Every person here is breathing out 40,000 ppm CO2
Elon is scratching for a reason to keep worrying about CO2
In the interview with Donald Trump, Elon Musk tried to argue that we ought be limiting carbon dioxide because we are too close to 1,000ppm where people get headaches. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we breath out air at 40,000 ppm fifteen times a minute for our entire lives. If 1,000 ppm gave us a headache or made us nauseous, we’d have to hold our breath every time we kissed someone.
@ElonMusk: The point I was making is that, even if CO2 did not cause global warming, it is uncomfortable to breathe air with >1000 ppm of CO2. Given that the outdoor ppm away from cities is now ~420 (lol), it is already getting close to 1000 ppm indoors in cities at times. You can buy a cheap CO2 monitor and measure this for yourself.
As the global base level of CO2 keeps increasing, it will cause air quality in cities to feel stuffy and unpleasant, resulting in drowsiness, poor concentration and eventually headaches and nausea. That would not be a good future.
And then he quotes CO2meter.com which, ahem, sells CO2 meters, and has an incentive to wildly overstate the problems with CO2, which they do.
CO2 is not the problem, the stale air and other pollutants cause headaches and sleepiness
The point of CO2 meters is not so much to warn us about excessive CO2 levels, but to indicate how well the room is ventilated. CO2 levels are just an indicator for air quality. Air with higher CO2 levels usually also has higher levels of organic compounds, humidity, body odour, mold, chemicals from furniture and paint (like formaldehyde) and potentially viruses too. When people report headaches and nausea, the high CO2 levels are not the issue, it’s the bioeffluence that causes problems. When researchers do cognitive tests with pure CO2 added to clean air, performances don’t suffer. The stale air is the problem, not the CO2. (See Zhang, and Misra where they compared the cognitive effects from badly ventilated air and clean air with high CO2 levels up to 3,000ppm. Problems disappear when they use fresh air plus higher CO2.) Well ventilated rooms may also be cooler rooms, which might explain why results so often contradict each other.
Classrooms are at 1,000ppm “typically”
While outdoor air is 420ppm, indoor levels of CO2 are commonly 1,000ppm in classrooms every day, and can rise as high as 3,000ppm if all the windows are shut. The recognized occupational health and safety levels for long term working exposure are 5,000 ppm for 8 hours straight, five days a week. It’s no big deal.
The National Collaborative Centre for Environmental Health (Canada) measured school and buildings and advises that “Typically, in an occupied classroom situation, the recommended level of ventilation would correspond to a CO2 level of approximately 1000-1100 ppm“. Furthermore, they said the “lowest level at which a human health effect (i.e. acidosis) has been observed in humans is 7,000 ppm, and that only after several weeks of continuous exposure in a submarine environment”.
The occupational limits for CO2recommended by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) are 5000 ppm (TLV-TWA) and 30,000 ppm (TLV-STEL), based on the direct effects on acidification of the blood. — via Marc Morano and Climate Depot
At NASA The Office of the Chief Health and Medicial Officer reports that a typical spacecraft works at around 3,000-7,000 ppm (or o.3-0.7% CO2). The recommended exposure is 5,000, and the permissible exposure limit is 10,000 ppm. Although the flight surgeons found levels of nearly 7,000 were safe and “didn’t affect performance”. On Apollo 13, CO2 levels rose to 20,000ppm. Sweating and shortness of breath became a problem above 30,000 ppm.
Submariners typically live with CO2 levels of 2,000- 5,000 ppm, and when a small sample of sailors was tested at 600, 2500 or 15,000 ppm, the researchers couldn’t find any difference in results from an 80 minute test on decision making. (Rodeheffer at al) Likewise another study at the Johnson Space Centre, people did cognition tests at 600, 1,200, 2,500 and 5,000ppm and there was no dose response effect. Results look rather random.
Lowther et al looked at 51 studies in 2021, and found nothing conclusive in terms of harms from CO2 below 5,000ppm. Most studies were confounded, results were conflicting. Teams of researchers are hunting to find another problem “due to CO2”. If there was a strong negative effect of CO2 it would have shown up by now. Instead CO2 is only associated with occasional headaches and nausea — probably because it is high in crowded rooms with little ventilation.
One large review in 2019 was described as showing CO2 affected people at levels as low as 1,000ppm, but the paper itself points at the confounding data and uses the words “possible” and “potential effects” and concludes “we need more studies.”
UPDATE: Commenters Alan Klein and Mr Farnham points out the safety limits for Australian coal miners (NSW) is 1.25% CO2 which is 12,500ppm, and that is for 8 hour shifts. Brief excursions up to 3% (30,000ppm) are acceptable. See comment #17 for more details.
REFERENCES
Lowther, Scott D., Sani Dimitroulopoulou, Kerry Foxall, Clive Shrubsole, Emily Cheek, Britta Gadeberg, and Ovnair Sepai. 2021. “Low Level Carbon Dioxide Indoors—A Pollution Indicator or a Pollutant? A Health-Based Perspective” Environments 8, no. 11: 125. https://doi.org/10.3390/environments8110125
Mishra AK, Schiavon S, Wargocki P, Tham KW. Respiratory performance of humans exposed to moderate levels of carbon dioxide. Indoor Air. 2021 Sep;31(5):1540-1552. doi: 10.1111/ina.12823. Epub 2021 May 15. PMID: 33991134.
Rodeheffer CD, Chabal S, Clarke JM, Fothergill DM. Acute Exposure to Low-to-Moderate Carbon Dioxide Levels and Submariner Decision Making. Aerosp
Zhang X, Wargocki P, Lian Z, Thyregod C. Effects of exposure to carbon dioxide and bioeffluents on perceived air quality, self-assessed acute health symptoms, and cognitive performance. Indoor Air. 2017 Jan;27(1):47-64. doi: 10.1111/ina.12284. Epub 2016 Mar 7. PMID: 26825447.
h/t to Willie Soon, Marc Morano and Climate Depot.
