The weekly reading at the Mauna Loa CO2 observatory for June 16, 2019 breaks into 50 worst increases

[NNadir]

Each year, the maximal value for carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere for a particular year is observed in the Northern Hemisphere's spring. The Mauna Loa Observatory reports weekly year to year increases for each week of the current year compared to the same week in the previous year.

This year, in 2019, as is pretty much the case for the entire 21st century, these maxima represent the highest concentrations of carbon dioxide ever recorded going back to 1958, when the Mauna Loa carbon dioxide observatory first went into operation. Weekly data is available on line, however, only going back to the week of May 25, 1975, when the reading was 332.98 ppm.

May 12, 2019 set the all time record for such readings: 415.39 ppm.

These readings, as I often remark vary in a sinusoidal fashion, where the sine wave is imposed on a monotonically increasing more or less linear axis, not exactly linear in the sense that the slope of the line is actually rising slowly while we all wait with unwarranted patience for the bourgeois wind/solar/electric car nirvana that has not come, is not here and will not come.

This graphic from the Mauna Loa website shows this behavior:



The annual minima are generally recorded in the Northern hemisphere's autumn. This year's absolute readings will fall until around September, whereupon they will begin to rise to what is sure to be a new record maximum in 2020.

Somewhat obsessively I keep a spreadsheet of the weekly data, which I use to do calculations to record the dying of our atmosphere, a triumph of fear, dogma and ignorance that did not have to be, but nonetheless is. I note, with sadness and regret, that we are the left are not free of such fear ignorance and dogma, although I wish we were. We cannot, with justice, attribute this outcome to Ronald Reagan, George Bush the first and second, and Donald Trump. We bear responsibility, no matter how much we pat ourselves on the back for our insane worship of so called "renewable energy."

In these spreadsheets, in particular, I record in this spreadsheet the increases over the previous year.

Here is the data for the week ending June 16, 2019:

Week beginning on June 16, 2019: 414.03 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 410.38 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 389.20 ppm


As of this writing, there have been 2,264 such weekly readings recorded at Mauna Loa, going back to 1975. The increase is the 47th highest ever recorded among all of these. This places in the top 50 among all such data points, greater than 2.1% of all such readings, in the "percent talk" utilized to generate wishful thinking about this disaster.

With the year just about half over, 8 of the 50 highest year to year weekly average increases ever recorded have been in 2019. Thirty-three of the top 50 such readings have taken place in the last 5 years; 38 in the top 50 recorded in last ten years, and 41 of the top 50 recorded in this century.

The average increases over the last 4 weeks when compared to the same week in 2018 has been 3.17 ppm. For the whole of 2019, these weekly year to year increases have averaged 3.10 ppm.

In the 20th century these figures averaged 1.54 ppm; in the 21st, 2.14 ppm (and rising).

If the fact that this reading is 24.83 ppm higher than it was ten years ago bothers you, don't worry, be happy. You can read all about how wonderful things will be "by 2050" or "by 2100." Wind. Solar. Elon Musk. Tesla Car. And all that.

If you're even a tiny bit troubled, head on over to the E&E forum here and read all about "battery breakthroughs" to store "clean energy" even if this ignores little unimportant trivialities like the 2nd law of thermodynamics, and the fact that making steel for massive wind industrial parks in former pristine wildernesses is neither clean nor, in fact, sustainable.

My impression that I've been hearing all about how rapidly bird and bat grinding wind turbines are being installed since I began writing here in 2002, when the reading on April 21, 2002 was 375.42 ppm should not disturb you, since it is better to think everything is fine rather than focus on reality.

All this jawboning about the wonderful growth of so called "renewable energy" has had no effect on climate change, is having no effect on climate change, and won't have any effect on climate change, but it's not climate change that counts: It's all that wonderful marketing showing pictures giant sleek wind turbines on steel posts that counts.

Don't be angry, be happy and nice. Say nice things. Be pleasant.

If the fact that steel is made by coking coal at high temperatures in coal fired furnaces enters your mind, I suggest you meditate and say, "OM...om...om...om..." until you're only left with happy thoughts.

At the risk of repetitively asserting that reality - as opposed to cheering for our own wishful thinking - matters, though let me say again:

In this century, world energy demand grew by 164.83 exajoules to 584.95 exajoules.

In this century, world gas demand grew by 43.38 exajoules to 130.08 exajoules.

In this century, the use of petroleum grew by 32.03 exajoules to 185.68 exajoules.

In this century, the use of coal grew by 60.25 exajoules to 157.01 exajoules.

In this century, the solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal energy on which people so cheerfully have bet the entire planetary atmosphere, stealing the future from all future generations, grew by 8.12 exajoules to 10.63 exajoules.

10.63 exajoules is under 2% of the world energy demand.

2018 Edition of the World Energy Outlook Table 1.1 Page 38 (I have converted MTOE in the original table to the SI unit exajoules in this text.)

If you think that unlike you, I am worrying and not being happy, you can always chant stuff about how "by 2050" or "by 2075" or "by 2100" future generations will all live in a so called "renewable energy" nirvana powered by the sun and the wind and tooling around in Tesla electric cars.

I'll be dead "by 2050," as will most of the people doing such soothsaying about that magic year, but I'm sure that the future generation living through 2050 will all be cheering for our wonderful insight into the world in which they will be living.

Or maybe not. Maybe they won't forgive us for our wishful thinking by which we casually dumped responsibility on them to do what we were purely incompetent to do ourselves, this while we consumed every last drop of rare elements to live in our bourgeois moral hell.

We will not be forgiven, nor should we be.

I wish you a pleasant work week.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. You may have noticed that our species has learned destruction is preferable to preservation...

or at least more profitable.

Whether or not this is the fulfillment or the failure of our evolution may be debated, but it is undoubtedly the fact of the moment. We have also not shown much ability at dealing with potential future problems until they become intractable present problems.

So, sloth and greed will prevent us from doing what we have to until New Orleans and Singapore are under water while there is no fresh water in California, China or India.

By the end of this century, human life, (all life, actually) will be vastly different than it is now. Our descendants will find a way to adapt-- at the expense of what we now hold dear.

[NNadir]

2. I disagree. Unbridled optimism about adaptation is unjust and unwarranted.

The human species is a species, and populations collapse and on occasion go extinct in their own waste.

We have moral responsibility to do what we can to provide a safe future to succeeding generations. We have not done so.

There has been no species other than the first photosynthetic organisms that have made such a macroscopic change as humanity has.

I note that the rise of oxygen generation by these species is thought to have left 90% of the existing species extinct, albeit over a period of millions of years.

What has happened in the last century is comparable to the asteroid that is thought to have resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs. We have changed the atmosphere, irrevocably.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. It's not optimism, it's despair. Science fiction is rife with stories about civilizations...

so smart they killed themselves off because they overlooked on small thing. Remember "Monsters from the id"? Not quite as startling as "It's a cookbook" but more significant and really should be part of the lexicon.

OK, fiction is fiction after all, but good fiction is a drama based on present facts, and should affect us as a very possible outcome if we make certain choices.

Our short stay on this planet may not destroy the planet itself, but it may destroy us. Or leave us to start pretty much from scratch-- without learning from the experience. Plenty of scifi about times after major apocalypses.