15 Comments
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Jeff McFadden's avatar

Chickens make eggs

Eggs make chickens

Fools make CO2

CO2 makes fools.

I Was Never Here's avatar

I always enjoy when someone thoughtfully takes the long view, and plays things out. Too few people are looking beyond what’s on their phone’s screen.

Rich Sobel's avatar

Who knew?! I sure didn't and I consider myself a fairly well educated person. Of course, as the levels of CO2 increase, who's actually going to want to know?! Because of cognitive decline. I like how you set it up as a circle, sort of like the typical life cycle diagrams you see for other species. Hard to step out of the circle once you're in it.

Morf Morford's avatar

Just another astounding thought piece from someone paying attention…

vunzkor's avatar

hi sarah! luckily co2 level wont affect the robots from performing their functions! am i right :D

Lance's avatar

im liking this before i read it because its thinking in the right direction

Matthew T Hoare's avatar

A small correction: rapid breathing _lowers_ serum carbon dioxide levels, leading to alkalosis rather than acidosis.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/hyperventilation

In addition to Mark Bevis's links, readers can also check out Ugo Bardi's work on carbon dioxide toxicity:

https://bioticregulation.ru/conf2024/Ugo-Bardi.pdf

The rising levels of carbon dioxide may be one of the explanations for the recently observed Reverse Flynn Effect:

https://www.develop.bc.ca/the-reverse-flynn-effect/

Mark Bevis's avatar

For more evidence of the effects of CO2 on human cognitive capacity, see the footnotes in this paper:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328719303507

quote:

"Will we be too stupid to be hunter-gatherers?

The human brain has been shrinking rapidly since agriculture, (from 1500cc to 1350cc). This fact is well-documented and is independent of race, gender and geographical location. For example, Henneberg (1988, p. 395) writes of the decline in cranial capacity in Europe and North Africa during the Holocene:

For both males and females the decrease through time is smooth, statistically significant and inversely exponential. A decrease of 157 cc (9.9% of the larger value) in males and of 261 cc (17.4%) in females is a considerable one, of the order of magnitude comparable to the difference between averages for H. erectus and H. sapiens sapiens.

If our bodies had shrunk at the same rate as our brains the average human would be 4' 6" and weigh 64 pounds (http://superscholar.org/shrinking-brain/). According to Hawks (2011) the decrease in brain size during the last 10,000 years is nearly 36 times the rate of increase during the previous 800,000 years. There is no evidence that we are just as smart, or even smarter, because our brains have become streamlined to be more efficient. There is no evidence that the human brain became more complex as it shrank.

Too make matters worse, there is evidence that high levels of CO2 result in a decline in cognitive ability. A recent study found a 15% decline in cognitive ability when CO2 levels reached 950ppm and a 50% decline when they reached 1400ppm.

https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2016/07/indoor-co2-dumb-and-dumber/

Ambient CO2 levels will most likely reach 1000ppm sometime in the next century."

Stephanie miller's avatar

Slight bias, really, a history of warfare slavery and violence, humans are smarter now?

Sarah Connor's avatar

Smart enough to be evil

Stephen's avatar

Pseudo-science run amok. Toss statistical figures around like glitter, and call it ‘conclusive’. Same BS that drove the C19 bacchanalia.

Jorma Jyrkkanen's avatar

Poisons we make and emf and microwaves are already altering the human brain at epigenetic levels and executive function is at risk of heritable decline now. mRNA example and pollution by 177000000 chemucal synergies.

MICHAEL'S CURIOUS WORLD's avatar

Neanderthals had bigger brains than us.

MICHAEL'S CURIOUS WORLD's avatar

Climate change is literally making us humans stupid, as Trump demonstrates.

William Epstein's avatar

We are way past let it in the ground and survive. If the world stopped harmful emissions this very moment climate change would proceed with growing momentum as the permafrost melts (to mention just one of the climate changing factors that will continue no matter what fuel is used) with deadly consequences. Now what? The implicit hopefulness in your note -- stop using fossil fuels to survive -- is inadequate. Get real and tough and address calamity. Address Hansen's observation that estimates of climate change undercount the true rates. Don't chicken out.