Photo: NASA/Mark T. Vande Hei (taking some images of the Russian modules) Jan 2022
Elon, of course, is in the business of selling EVs to people who believe CO2 is creating a climate emergency. I doubt that he really believes that.
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Michael,
Bingo ! No climate change = no subsidies , no need for EV mandates and battery systems to back up renewables. His kingdom crumbles without X and starlink…
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No. I think he does actually believes that. Elon likes to be honest with himself, I get the impression.
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Thank you for this, and well done Jo!
Well written, thorough and comprehensive.
I was hoping somebody would pick up on that comment because when I heard Musk say it in the interview I thought what’s that guy smoking, but then I remembered he makes BEVs and profits from the lie.
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Would 1000ppm impair performance in endurance sporting events?
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Only break dancing.
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Lol. Raygunnz would certainly go down at 1000.
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I recon surgeons should not wear those masks
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Neural control of breathing maintains carbon dioxide partial pressure in blood between 40 mmHg and 45 mmHg compared with 0.3 mmHg in air at sealevel.
The homeostatic mechanism would allow a healthy person to tolerate carbon dioxide levels approaching 40,000 ppm without compromising the tissue acid-base balance necessary for life.
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Vindicated yet again.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/crj.12910#:~:text=The%20mechanism%20behind%20our%20method,or%20approximately%2050%20mm%20Hg.
Fun Fact: The alternative spelling of hiccough results from the association with the word cough. American Charles Osborne (1894–1991) had hiccups for 68 years, from 1922 to 1990, and was entered in the Guinness World Records as the man with the longest attack of hiccups, an estimated 430 million hiccups.
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I believe Elon is confusing this with “Lethal Humidity”
He needs to be briefed by Twiggy Forrest.
https://fortescue.com/news-and-media/news/2023/12/02/open-letter-lethal-humidity-and-heat-are-already-upon-us.-our-actions-today-will-determine-how-many-millions-of-people-die-or-are-forced-to-migrate
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Again I’ve stated this BS about co2 levels before and Submariners, Greenhouse workers etc work in very high levels of co2 all day and every day and they have no problems at all.
Thanks again Jo for pointing out where Musk was in error and he should know better, but of course he does sell EVs.
Btw what was Trumps response, because so few people are able to talk about co2 levels that make any sense?
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As you and Jo both mentioned submariners and other workers like astronauts think clearly. The whole world got to see the Apollo 13 crew go way beyond 1000PPM. Some need celebrity opinions and Hollywood dramatisations to get it. Would love someone who grasps partial pressure a little better and knows what happened to confirm or correct that they were in up to 19,600 PPM. Searching the net i Find assorted figures in mmHG and someone claims that got to 19,600PPM.
Wondering what the numbers meant after watching this five minute YouTube vid. “(Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton) fix the CO2 machine before they run out of air.”
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Siliggy, NASA quoted the maximum levels inside Apollo 13 were 1.99% CO2, I rounded and converted to 20,000ppm, because I wanted all the units in the post to be in ppm so they were easily comparable. But yes, the pressure inside spacecraft is probably lower than normal ground level air pressure.
The NASA doc referenced this:
James JT. Chapter 7: Carbon Dioxide. In: Spacecraft Maximum Allowable Concentrations for Selected Airborne Contaminants. Volume 5 (2008), National Research Council of the National Academies.
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/12529/chapter/10
The NASA link I have in the post is an interesting read. On page 13 they say The system shall maintain the pressure to which the crew is exposed to between 34 kPa and 103 kPa and keep CO2 pp to no more than 3mmHg for “indefinite human exposure without measurable impairments to health or performance.
I’m really surprised to see air pressure as low as 34kPa is considered OK. That’s eq to 7,500m altitude. Did I read that correctly?
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Hi Jo,
The Apollo capsules worked with a pure oxygen atmosphere, not air. That was, in part, one of the problems that caused the Apollo 1 fire, but they were testing the capsule at 115 kPa pure oxygen at the time and had loads of flammable materials such as nylon and an estimated 3.2 sq m of Velcro. This all became saturated with oxygen at that pressure and fueled the fire. If I remember correctly, the partial pressure of oxygen in air at sea level is 21 kPa (give or take) so a pure oxygen atmosphere of 34 kPa would be fine. The pressure was also kept low to reduce the fire hazard, lessons learned from the Apollo 1 disaster.
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Jo & Bronco Sorry for wasting your time I was a little tired when i read Jo’s post. I simply did not see that Apollo 13 was even mentioned. None the less you have between you answered my questions well. Thanks for the good answers. I have as punishment sentenced myself to read the whole post slowly again.
” 34.5 kPa < pressure ≤ 103" Is what page 13 says. A very wide range.
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There’s something in this that average people lack comprehension of.
For years, well until recently really, I thought that people would (understandably) have the same comprehension about ‘things’ that I have, and here I’m not bragging or anything like that, because, seriously, I’m just an average person with average comprehension. So I just thought that people would have a similar knowledge base as I have.
Okay, having just laid the base, the point here is ….. PPM, Parts Per Million.
You say 420 PPM, and people have no comprehension of what that actually means.
The 420 part of it, well, that sounds pretty big to people who need a calculator to add simple numbers.
The Parts per million is, well, pretty much meaningless.
I’ve asked friends at gatherings etc, not many, as people don’t really want to talk about ‘stuff like this’, and when someone else raised the question, then I found a way to politely mention it, along the lines of what is that in a percentage.
