It’s so crazy that climate deniers think humans don’t cause climate change but volcanic eruptions do.
The eruption of Mount St. Helens released ~10 Mt of CO₂ into the atmosphere.
Human activities currently release that amount of CO₂ in ~2 hours.
@davidho Well, there’s your problem. To be a climate denier, like so many other things in their world, requires an absolute suspension of reality and a belief in facts.
@davidho
Ok, we have three cycles for C, geochemical, biological and combined (the latter would correspond to the burning of hydrocarbons). Within any of the cycles, any change in the quantities of its components or in the temperatures and pressures of the systems will produce changes in the reaction rates just as it happens in the activity of chemical reactions. Taking this into account, it is likely that the combustion of HC is affecting all the systems of the three cycles but not the enthalpy of the same...
@davidho I was living in North Dakota at the time. We barely had any snow the following winter. I’m no scientist , but I’m sure it was due to the ash lingering in the atmosphere.
@davidho Maths or units seemed far excessive so i redid the maths.
Needs 5½ hours 
but it's basically right.
Scary shit.
93.9M crude oil barrel/day
= 11,8Mt /day
= 0.5Mt /hour
Given one Carbon atom (atomic mass 12) oxydes with 2x Oxygen atoms (atomic mass 16) to total CO² mass of 44.
0.5Mt / 12 * 44 = 1.83 Mt of CO² / hour
It needs ~5½ hours for 10 Mt of CO².
4 Saint Helene / day of human CO². That is madness.
@davidho that one sounds like a RFK Jr kind of claim. "I've been shown the data about Volcanoes".
@davidho lol that's nuts
@Doug_Bostrom @davidho the question I always ask is “how do you get a trend out of that?”
@Doug_Bostrom @davidho sadly (and I mean this sincerely) I don't think I ever got my mom to understand the question. climate denial is full of people that don't want to understand the import of "how do you get a trend out of that". :(
–Hans Bot– 
@davidho Moreover, volcanoes have been there for aeons, and climate change coincides with skyrocketing humane CO2 emissions
@davidho This is one reason why Fermi problems need to be emphasised in school and university curricula. Order of magnitude calculations are deep aids to thought and are a method that should be introduced as early as possible.
@sellathechemist Consider a Spherical Cow
@davidho Not only do I own a copy - I inherited it from my Dad - but this is slide 3 of my set of Fermi workshops for Life Science students at UCL.
I am ashamed to confess that i've not worked through it to the end.
@davidho Speaking of cows, one of the best sub-clauses ever. #Ferdinand
@davidho And when my students moan that my questions "don't have a right answer" I point that a) the answer isn't the point and that b) some time in the next five years they're going to be asked a question like that in an interview for a job.
The fact that both scientists and businesses think it's a useful skill suggests that it's … uhhh… a useful skill.
@davidho Do you have sources for the numbers?
@davidho good old movement of goal posts. While sure, volcanoes can wreck climate, humanity is way ahead of them right now. Also volcanoes would cool the planet, so....what is the point again? Their CO2 release in relatively short period of time humanity is doing fossil fuel pales in comparison.
@davidho plus there have been volcanoes throughout human history, but evidence of climate change due to human activity only since the industrial revolution!
@davidho There are people who deny the existence of a climate? I guess if it's not specifically mentioned in the Bible...
@davidho The problem with climate change is that even if you took out most of the CO2, there's still methane, nitrous oxide and other gases that also contribute.
@campfirelena @davidho Those gases decay naturally on the scale of decades to centuries though. CO2 will be there for millions of years.
@drgroftehauge @davidho oh I didn't know that, thanks for letting me know
I didn't even realise that this was the new thing until my friend started telling me that climate change would be bad for the countries around the equator because it would mean they would have more volcanoes. I think he got confused. I certainly was but now at least I see where he got it from.
@davidho a lot of people only see grand gestures and shit that smacks them in the face.
@davidho I'm not a denier. Humans are having a terrible effect but you are minimizing what a volcano does. It's not the CO2 from an eruption that disrupts climate. It's the ash particularly when the eruption is powerful enough to blast that ash cloud up into the stratosphere. It can have major climate effects. You are so right though about the CO2.
@azphilosopher @davidho volcanoes do have a measurable short term effect, mostly cooling from sulfates etc., which the geoengineering fans love to point to. No evidence of long term warming from volcanoes, and there’s always the problem: if the co2 increase is from somewhere else, what happens to the co2 forcing we are, without a reasonable doubt, adding?
@azphilosopher @davidho Ash from volcanoes cools the planet. Like a nuclear winter but from volcanoes. A really, really big one like the one in the 6th century can cool the planet for 2-3 years. In a world absent of humans volcanoes are very important for adding carbon to the atmosphere since plants, erosion, and shelled marine animals very slowly remove carbon.
Yes.
But what is “denial”?
All of my relatives/friends who deny, in the sense talked about here, stay close to home and live relatively modest CO2 lives.
Meanwhile, smug liberals denounce them, and buy expensive hybrid cars, but travel frequently on planes.
@BigBadDog @davidho Individual actions don't have anywhere near the environmental impact as public policy does. Voting for climate-friendly parties, candidates and measures is way more important than whether or not someone flies somewhere twice a year.
It’s always the people with the biggest carbon footprint who make it a false binary.
@BigBadDog @davidho Obviously, watching one's own footprint is important. But given that the vast majority of environmental damage comes from industry, the only real way to make a dent in that is with regulation. Right-wing parties and the polluting corps who pay them don't want that, and actively work against it. Keeping them out of office is critical.
In case I wasn’t clear
“I acknowledge that climate collapse is real, but will not stop electively flying”…
Is a form of denial.
Sorry.
