13 comments

  • zugi 19 hours ago
    > There is mounting experimental evidence that lifetime exposure to these increasing atmospheric CO2 levels can negatively impact the normal physiology of organisms... Studies indicate that, after this time, elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide, leading to CO2 accumulation in the body, has the potential to cause a range of adverse health effects.

    There's an awful lot of distance from "can" and "potential" to "toxic".

    • Craighead 19 hours ago
      Can we revisit this comment in 2057?
    • poorboy2026 19 hours ago
      [dead]
    • OutOfHere 19 hours ago
      A sign of intelligence is to prevent "can/maybe/potentially" from becoming "actual", especially when the consequences are dire. A sign of unintelligence is to ignore the signs, then blame the ones who acted for needlessly averting the tragedy, claiming it would never have happened.
      • zugi 19 hours ago
        Wow, you competely edited your comment to say something different than the one I replied to.

        You also still failed to articulate your argument.

        I don't think you want to make this about intelligence.

      • skygazer 19 hours ago
        It’s not clear if you’re commiserating with the comment you’re replying to, or lambasting its author.
      • zugi 19 hours ago
        "The one above" is not clear, can you please articulate your argument?
  • jvanderbot 19 hours ago
    The study doesn't say "fatal" it says "toxic". Not toxic like lead, toxic like cigarettes. The actual effects discussed are subtler than "all life dies in 50 years".
    • OutOfHere 19 hours ago
      It is fatal to children as their underdeveloped lungs cannot compensate. For adults it requires emergency medical care and chronic treatment, failing which the heart won't survive long.
  • veqq 19 hours ago
    I'm a bit confused by this, since indoor CO2's higher (double?) so wouldn't we already be experiencing it?
    • bb88 28 minutes ago
    • Stitch4223 19 hours ago
      You can get a decent CO2 meter from stores like IKEA. You’ll come to the conclusion that the cozy feeling you get sometimes is directly related to the ppm being well over 1000. It affects your thinking, but it creates “atmosphere”.

      The first 440 ppm you’ll get for free. This used to be lower and has risen steeply in the last 100 years and continues to do so.

      See the historical graph at https://www.co2levels.org/

      • ortusdux 18 hours ago
        For homeowners, I highly recommend making sure you have some way to bring it fresh air on demand, and then automate it in conjunction with a CO2 monitor. I added a duct fan and ERV before my HVAC system's fresh air intake, and then tied the fan to an air quality monitor.
      • rolph 17 hours ago
        people suddenly freaking out, is a cozy atmosphere?

        Hypercapnia

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercapnia

    • consumer451 7 hours ago
      But doesn't this mean that the new indoor level will be new outdoor level + the increase that arises indoors?
    • magicalhippo 19 hours ago
      The human body can tolerate a short sauna session. It cannot tolerate living in a sauna 24/7.

      That said, the authors note that many people regularly do indeed experience long periods of higher CO2 levels, and that this may in part explain the HCO3− blood level trend they're seeing and has to be taken into consideration.

      They also note "more recent studies of humans and animals have shown harmful effects of CO2 exposure at [1000 to 3000 ppm CO2], such as changes in heart rate, kidney calcification, oxidative stress, neural damage and inflammation".

    • lta 19 hours ago
      The people that were sampled were probably already affected by the indoor exposure. I don't think it affects the validity of this study
    • cgyvbunji 19 hours ago
      We are
    • OutOfHere 19 hours ago
      The indoor carbon dioxide level is in principle contributing to it.
    • poorboy2026 19 hours ago
      [dead]
  • teravor 19 hours ago
    co2 by itself doesn't appear to really matter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19863319

    key phrase being "There's a big difference between seeing high concentrations of carbon dioxide as indicative of poor ventilation and seeing high concentrations of carbon dioxide itself as detrimental to cognitive function."