NO ONE, not one person has ever responded correctly, and when I then mention that it’s just 0.042 Percent, the response (in fact, every time) has always been that I’m incorrect.
Even converting it to that percentage of 0.042% is difficult to understand for them. They can understand perhaps a fraction like half being 50%, but the point of 0.042% is ….. again, difficult to comprehend for them.
Now, okay, from this, you’d then think ….. hey Tony, you’re hanging around ignoramuses. These are in fact just average people like me, and the teenagers, young adults among them were the worst at understanding it.
They cannot comprehend the actual ….. minuteness of that percentage, virtually not much more than zero.
And therein lies the problem I think.
420PPM is waaaaay larger than 0.042%
Say Parts per Million, and eyes begin to glaze over.
People learn ….. life, the things they need to get by in daily life.
Mathematical things are less than zero on that scale of ….. need to know.
And none of this was said tongue in cheek!
Tony.
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Well stated Tony. A similar ‘glazing of eyes’ occurs when $ figures of billions and trillions are stated. The average person simply cannot appreciate the enormous amounts being referred to.
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Thanks Tony and Labor’s Tania Plibersek was asked on Sky News about the co2 percentage and she admitted she didn’t know.
But she had yapped for years about the dangers of co2 and the horrors of SLR etc on our east coast.
More recently I’ve watched a Republican member ask a group of “experts” about co2 levels and they tried 3 times and they chose 5%, then 8% then 3%. Unbelievable but true?
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Yeah but… add those 3 experts together and ya get 583% – we’re DOOMED!
/ tic
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It’s like the illusion that some not so bright people are under, thinking that a one quarter horsepower motor is more powerful than a one third hp, mistaking that 4 is larger than 3, it’s an illusion.
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I sometimes refer to “grand final footy crowds”, where the amount of human-induced CO2 would be one person in 79,000. I then ask how this one person could influence the rest of the 79,000.
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Just 42 seats at the MCG (capacity 100,024)
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Less than two seats for the anthropogenic amount…
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TOny
Thanks for all of your contributions
We are in real trouble when our young are using AI to find all of their answers as they have no clue as to relative sizes of numbers.
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB9dJt9j-5M&t=541s where an AI states emphatically that 9.11 is a larger value than 9.9
It even gets the subtraction result of .21
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Hi Tony. I say 400ths of 1 percent. They seem to get that and don’t believe it you are right.
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Here’s something they might be able to visualise.
Tell them to imagine 83,333 dozen eggs on supermarket shelves. That would be say both sides of five full aisles of just eggs in a large supermarket. Not just the typical 3-4m section of eggs in one aisle. Then tell them to find the 35 egg cartons marked CO2.
.
Probably doesn’t help. 🙂
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For millionths, grams in a tonne or mm in a km might be helpful. If the whole atmosphere is a kilometre, the CO2 is 420 mm, or less than half a metre.
Another way to put it would be to make the numerator 1: 420/1000000 ~ 1/2381: i.e. one molecule in every 2,381 is CO2.
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I was at a family gathering, and one of the relatives of the family who invited me and Barbara, well he had brought up the subject in conversation, as you do, while we were standing around, and I umm, (ever so politely, and not wanting to offend) came in after a short while, after some minutes of the conversation. There were only two people older than me, and most were 20/30 to a couple of 40 year olds. So, being old, even though still only in my mid 50s, then obviously, this subject was way beyond my knowledge.
This was way back when it was still only 380PPM, so back in (around) 2004.
I mentioned the 380PPM, and yes, they knew that, but they no concept of what that actually meant if expressed as a percentage of the ‘air mass around us’, and I again converted it to 0.038%.
There were quizzical looks and I was told that was so far humungously monumentally incorrect, and that sadly, I was horrendously wrong and totally uninformed.
So, and by now, that group of around ten people, standing around, bevvies in hand, well perhaps three or so of them had their interest piqued.
Again, always be prepared.
We were in the lounge room, so an approximate sized room of 5 metres by 3 metres by two metres to the ceiling.
I ‘put it out there’, asking that in this room we are in, what might make up the volume of that 380PPM.
The main person who brought it up in the first place mentioned that it might be the size of, say, the quite large display cabinet covering a half of one long wall almost to the ceiling, and there were some agreeing nods.
So, I told them it was the same as ….. a 2 litre bottle of milk if it was sitting on the coffee table.
The response was ‘Whi$ky T@ng0 F0xtr0t’, and an almost impolite scoffing, (from, yes, you guessed correctly) and then I was ignored.
Again, sorry Tony, you need to brush up on this. that is so far wrong.
And yep, the maths does work out.
Like I said at the top, people have absolutely no concept when the addition to the conversation mentions ….. parts per million, or even percentage for that fact.
I had a lovely steak though, learned a tip about barbecuing.
Tony.
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Hi Tony. It is the ignorance of these ‘trivial’ matters that the gov relies upon to spread their BS, and the sheeple lap it up.
I find the same discussions about EV batteries to be equally frustrating. With all this talk about ‘the next big thing is just around the corner’, we get BS such as “New EV battery will last 1000kms and charge in 10 minutes”!
Let’s look at that and the sort of energy flows that will require.
Average EV uses 0.2kwh per KM
To travel 1000kms would require 200kWh of battery.
Being generous, lets charge from 20% to 80% in 10 minutes. That is to say we’ll go from 40kwh to 160kWh SOC.
To charge in 10 minutes would require an energy flow of 720kW (not including losses).
