7 ms·
Rising carbon dioxide levels now detected in human blood
- indoordin0saur 7mo agoThis actually has me just as concerned as rising temperatures. And its a pretty hard thing to argue against, no matter your politics. Elon even brought it up when he did that interview with Trump in late 2024 to convince him that we should still care about CO2 levels in the atmosphere, even if you think the threat of a changing climate is overblown. Trump really had no response.
- Tade0 7mo agoUSA (along with the rest of the western world) is a huge cumulative emitter: https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2 https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2 But a distant second in per year emissions: https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by-country/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by... The EU, not listed here, sits between the US and India at about 3.05 billion tonnes. It's all up to China, which took over a huge chunk of the world's manufacturing. And all up to us, buying Chinese products.
- bspinner 7mo agoThe EU isn't listed, because the EU is not a country. Sorting the table by "per capita" is much more interesting IMHO.
- triceratops 7mo agoThe cumulative emissions represent the PPM increase today. So that's a very relevant statistic. I don't know why you're ignoring it. China also reduced their emissions last year while the US increased them. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45108292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45108292 Stop pointing fingers. Start working.
- piloto_ciego 6mo agofiguring out who to blame is not the problem here, we need to figure out how to fix it.
- ThomW 7mo ago"Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.“
- toomuchtodo 7mo agoClean tech will save the day (low carbon generation, batteries, electrification trajectories and rate of change, broadly speaking), but the global fossil industry will need to be dismantled faster than some will like. It is a matter of survival, not politics or economics. My hunch is there are not many globally who want to suffocate while trying to exist for shareholder value.
- lapcat 7mo ago> My hunch is there are not many who want to suffocate while trying to exist for shareholder value. Have you... read the news lately? You say it's not a matter of politics, but the politicians are absolutely trying to roll back the clock, push dirty tech, eliminate all environmental protections and regulations.
- embedding-shape 7mo ago> but the politicians are absolutely trying to roll back the clock, push dirty tech, eliminate all environmental protections and regulations Yes, in one country who seems hellbent on destroying itself. But looking globally, more and more countries seems to get it at this point, and at least move in the right direction, compared to others. The others will make themselves irrelevant faster than the others can reach a future without fossil fuels.
- lapcat 7mo ago> Yes, in one country who seems hellbent on destroying itself. One of the largest countries in the world, measured by size, population, economy, and military. If you hadn't noticed, the US can do a lot of damage to the rest of the world all by itself. And pollution does not respect borders. Global warming does not respect borders.
- gcanyon 7mo agoHigher carbon dioxide makes us dumber: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7229519/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7229519/ I wonder how long before in-home CO2 extraction becomes a thing.
- amelius 7mo agoWe'll have AGI not because the AI becomes smarter but because humans become stupider.
- rozap 7mo agoAnd the AI build out will release more co2, making the crossover point even closer. This is actually really funny to think about.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- kibitzor 7mo agoCO2 increase of 400ppm decreases cognitive function by >20% [1] I frequently send this medium article [1] to friends + family for a basic dive into how CO2 affects our thinking and abilities at various levels in common areas. The article cites a study [2] which graphs cognitive score for different activities at different CO2 concentrations. Each activity's cognitive score is worse at higher CO2 concentrations, EXCEPT "focused activity" or "Information search" (up to some point) [1, note it is from 2016] https://medium.com/@joeljean/im-living-in-a-carbon-bubble-literally-b7c391e8ab6 https://medium.com/@joeljean/im-living-in-a-carbon-bubble-li... [2]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26502459/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26502459/
- boringg 7mo agoThat article really needs a pre-and post fixing his house. I find it hard to believe that stat you provide -- seems like a bit of a shiny lure without much merit. Maybe if CO2 PPM wasn't so high I could make sense of it.
- stuaxo 7mo agoPlants grow faster (but not better) with more Co2 I wonder if this could be related to global obesity ?
- tonyedgecombe 7mo agoIf we were only eating plants then there would be no obesity crisis.
- zdragnar 7mo agoYou'd be amazed at what you can do to yourself with enough fried potatoes and refined sugar.
- tonyedgecombe 7mo agoOn the other hand you don't see many overweight vegetarians.