  • monster_truck 19 hours ago
    Won't the rising, boiling oceans get us before we have to worry about this?
    • geuis 19 hours ago
      No. Even with the amount of co2 current being dumped into the atmosphere there's not enough total solar energy capture to Venus things up. A few thousand years, absolutely.

      To add: desertification and more or less removing the support systems for modern population levels can easily happen with what's going on. But the oceans won't boil first. Everything else will die first.

      • monster_truck 18 hours ago
        Why are you only talking about co2 if you're going to try and be serious when responding to a joke? Please make an attempt to understand the situation better if you care that much.
        • 1attice 2 hours ago
          because, intentionally or otherwise, your joke is 'too on the nose', as comedians put it, and 'will the oceans boil first' is, unfortunately, not an unreasonable question to ask, as during any positive feedback loop there is the chance for it to go into runaway. The second planet in our solar system likely experienced just such a cascading change, for example. Earth hasn't gone there before, or we wouldn't be talking (that so-called 'weak anthropic effect' Stephen Hawking was on about in _A Brief History of Time_,) but there is no a priori reason to think it _couldn't_, given a sufficient carbon pulse.

          That said, we're more likely looking at more of a prehistoric scenario, near as I can suss, which would be more like, 'most high-metabolism creatures can't hack it, but at least you get some really cool massive dragonflies!'. This is emphatically a place we've been before, and, given all the prehistoric carbon now in every breath, a place we will likely be seeing again, and soon.

          I'm very sorry about your planet and you have my condolences.

    • therealdrag0 19 hours ago
      How?
      • monster_truck 18 hours ago
        Well first it gets bigger and then it gets really hot, I'm not an expert on boiling water though
  • gustavus 19 hours ago
    So even will all the effort we've put into solar and decreasing coal, being more economical unless there is massive widespread international cooperation to suddenly and rapidly start deindustrializatizing the air we breathe will be doing us in less than 25 years.

    Sounds great, at this point doesn't really seem to be anything I can do as an individual except enjoy the ride, because it's now a race to see whether swarms of killer AI robots do us in, the global economy collapses, the ocean currents fail, and if none of those happen the air will end up killing us all anyway.

    Sounds like I might as well try and enjoy it while it lasts. Cheers!

    • veqq 19 hours ago
      A nuclear build out would make enough cheap electricity to scrub the atmosphere clean.
    • bouncycastle 18 hours ago
      ironically, the collapse of the global economy is what could save us
  • OutOfHere 15 hours ago
    Here is a short video explaining the paper: https://youtu.be/-WpIJhyAxr0
  • ChrisArchitect 17 hours ago
  • canadiantim 19 hours ago
    Dang can we please change this editorialized title?

    When you click through the actual title is: Carbon dioxide overload, detected in human blood, suggests a potentially toxic atmosphere within 50 years

    • zugi 19 hours ago
      The study points out that CO2 levels are rising, and in 50 years might cause blood HCO3- to exceed 30mEq/L. It then references https://journals.lww.com/cjasn/abstract/10.2215/cjn.11941017... as to why that level is dangerous.

      But if you read that abstract, it's about diagnosing blood diseases, and suggests based on surveys of different studies of current people's blood levels that levels above 30mEq/L be flagged as out of normal. It doesn't discuss harms or outcomes.

      So even "potentially toxic" seems baseless.

      • OutOfHere 18 hours ago
        High bicarbonate in blood is not a blood disease, in the same way that high glucose in blood is not a blood disease either. High bicarbonate leads to severe and serious problems that can be fatal in those with weak lungs or a weak heart and in children and the elderly. Even in healthy persons, high bicarbonate will lead to low extracellular potassium which is immediately detrimental to the heart. I have experienced it first hand. There is a reason why bicarbonate in blood has a reference range.
  • snootypoot 16 hours ago
    [dead]
  • tjwebbnorfolk 19 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • rho138 19 hours ago
      This is the first time it’s been posted?
    • OutOfHere 19 hours ago
      It's not nonsense, and despite the repost, several readers still are seeing it for the first time.