Now most folks will, again, just glaze over at this point, because 720kW is just meaningless to them. However, to the electrical engineer, that figure is FAR from trivial! A grid that can supply 10’s of thousands of cars doing this at the same thing at the same is a fearsome beast indeed.
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Sorry for mangling that last paragraph. I ought to proof-read what I write.
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If you laid out a million $1 coins you would just about cover the floor of a school gymnasium. 400 of those coins would occupy an area of just 50cm by 50 cm. And what’s more, since humans contribute just 3% of those 400 ppm, then just 12 of those million dollar coins, an area of 10 cm by 7.5 cm, would be put there by humanity.
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For the same reason, talk of methane scares the average TV news watcher. It’s measured in parts per billion with a B, which is just as incomprehensible to those people.
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Tony,
When talking to ‘believers’ I always say CO2 is only 1/25th of 1%.
It is easier to grasp by most folks.
But due to the continuous indoctrination they still have trouble believing me.
We should all call it 1/25th of 1% in all discussions and correspondence.
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On another forum that allows copy/paste of pics I post night scenes from the big cities and ask how one would power that brilliance all night from a battery. No response. Scale is totally lost on them.
But our brains are all different. I am an awful speller but with practice since retiring and my trusty spiel chucker I have improved. I have no doubt others to whom it comes naturally would shake their heads. My brain is wired for logic where I prolly would leave them behind.
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Tell people it’s a little less than 1/2 of 0ne hundredth of a cent out of $100
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420 mm in a kilometer, about 16 inches.
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I have been using 4 in 10,000 molecules (so those 4 molecules must be doing a hell of a lot of work eh?).
Or to put it into a context that people really care about and should have little trouble imagining, $4 in $10,000 .
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The heading needs fixing.
The verb is “to breathe”. “Breath” is the noun.
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As in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18:
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If we have low levels of co2 in our blood we can have Hypocarbia and that can lead to Hyperventilation and other problems for the person suffering from low co2 levels.
https://www.dovemed.com/health-topics/focused-health-topics/hypocarbia-causes-symptoms-diagnosis-and-treatment
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The deadliest gas in the atmosphere is oxygen. Crank that up to 28% and life gets tenuous. At 35% we all remember “hell”. Its engraved in our genes.
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The deadliest gas is water. As the third biggest gas in the air, it causes all floods, drownings, torrential rain, tsunamis, washes away crops, deaths at sea. Endless disasters from H2O. And there is far more of it than CO2. Combined with CO2 it causes sugars, obesity, heart attacks and endless health problems. And in battle, your deadly enemy is made almost entirely from H2O and CO2. And guard dogs. No, H2O is the deadlier gas. CO2 should be banned too.
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The whole CO2 scam is dependent entirely on the total ignorance of simple chemistry and biology. The Greens once banned the element Chlorine. Why just ban oil, when you could just ban trees and grass? Plants are the root of the problem.
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The watermelons also want to ban nitrogen , not realising there is 78% of it in the atmosphere.
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Carbon is bad.
It used to be buried deep in the earth until we started letting it out.
We only have five years left.
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…….. So send me your money……
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You’ll have to speak louder, Honk – I’m under 20ft of sea water and everything’s on fire and burning – how long have we got?
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Before that it was in the atmosphere, it was then fossilised in coal/oil as trees fell and there was no bacteria to break down the cellulose. Geology then buried the non-rotting vegetation.
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BTW even their BBC tells the truth sometimes and this transcript or video tells the truth.
Nitrogen is about 78% , oxygen about 21% and Argon about 0.9% and that is about 99.9% of the air we breathe.
The remaining 0.1% are trace gases and co2 today is about 0.042% of the total or about 420 ppm.
But water vapour is a gas that can be very high at the equator and very low at the poles.
You can watch the video or read the transcript at the BBC link.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/z3fv4wx/articles/zkbbbqt#zh777yc
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My well-worn high-school atlas from the 1970s has all those pie-charts in the front, including a breakdown of those ‘trace’ gases which make up that ‘life threatening’ sliver of 0.1% – who, me, worry?
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On US submarines where they have virtually unlimited power to scrub the air the CO2 concentrations are over 1,000 ppm.
Co2 concentrations in atomic submarines
According to the search results, CO2 concentrations in atomic submarines vary widely, ranging from 300-11,300 ppm (parts per million). The US Navy’s submarines, in particular, have CO2 levels varying from 300-11,300 ppm, with an average of 3,500 ppm (range: 0-10,600 ppm) on nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines and 4,100 ppm (range: 300-11,300 ppm) on nuclear-powered attack submarines (Hagar 2003).
Studies conducted by the US Navy in the 1960s and 1970s found no significant cognitive effects in environments with CO2 levels as high as 4% (40,000 ppm). In fact, a study by Schaefer (1961) reported that 23 crewmen exposed to 15,000 ppm CO2 for 42 days showed no psychomotor testing effects, but moderate increases in anxiety, apathy, uncooperativeness, desire to leave, and sexual desire.
Concern for pregnant sailors’ foetus [no they are not woke, they have females on board] prompted another study I found:
Conclusion
The results yield a No Observed Adverse Effect Level (NOAEL) of 2.5% and a Lowest Observed Adverse Effect Level (LOAEL) of 3.0%. The results reasonably allow a point of departure of 2.5% CO2 for deriving an exposure recommendation. An interspecies uncertainty factor was applied to derive a recommended 90-day continuous exposure limit (CEL) of 0.8% for CO2. As reproductive endpoints that are developmental in nature must be assumed to result from a single exposure at a critical point during gestation, it is further recommended that the 24-hr emergency exposure limit (EEL) also be 0.8%.
There would be few environments where peak performance would be more important.
Does Elon get a headache on aircraft?