- zdragnar 6mo agoPeople who are vegetarians are already engaging in a disciplined diet, so they are more likely to eat a restricted calorie diet as well. Add enough ranch sauce, cheese, oil, refined sugars and carbs to your meals and you'll be just as overweight as someone who does that and has steak too.
- beejiu 7mo agoThere is actually a hypothesis around this, but I don't think it's really been investigated: https://www.nature.com/articles/nutd20122 https://www.nature.com/articles/nutd20122
- zdragnar 7mo agoThere's an oversimplified assumption here that the plants will be less nutritious, and so people will eat more calories to make up for the deficit. I suspect the presence of protein, fats and sugars influence the hormone production regulating appetite far more than these changes account for. I would expect the same health issues to be affecting other animal species in just as drastic a measure as humans if it were true, and also that global obesity happened at a more uniform pace rather than coinciding with the introduction of modern western eating habits and lifestyles.
- zug_zug 7mo ago> Humans evolved in an atmosphere containing roughly 280–300 ppm of CO₂. The average annual increase over the past decade has been about 2.6 ppm per year, with 2024 recording a 3.5 ppm rise. So currently we're at 428 with 3.5 increase per year, yeah, that's scary if it doesn't slow down soon. Makes you wonder about what indirect health side-effects that could have on us.
- lenerdenator 7mo agoI'm not a doctor, but I reckon it'd be same as any other case of carbon dioxide poisoning.
- apopapo 7mo agoIt makes us dumber and dumber.
- lenerdenator 7mo agoThe Cleveland Clinic would say you are right [0] > Headaches. > Persistent tiredness or sluggishness during the day. > Disorientation. > Confusion or altered mental state. > Paranoia. > Depression. > Seizures. No word from the Cincinnati Clinic though... [0] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24808-hypercapnia https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24808-hyperca...
- pocksuppet 7mo agoChronic exposure to CO2 levels above normal but below acute toxicity makes us dumber and more irritable.
- Xiol 7mo agoGood job we can outsource all our thinking to an agent, now.
- piloto_ciego 6mo agoI literally said this down below and got down voted. This has been my theory for a few years now. It's not the only thing, but the flynn effect has certainly reversed.
- jmclnx 7mo agoRelated but flagged link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47202183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47202183
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- throawayonthe 7mo agoi wonder how much specifically indoor co2 levels and levels in dense/industrial affect it also is it accurate to say that the blood co2 level is mostly a snapshot of the moment blood is drawn? or is it affected by longterm environment
- hxorr 7mo agoThis is compounded by modern lifestyle factors such as staying indoors more, keeping the windows closed to help the aircon/heating be more efficient, etc. I think a lot of people would be surprised at the CO2 level in different indoor environments they spend time in each day.
- NoSalt 7mo agoI recently purchased a small CO₂ detector off Amazon for the house and work. So far, so good ... hovering around 450ppm.
- bob1029 7mo agoThe human body has a fairly elegant regulation mechanism for handling variance in things like CO2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr_effect I think regular exercise can help to offset some of the effects of rising CO2 levels. Clearly not an end game solution but it's something to consider because you do have control over this one.
- OutOfHere 7mo agoA rise in blood bicarbonate, even if in the normal range, particularly at the upper end of normal, is still dangerous at times. The problem is that it has an effect of diminishing extracellular potassium which leads to spikes in heart rate, risking a cardiac emergency. I have witnessed it first hand.
- piloto_ciego 7mo agoThis is actually my theory on why we're behaving so stupidly right now en masse. I'm sure there's other papers out there, but this is the first one for this post: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036013232300358X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036013232... Anyway, CO2 levels rise on planet earth, which cause indoor levels to rise too. As it turns out, because of ventilation and such, indoor levels are always a bit higher than outdoor levels. We cross some critical threshold and it gets really hard for us to take on complex cognitive tasks and make good decisions. This effects everyone equally more or less a bit worse at planning, a bit worse at solving problems, a bit worse and making critical decisions. In the long run, planners make worse decisions, governments make work decisions, voters make worse decisions, students perform more poorly... you get the picture. Over 20 or 30 years these bad decisions start to ramp up into meaningful impacts on the world. At risk of "post hoc ergo proctor hoc"-ing myself, the tipping point for this being somewhere close to 400ppm would make a lot of sense, because people seem to be noticeably dumber some time after 2014 ish? Hard to really pin it down though, but once CO2 levels started to routinely crest over that 1000ppm it seems to me that the world started to get a lot crazier. Like, we can blame it on one politician we don't like or another, or on bad economic forecasting, or on the schools, or on latent racism / sexism / whatever-ism. To be clear, those are all legitimate concerns, but at the end of the day we're just animals more or less stuck on this orb zipping through the cosmos and if we're suddenly unable to do high level reasoning as well wouldn't you expect to see an increase in "dumb ideas" being accepted?
