LogFAQs > #978778386

Smallville posted...

yeah it has increased by a huge amount in the past century or so right? Isn't most of this due to preventing major disease, vaccinations and stuff? Or is it something else mostly , idk

This is due to the Haber-Bosch process, which is the primary method of producing ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen, which in turn allowed mass agriculture to flourish.

Without fossil fuels, the earth can only sustain about 1 billion people, maybe less. Even if climate change was not the crisis that it is, the population will still crash this century due to overshoot. Our entire modern civilization is built entirely on unsustainable practices and propped up by extracting fossil fuels that don't cost more than they return on energy. The amount of energy it takes to extract fossil fuels vs. how much we get out of it (ERoEI) has continued to increase over the years.

The oceans have been absorbing most of the excess heat that has been trapped by greenhouse gases, however, that is starting to change as the energy in the system continues to rise. We are experiencing amplification and exponential warming. While the past ~150 years have seen an increase of about 1.5C, we will reach 2.0C before 2050, and 4C+ warming by 2100 by conservative estimates.

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/151743/the-ocean-has-a-fever

https://twitter.com/SamCarana/status/1756444454087790608

https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1756333738521420040