Co2 concentration inside an airliner
According to various studies and measurements, the CO2 concentration inside an airliner can vary depending on factors such as flight phase, aircraft type, and passenger occupancy. Here are some key findings:
Average CO2 concentrations in the cabin air of Boeing 737 and 747 aircraft during different flight segments ranged from 1,091 to 1,547 ppm (parts per million).
On the Boeing 767, CO2 concentrations in the bleed air (air used for cabin pressurization and conditioning) were measured at 680±173 ppm during boarding, 402±5 ppm during ascent, 340±13 ppm during cruise, and 359±4 ppm during descent.
In general, CO2 concentrations indoors can vary from several hundred ppm to over 1000 ppm in areas with many occupants present for an extended period and limited outdoor air ventilation.
Even during flights with HEPA-filtered HVAC systems in use, CO2 levels can be higher than acceptable, reaching over 1500 ppm in some cases.
There is a recommended maximum CO2 concentration of 5000 ppm, which is not consistently met in all airliner cabins.
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Elon might be right. I keep asking the Mrs when is it time for intimacy. She tells me “don’t hold your breath” and she gets a headache.
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Could anyone help me regarding Arrhenius’s electical experiments with student alertness?
It seems to have been removed from the net (DuckDuckGo).
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Google it mate-
googling “Arrhenius electrical children” works fine.
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He was also involved in the Eugenics movement…
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As were many people in the ’20 & ’30.
He was also President(?) of the Nordic Purity League or some such. Much the same ideas that Hitler took on board, but Arrhenius probably never heard of Hitler who was such an obscure figure at that time.
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Brave search gave me this. I have no idea if it will help:
https://spark.iop.org/sensational-electric-learning
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The great danger for humankind is very “low” levels of CO2.
The most dangerous gas for us is oxygen, because under certain conditions it can leech out too much CO2 from the bloodstream and our automatic breathing response stops.
Pure oxygen in aqualungs, for example, is dangerous, but at high altitude pilots of small aircraft and mountain climbers on Everest can use pure oxygen without too much worry.
Finally at the end of life we can adopt a breathing pattern which removes sufficient co2 from the bloodstream to encourage the central nervous system to switch off.
The end.
The most dangerous gas for humans is Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide is The Gas of Life.
But don’t tell the UNIPCCC or their ABCCC.
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The upper limit for safe work in Australian coal mines 1.25% ie 12,500 ppm
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In NSW at least, you are allowed up to 1.25% for an 8 hour time weighted average, with short term exposures up to 3% (30,000ppm!).
From NSW Work Health and Safety (Mines and Petroleum Sites) Regulation 2022;
(2) Without limiting subsection (1), the operator of an underground coal mine must—
(a) as far as reasonably practicable, minimise the exposure of persons to carbon dioxide in the mine, and
(b) must ensure no person in the mine is exposed to an 8-hour time-weighted average atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide that is more than—
(i) for short term exposure limits—30,000 parts per million, or
(ii) otherwise—12,500 parts per million.
In coal mining we generally talk about O2, CO2 & CH4 in percentages. Discussing a level of 2% CO2 in a roadway is more practical than talking about 20,000ppm.
CO, H2S, NO2, SO2 we use ppm as it’s easier than talking in 4 or 5 decimal places, eg 8 parts CO instead of 0.0008%.
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Thanks for that Alan and Mr Farnham. I shall add a note to the post!
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If you wrote this much about every false statement made in that interview, you’d be still writing in 10 years’ time.
Smart guys those two.
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Be nice if you could name just one.
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you mean another one?
is out by a factor of 10
and here are 2 at once – you can do your own fact checking on this.
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I choked when Trump suggested rising sea levels would create more ocean front property.
It was all quite bizarre, neither was prepared to admit the real reason why 1000 ppm CO2 is a bad idea. Who wants to live in a world 10°C warmer than today?
https://earth.org/data_visualization/a-brief-history-of-co2/
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Some people really struggle with Trump’s sense of humour.
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Does he have one? Making up nicknames is a pretty puerile form. Self-depreciation and irony would require a dictionary.
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Straight over the top of your head! Didn’t even ruffle the hair!
>I choked… It was all quite bizarre…
What I find bizarre Simon is that you apparently sincerely believe all that nonsense you just uttered!
It’s not as if you’ve been somehow deprived of factual information.
Maybe you’re like a fellow I know who argues his position vehemently despite refusing to read any material on it so consequently his passion is matched only by his ignorance, and when you point out the realities he says no it can’t be right because it’s totally against what I believe.
“Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind’s made up.”
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Atmospheric CO2 does not cause, initiate or prolong worldwide Global Warming.
Even if it did, the human contribution is only 3% which means that humans are Impotent whichever way you look at it and all of the “save the planet” ranting is scientifically without foundation.
As we go up in the atmosphere the temperature drop is regular and significant and this precludes the idea of any “downwelling” energy being pumped back to the surface by rampant CO2 especially at night time.
The falsity of this massive intrusion into our lives and finances is pure and simply true Evil.
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Kalm Keith, perhaps you can help me with this. Nitrogen and Oxygen are heated by conduction from contact with sun heated objects. Being hot they rise. Temperature drops one degree C for every 150 metre rise. As Nitrogen and Oxygen do not absorb infrared radiation presumably they cannot radiate away their heat (energy). How do these two gases cool down and release the energy to space? There is insufficient other gases for them to pass it on through conduction or collision unless it was to water. Do they have a microwave mechanism? Infra-red radiation is not the only mechanism for cooling the planet.
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Hi Don, an interesting question.
Sixty five years ago our science teacher told us about his daily push against nature.
He rode a push bike to work in the morning going from east to west and reverse in the afternoon.