- chneu 7mo agoReminder that an individual can cut their emissions by a staggering amount by just not eating meat/dairy. Depending on how much you consume, you can cut your emissions by 50%! Regenerative ranching is a lie and is more based in "vibes" and "energies" than science. Making beef production 0.01% more efficient then increasing consumption does not help. Meat is a "status symbol" food based in excess, grass fed beef is just another excuse to use more resources on a good to show how much of a status symbol it is. Grass fed beef is not good for environment. That's nonsense. It's less efficient beef called green. It's more expensive so people can claim superiority for buying it. Our ego, pride, heritage, and machismo are used to manipulate us into beating our chests and consuming more protein, cuz winners eat 1.2g protein per kg and go to the gym. See how our health is used to manipulate us and justify excessive consumption in the form of "health and fitness"? Our colonist/conquerer society is dead set on us consuming more and more. We gotta buy more funco pops to keep up with social media influencers. At the current point, the ONLY thing that makes sense is to cut your excessive consumption. We arent removing anything from the environment at this point and "recycling" and "regeneration" are meaningless. We've blown past every milestone of destruction we have. We consistently increase our emissions and consumption. We are not doing anything to stop this. Reduce and sacrifice is all that matters right now. Soon, a lot of this won't be an option for people, it'll be forced on them because of our selfishness today. Our kids and grandkids have every reason to blame us. We are finding, creating and using every excuse we can for why this isn't our fault as we bite into a cheap burger.
- WorldMaker 7mo agoReminder that corporations spent a ton of money on propaganda to make us all believe individual sacrifices can have a noticeable impact when the largest offenders are all corporate. Even if everyone reduced their personal carbon footprint by avoiding meat/dairy and the industrial cattle farms mysteriously disappeared overnight, that's still a drop in the overall greenhouse gas emission problem. Also note that "everyone" is doing a lot of work in that sentence and also means collective effort is required to make the change noticeable/effective rather than individual efforts. Collective action is what matters. Corporate regulation is what matters. An enhanced EPA with real enforcement powers (not just fines, but the ability to shut down companies and/or outright murder them; which is also a larger debate because right now Americans generally don't believe in corporate murder and think corporations have a right to indefinitely exist) is what is necessary. It is because of our selfishness, but also our selfishness extends to not working together in enough solidarity and instead fingerpointing at individuals to "do their part, alone, and without support systems and systemic change". That's pretty selfish, too. We need systemic change. We need support systems. We need a government that prioritizes the environment and our collective health and well-being. We need companies to understand that ethics matter as much as profits and if they cannot find profits that are ethical, including and especially in relationship to their externalities like greenhouse gas emissions, then they do not deserve to make those profits and may not deserve to continue operation as a company.
- alexk307 7mo agoIn the reference period 1999->2020, the instruments used by NHANES to track this data changed at least 3 times, they don't account for other changes to the general population that increase bicarbonate levels in serum (i.e. Number of obese Americans rose by ~40% in the reference period [1]). I'm not entirely convinced that using a proxy for C02 levels that can be confounded by a multitude of other health conditions that are common in the American population is a good way of going about this. [1] https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/overweight-obesity https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statisti...
- bethekidyouwant 7mo agoHow do you unconfound this from being inside in better sealed environments for longer periods now? Not even mentioned?
- deeg 7mo agoI remember when I first saw an oxygen bar at a mall and thinking how stupid it was. Fools and their money... But who's laughing now?
- beeforpork 7mo agoAnd while we pump CO2 into the atmosphere, we also shrink the engines that could get it out again, like the rainforest in Brazil. Perfect optimisation! (I don't want to shame Brazil, it's a global chain of problems. And other forests are decimated, too, like in Sweden and Estonia, for the demand of produce worldwide.)