| > "If this trend continues... That's my point. It won't continue. Nothing grows to infinity. CO2 levels are rising due to an increase in emissions year-over-year. This increase is guaranteed to stop on its own. We don't know what happens if emissions stabilize at current levels. Perhaps CO2 concentration will continue to rise for a while, perhaps it will stabilize rather quickly. Absent any other factors, the long term trend is always for CO2 levels to (slowly) sink. If I naively extend the following correlation, just going from 420 to 520 would require adding another 30 Gt of CO2 of annual emissions (almost doubling current levels): https://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/CO2_emissions_vs... That amount represents the economic jump from the 1950s to now. Not inconceivable, but also not foregone. > ...atmospheric CO2 would approach 900 ppm—just below levels during the Paleocene thermal extinction 54 million years ago" Name-dropping an extinction event in this context is rather unwarranted, considering that those 900ppm were preceded by a slow descent from 1500ppm. |
Lots of countries are looking to go from 1950's economy to modern standards, many live in rural areas that develop etc.
Why do you believe CO2 tends to drop? The accumulated CO2 don't follow emission drops in the graph. CO2 may linger for decades to hundreds of years.
Humanity is driving faster downhill without any brakes.