It seems that he was fighting the wind on both trips.
At sunrise the air closest to the sun is heated, it expands, and now being less dense it floats up on the denser air near it.
A bit of a vacuum is created near the ground by this departure and some of the air waiting out west is drawn in to fill the gap.
Every morning he rode against this wind.
Later, with the sun heating the air out west a new vacuum was made and he had to ride home against the wind coming from the east.
The air gets heated by the sun’s Rays, expands and rises.
The solar energy absorbed down low makes the gases hit each other forcibly and they’re pushed further away from each other and so there are fewer collisions which means less pressure.
That’s a start: it happens. The process described has recently been given a fancy name, the diurnal bulge.
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Hi energy UV comes from the Sun, work is done in expanding the air down low and that parcel of air rises until it finds equilibrium temperature and pressure.
That work done essentially takes the incoming UV energy and removes it.
After the sun goes down PWIR may be able to leak some energy to space and further cool things at ground level.
30
Thanks KK, That is pretty much as I understand it but this explanation does not explain how insolation is balanced and “global temperature” level is maintained. Photosynthesis would help with “using up” in incoming energy, but it seems it is universally accepted that energy is transported back to space, and it seems that IR is the only accepted mechanism. This ignores, as you say the work done in expanding the air down low which then rises and ‘Cools” until it reaches equilibrium. ??? How does the work done on this air to increase its energy level get dissipate? Conservation of energy and all that stuff. Oxygen and nitrogen (air) is transparent to IR and as such does not seem to have a mechanism to “export” their acquired energy and thus maintain global energy balance
It is late and I am not explaining my concerns well but thank you for your efforts, Cheers.
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The con cept put out by the Wobal Glorming community that they can do an energy balance on the Earth is extremely presumptuous, maybe even deliberately misleading.
We don’t want to get caught up in their standard blah blah about whether air can absorb PWIR.
If you’ve ever pumped up a bike tyre you may have felt the heat generated by the compression process?
The atmosphere is compressed by gravity at the surface but if you’ve every been in an aircraft at 11,000 meters you can see the temperature outside, minus 36°C.
At night the ground energy is drawn to this height and is then drawn too almost absolute zero of deep space.
As I said above, it happens.
11
Dumb question, what’s PWIR?
20
Skept,
it’s not a dumb question.
Infrared is a very weak form of radiation and can’t do much except to take the last vestiges of energy from the day out to deep space.
So it’s P— Weak but for public consumption it has to be PW or Pretty Weak.
11
(Quiet chuckles)Thanks K, glad I asked.
20
Hi KK, The comparison with the bike pump heating up is quite true and as I am putting work into pumping, that energy heats up the air in the pump, and the pump. With hot air molecules, each molecule is heated by contact with hot surface objects. As they are gathered together they feel hot, As they rise they become more diffuse and thus feel less hot. However each molecule still retains the energy given to it by the contact. If each molecule is to cool then it must export that energy somehow. My problem is that I cannot find out what that mechanism is. I doubt it is by conduction to other molecules and they do seem to lack a radiation capability. Perhaps is via micro waves but I do not know if that is possible. The molecule cannot stay hot and energy must be conserved. As Julius Sumner-Miller would say, Why is it so. Cheers, Don
P.S. There is confusion between heat and energy I fear.
30
Hi Don,
In the bike pump thing there are no hot surfaces initially.
the compression from the pumping forces the gas atoms closer and the more frequent bumping together raises the energy of the gas; the pump structure absorbs some of that energy. P.V = n.R.T is something that the Unipccc either doesn’t know about or is deliberately hiding.
Similarly in reverse. Hot parcels of gas rise because they have absorbed energy and effectively take it higher.
Don’t get too focused on the “radiation balance ” stuff as measured by the “scientists”, it’s a distraction.
Low pressure at high altitude means that when atoms eventually bump into each other the temperature might be minus 38°C.
At ground level they are pushed so close by gravity that temperature can get up to 45°C .
Gravity supplies the energy.
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Is Trump in the room with you right now?
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And don’t forget that an average Human exhales about 95 times the level of co2 that we inhale.
Shock horror, we should all be marched off to the death camps. Any volunteers?
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Yep, 400 ppm in and 40,000 ppm out.
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Yes KK, but will you do the decent thing and volunteer to croak for the sake of the planet?
Just think of the poor little kiddies you would help by 2100. SARC.
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Neville:
I think the Greenies should go first.
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Good man Graeme No 3 and I’d be very happy to endorse your idea.
40
No need to croak, just hold the breath for 10 mins. 🙂
30
Indoor comfort and air quality includes parameters like:
temperature
odor
high or low levels of gases
Since CO2 is exhaled by people at predictable levels the content of Carbon Dioxide in the indoor air can be used as a significant indication of air quality.
Fresh supply air correlates to the indoor level of CO2 as:
15 cfm ventilation rate per occupant – aprox. 1000 ppm CO2
20 cfm ventilation rate per occupant – aprox. 800 ppm CO2
ppm – parts per million
Normal CO2 Levels
The effects of CO2 on adults at good health can be summarized to:
normal outdoor level: 350 – 450 ppm
acceptable levels: < 600 ppm
complaints of stuffiness and odors: 600 – 1000 ppm
ASHRAE and OSHA standards: 1000 ppm
general drowsiness: 1000 – 2500 ppm
adverse health effects may be expected: 2500 – 5000 ppm
maximum allowed concentration within a 8 hour working period: 5000 – 10000 ppm
maximum allowed concentration within a 15 minute working period: 30000 ppm
The levels above are quite normal and maximum levels may occasionally happen from time to time. In general – ventilation rates should keep carbon dioxide concentrations below 1000 ppm to create indoor air quality conditions acceptable to most individuals.
