it is genuine evidence that rising CO2 concentrations are have less effects than previously thought. In theory there could accumulate enough evidence to show anything.

That is exactly it - that's untrue. CO2 absorption was previously underestimated, but that does not change the rising concentration or the effect of CO2 on the climate.

But it might change what we view as a legitimate mitigation strategy.

For example, could we burn oil at 2024's rates with 1900's forests and not have net-positive CO2 levels? Back of the napkin:

- We're producing ~37 gigatons of CO2 (GtCO2) through burning of fossil fuels at the moment [0]

- The current forestation level is ~4 billion hectares [1]

- The net loss of forestation is ~1 billion hectares since 1900, with deforestation rates peaking starting ~100 years ago. [1]

- 1 petagram == 1 Gt

- Current forests consume 157 Gt/yr [article]

Therefore, the billion hectares we cut down in the past century would consume an additional 157 * 0.25 == 39.25 GtCO2/yr if it were still standing, 2 Gt more than our historical maximum global net output.

Obviously, the burning of fossil fuels is ultimate source of the increase in CO2, but without the deforestation it would still (back of the napkin) be sustainable. At least, we'd not be quite so far down this road.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/276629/global-co2-emissi...

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/deforestation

No. That is an entirely incorrect interpretation of the study.

It isn't. Greenhouse emissions have remained roughly stagnant for over 30 years, while lung cancer deaths have dropped by 50-60 percent. Of course that's largely due to a decrease in smoking, but without any concomitant increase in mortality from "bad air", I don't see how anyone could think it's a "big deal".

Sources: https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica... https://www.lung.org/research/trends-in-lung-disease/lung-ca...

Those are two different things, though. Both linked to emissions, but in different ways.

Also you had the wrong chart selected from that page, https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica...

Are you seriously arguing that unhealthy air does not exist?

no, obviously not

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