@BigBadDog @davidho "I acknowledge industry is the largest single contributor to climate change, but I'm not going to vote for anyone who might hold them accountable for it" is hardly self-awareness.
Never said that.
“I don’t acknowledge that the single most thing an individual could do to keep their footprint low is to stop flying, instead I’ll lecture people on how they need to vote for feckless politicians who oversee the destruction of the planet at the behest of corporate donors, red or blue”.
Your Blue MAGA is starting to show.
@BigBadDog @davidho Blue MAGA? OK, now I know you're a troll. Welcome to blockville.
Carbon-intense liberals lecturing people on how to vote to save the biosphere ain’t gonna age well.
Enjoy while you can.
Sorry person, ain’t no politician gunna make flying a low-carbon behavior, even if they could.
@BigBadDog @davidho sure. Because when time comes, those smug liberals vote against climate.... what's that? Ahh right, those "living moderate" tend to vote for keeping business as usual.
Also hybrids are....marginally but considerably better not only because of CO2 but also minimising noise and other pollution in cities and suburbs?
Denial of the existence of greenhouse gas effects on the planet feeds into policies not actioned and making gradual progress and mitigation impossible.
@BigBadDog @davidho in short, some liberals are sure smug, but that does not invalidate existence of existential threat posed by climate change, especially it is quite clear we are passed point of no return to have moderate effects. If your point in life is just to show those elites whos what...bad news. They are most likely better poised to survive what's to come.
My point is there’s a lot of talk from elites, and a lot of talk from liberals who “aren’t denying”.
There’s a lot of folks you pin the problem on who live rather “green” in comparison to the above groups, despite what they believe.
You can keep asking/re-framing my point, but that won’t make it any less true.
@BigBadDog @davidho living green or not green really does not move the needle politics wise. Despite everything these people might believe, politics matters. They enable forces who use their passive acceptance to wreck the world.
After all, "personal responsibility" is essentially a misdirection, intentionally remove any responsibility from rich people and companies.
Agreed.
I’ve never offered a judgement, no binary choice.
Just pointing out that of the people I know, those who use/buy more stuff from terrible industries are those “not in denial”.
What is “not in denial” other than rhetoric if one is “not in denial” but puts out 10 times the amount of CO2 as their neighbor?
Living green doesn’t move the needle politics-wise, but it does limit the needle CO2-wise.
In case I wasn’t clear
“I acknowledge climate collapse is real, but won’t stop electively flying”…
Is a form of denial.
Sorry.
@davidho tell them "it's a miracle"
@davidho
E o CO₂ emitido por todos os vulcões do mundo é inferior a 1% das emissões produzidas pelos seres humanos.
The fossil fuel industry is planning on having 1.2 billion climate refugees by 2050
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10037158/
They're aiming for 1 billion famine deaths from climate change.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/sep/05/climate-crisis-could-contribute-to-a-global-food-shortage-by-2050-us-special-envoy-on-food-security-warns
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328723000770
Deaths from extreme heat, in the millions.
https://apnews.com/article/record-heat-deadly-climate-change-humidity-south-11de21a526e1cbe7e306c47c2f12438d
And this is how the fossil fuel industry responds, they buy fascist dictators by the boatload.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-21/oil-titans-help-give-trump-an-edge-over-biden-in-fundraising
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a60926075/trump-donors-tax-promises/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/31/trump-oil-mergers-occidental-crownrock/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-23/trump-s-40-million-texas-fundraising-haul-fueled-by-oil-executives
1/2
2/2
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/09/trump-oil-industry-campaign-money/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/09/trump-oil-ceo-donation
The fossil fuel industry funds Putin's war on Ukraine and the Gaza genocide.
https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/only-an-oil-slump-can-stop-vladimir-putin-2024-03-18/
https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-russia-banked-1-billion-euros-2023-eu-fuel-despite-ban/
https://www.energyintel.com/0000018f-53e7-d00d-a7df-77f72ec90000
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/14/global-oil-industry-impact-israel-gaza-war
https://www.voanews.com/a/gaza-war-tensions-spill-over-to-cop28-climate-talks/7385667.html
OPEC refuses a fossil fuel phase out.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/08/opec-rails-against-fossil-fuel-phase-out-at-cop28-in-leaked-letters
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/opec-members-fossil-fuels-cop28-1234922090/
@davidho logic isn't the point
@davidho the point is tribal narratives
@davidho as things collapse around our ears over the next decade or two perhaps we should create some narratives that welcome climate deniers, flat earthers and everyone else in a state of crisis so profound that they view digital families as their sole or primary source of validation
@davidho
The unstable C14 atoms in fossil fuels have already decayed. Since the proportion of C14 in atmospheric CO2 is decreasing, i.e. not naturally expected, the increase must come from fossil sources.
@Mr_GHARice @davidho more telling is the c12/c13 ratio. The dominant 3-carbon photosynthesis strongly prefers the lighter isotope, and fossil fuels match that preference very well. Volcanic emissions could match the c14 depletion, but it gets very hard to match the c12 preference over the terrestrial average.
@Mr_GHARice @davidho aside: I was really surprised by how strong a preference the 3c fixation photosynthesis has for the c12 isotope, compared to how little preference the 4c process in maize has. Are there other examples of biological processes with such extreme isotopic selection?
@davidho It isn’t “crazy”. It is decades of propaganda on top of centuries of religious dogma.
#FBPE @davidho Yeahbut that's what you and I would call "facts", and gammons don't do facts.
@davidho ah but you see YOU CAN SEE BLACK SMOKE SO IT IS POLLUTIONER, CHECKMARE ATHEISTS!!1!2!!1
@davidho Seeing the same thing being said with the 8th volvanic fissure eruption in Iceland.