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/co2-comfort-level-d_1024.html
Maybe that’s where he got 1k from.
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Interesting!
https://www.co2meter.com/en-au/blogs/news/23987521-high-co2-levels-in-your-car
We always have the air-conditioner set to allow outside air in.
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How incredible that plant life does so well already on such low concentrations as 0.0004 (four out of ten thousand parts) of the air being the essential CO2 that they need! My indoor plants will be benefiting from that higher level 0.001, still a miraculous achievement to process some of that out of the air and return Oxygen to us. I’m guessing Elon is not heavily invested in agriculture (?) but he should be smart enough to pay attention and realise that he had this one wrong.
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…oh, and no more aircraft flights for Elon: “The average CO2 concentration in an aircraft cabin is approximately 1350ppm and can reach 3000ppm”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370166021_Short-term_exposure_to_indoor_carbon_dioxide_and_cognitive_task_performance_A_systematic_review_and_meta-analysis
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Nitrogen makes up about 78% of our atmosphere and can bring us both life and death.
In fact its explosive power can be very deadly.
https://www.bbc.com/news/27731291
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So on one hand he blasts up rockets which blast out tons of CO2 \ pollution and on the other hand he promotes Tesla and all things electric. So is he offsetting one with the other?
And not forgetting that he is dependent on tons of government support.
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I have 8 hectares of “hi tech” greenhouses and when we burn LPG over the cooler months of the year we divert all the CO2 into the greenhouses during the day. We aim for anything over 1,000ppm but anything over ambient is good. There is no danger whatsoever to anyone at these levels.
While Elon is everyone’s hope for freedom of speech, his electric car drive has nothing to do with saving the world from CO2. His EV production emits substantial CO2 regardless. He has to spin the CO2 BS but he knows it’s all twaddle. If he truly supports Trump it will be interesting to see how he accommodates “drill baby, drill”.
Not that I think there’s any chance in hell the deep state and elite scum will let Trump anywhere near the White House.
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Given Musk’s involvement with space craft, controlled environments, and life support on those things. He should have a good idea about it.
Here’s NASA data about CO2 levels and effect on people. The levels they aim to maintain on craft. But it’s in mm/Hg (mm mercury as a pressure) rather than PPM. So I’m finding it hard to convert for some relativity without knowing other variables.
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ochmo-tb-004-carbon-dioxide.pdf
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CO2 has roughly 1.5 times the molecular mass as the rest of the air. Multiply the mm Hg by 2/3 to get ppmv.
30
Actually, I should have just looked at the table on page 4, which has percentages beside the mm/Hg.
It has 0.23mm/Hg at Ambient outdoor CO2 level on earth, and a 0.03% (although I suppose we’re now saying earth is 0.04% at 400PPM)
Then says typical Spacecraft Concentration levels 2.3-5.3mm/Hg or 0.3-0.7%. That would be 3000-7000 PPM.
3mmHG would be about 4,000PPM
Headaches at levels between 2.8-4.5 mmHg suggests 3600-6000PPM
30
Dr Hansen and Bill McKibben of 350.org told us that co2 levels of 350 ppm would be okay.
So today 420 ppm less 350 ppm means that we have about 70 ppm too much co2 in the air .
So if we reduce co2 levels by 0.007% everything should be wonderful? Or perhaps not?
Yes there are clueless fools who actually believe this delusional nonsense. And thousands of them have Science degrees. Again, just unbelievable but true.
But don’t worry we only have to destroy up to 28,000 klms of our environment on land and sea at a cost of endless trillions of $ until 2100 and for zero change to temp, weather and climate.
Anyone see any problems with their solution?
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BTW that reduction of 0.007% in co2 that Dr Hansen and Bill McKibben tell us we must remove from the air is also expressed as 7 thousandths of 1% of the atmosphere.
I hope that makes everything as clear as mud? But only if you really believe their BS and nonsense.
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Oh noes the hockeystick just vanished!
Study finds temperature reconstructions during the Common Era are affected by the selection of paleoclimate data (Phys.org, 15 Aug)
How dare Chinese scientists defy holy doctrine like this! It’s heresy!
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If nothing changes, global atmospheric CO2-concentrations could reach 550 parts per million (ppm) in 2050.
So why Net Zero by 2050?
Still centuries left before CO2 reached any dangerous levels.
There is plently of time to have all electricity generated by nuclear power (Fusion or Fission) and for nuclear energy to convert CO2 in the air into Methane (which can be reformed into liquid fuels) to power transportation and industrial inputs.
Much ado about nothing
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I’m reminded of what Callendar (1940) said when I hear people say that CO2 might reach thousands of parts per million: “There is, of course, no danger that the amount of CO2 in the air will become uncomfortably large, because as soon as the excess pressure in the air becomes appreciable, say about 0.0003 atm, the sea will be able to absorb CO2 as fast as it could be produced”. {Source: Segalstad 1998}
Henry’s law: Increase the CO2 partial pressure, increase the rate at which CO2 is forced down to the oceans.
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We should all understand that CO₂ is required to stimulate our breathing response. The website Elucidate (https://www.elucidate.org.au/content/breathing-rate) describes this well:
Carbon dioxide gets a lot of bad press in the media and certain ‘scientific’ publications. This is deliberate negative propaganda mostly but designed to appeal to public ignorance. This means that many people are ignorant of the fact that CO₂, as part of the Carbon Cycle, is necessary for life on the planet and that animal and plant life can naturally adapt to a wide range of atmospheric CO₂ levels via the process of homeostasis.
