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Comment by VierScar | Hacker News Reader

If we're using clean power to power extraction of CO2, wouldn't it just be better to connect that clean power directly to the grid and thus reduce the required production of CO2 at other power plants? Otherwise we'll be having massive efficiency losses.

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Do both.

We are at or close to the point where we need negative emissions to stave off catastrophic climate change.

Is that really the case though? I mean the 'catastrophic' part, not the 'climate change' part as that has been clear from the get-go - climate change is happening and has been happening for as long as the planet has had an atmosphere. We're in an interglacial, on the far end of the high point (the 'interglacial optimum') on the curve and with that on the way down to a new glacial in a few thousand years. The interglacial optimum is the period within an interglacial that experiences the most 'favourable' climate and often occurs during the middle of that interglacial. For the present interglacial, the Holocene (which started about 11.700 years ago) the climatic optimum occurred during the Sub-boreal (~3000 BCE - 500 BCE) and Atlanticum (7000 BCE - 3000 BCE) [1]. Our current climatic phase following this climatic optimum is still within the same interglacial. That warm period was followed by a gradual decline until about 2000 years ago, with another warm period until the Little Ice Age (1250–1850). The current interglacial is actually relatively cool compared to the previous known ones, the maximum Antarctic temperature during the previous interglacial was about 6°C higher than that registered during the current one [2].

Can you point us at some non-politicised sources which can refute these findings, which prove that anthropogenic climate change is such a strong force that it counteracts the natural glacial cycle?

For those who wonder why I ask this question please note that this is a serious request. The debate around climate change has been so polluted by politics that it is nigh impossible to find objective sources. Those objective sources which I know off fail to show the climate catastrophe which we're all being warned about.

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ice_Age_Temperature.png

Thanks for the lecture on historical climate. Those graphs you have linked as objective sources aren't particularly useful nor do they illustrate the full impact of anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

For the canonical report on climate change impacts in the anthropocene, I would recommend the IPCC reports, e.g. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WGIIAR5-Chap... on synergistic risks to food security and low-lying coastal regions.

One of the biggest problem with clean power i.e solar and wind is storage. Using excess power to use for carbon capture during low demand could be the way to go. If I recall correctly feeding some types of algae to cattle decreased methane production. So solar power production companies instead of selling excess power power for zero or negative can produce algae to sell as cattle feed which also decreases methane production and decreases the water required to raise cattle and its feed. As clean water is also something people are running out of.

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