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There have been episodes in the past of people hyperventilating before a breath-hold dive, and then drowning because CO2 level does not increase enough to trigger a breathing necessity.
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Here’s a good quote about this topic:
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Jo notes that we exhale about 40,000 ppm of co2.
So how often does the average person breathe? Here’s the quote from the site and the link.
The average of 22,000 breaths per day certainly adds up over a lifetime of 80 years.
https://www.respiratorytherapyzone.com/normal-breathing/
“How Many Times Does the Average Person Breathe per Day”?
“The average person takes approximately 22,000 breaths per day. This equates to around 154,000 per week, 669,000 per month, and approximately 8,000,000 breaths per year”.
“Therefore, a person who lives to the age of 80 will take approximately 640,000,000 breaths throughout their lifetime”.
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Test the air quality in a Tesla that’s been sitting in the warm sun for 30 min. I’ll bet the CO2 will be high along with other toxic fumes if they were able to be measured, this would be the same in most modern vehicles.
Also far too many people continually drive with their air ventilation system set to the Recirc (recirculate) position meaning they are continually rebreathing their own stale air. Studies have shown this to cause drowsiness as CO2 levels rise and oxygen levels drop in the cabin, how many crashes are caused by this in well sealed modern vehicle cabins?
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This is Elon’s main foible. He appears to believe in AGW, but if you’re one of the main BPV/EV carmakers and you get oodles of government subsidies for doing that , I suspect he would believe in unicorns if he had to. Given the right circumstances I might even own a Tesla one day, but only if it’s MY choice. I put him in the same bag as RFK Jnr, who knows a lot about the inner workings of the US government, criticised COVID vaccines and obviously despises Anthony Fauci. Good for him. But also a believer in AGW, strangely because he won some legal cases against some coal companies. Musk needs to brush up on CO2 dynamics, perhaps just ask GROK, his X AI tool.
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I might get labelled a “conspiracy theorist” for saying this, but like Alex Jones, Elon Musk very much strikes me as controlled opposition. People feel downtrodden and need a hero, he and Trump sort of fill that gap, so I think people are being manipulated.
11
Fair to ask, but the test is the “net effect”.
Would the left really allow controlled opposition that enables a whole free speech platform?
So as long as Twitter / X allows us to communicate Elon would be a Net Loss and a danger to them. If he worked for the opposition, he could in theory use the platform to gather names and intel, and shut down the people that matter at a critical moment (like Twitter did with Trump just after J6).
Based on the evidence, Elon seems to be taking a great risk, and spending a lot of money to allow free speech.
140
I’m not too thrilled about Elon but the fact that he may be willing to change and is supporting Trump is good enough for the moment.
30
I also suspect that the human species like other animals would be able to evolve to cope with such changes over time.
50
I don’t know what our lower limit is for co2 but there is one.
The post above suggests that we could probably live in a world that had much higher levels of CO2 and no doubt this is inherited from our evolutionary past.
Below a certain level of CO2 in the bloodstream our autonomic nervous system ceases to respond and we die.
The danger is too little co2.
40
Since the average person produces 1kg of CO2 per day and there are 8 billion of us, I submit that the people making the most noise about CO2 shall reduce their output by holding their breath for ten minutes per day, this should help enormously.
50
The huge problem is that if Trump doesn’t win both houses in a massive majority in the US federal election, and if yanks are dumb enough to vote in Kamala, which they certainly are, it will be the beginning of the end for the Western world. Kamala wins, GREEN LIGHT for the woke gullible Western government’s to go renewables everything, cut all fossil fuels, electricity prices, inflation will sky-
rocket. You will own nothing and be happy lockdown in your country of birth because air travel will only be for the mega rich. Enjoy eating ze bugs kids.
80
For most large mammals on earth the biggest problem is not too much CO2 but too little. That is because they cool via their breathing. The hotter they get, the more they need to breath to keep cool, and that happens very regularly to larger mammals. The problem is that breathing reduces CO2 levels in the lungs and if that happens, then it dangerously alters the chemistry of the blood that will kill large mammals. That is why large mammals have to employ a unique form of breathing that reduces CO2 lost whilst maximising air flow across the tongue and other heat exchange surfaces.
50
Interesting.
30
Elon is coming to. I remember doing it myself. I would make similar statements as you are holding on. He’ll get there.
40
“we ought be limiting carbon dioxide because we are too close to 1,000ppm where people get headaches.”
Like so many people, even many scientists, it is generally accepted that we output a lot of CO2 and CO2 has gone up, therefore we did it.
I have never agreed with that. Because most systems do not work like that. They are in equilibrium, unless the change is huge.
_____________________________________
At present the CO2 in the air is about 2100 Gigatons. (Billion if you like). And fossil fuel CO2 output has climbed rapidly to 35Gigatons a year, so 1.7%.
Firstly, that’s not very big.
Secondly the CO2 in the air does not remain there long. It changes completely roughly every 10 years. Or 10% a year.
98% of CO2 gas is dissolved in the ocean, so fossil fuel CO2 adds only an annual 0.06% to total CO2. Fossil fuel CO2 in the air was very accurately measured at 2.03% in 1958. Today it is about 3.0% and that is only temporary, in transit to the ocean.
Why does CO2 cycle so fast through the ocean? Like H2O, CO2 is highly soluble and the ocean surface gets hot and it evaporates. Like water, it is also a gas. And the ocean surface covers 72% of the planet.
_______________________
Most systems are in equilibrium like this, even natural ones. Inputs equal outputs. It’s why things don’t change much year to year. Average is not a rule but it is a consequence of equilibrium. You see it in every river, which after all is emptying endlessly. And that water is returning to the ocean from which it came.
Monotonic change can happen over a long period of time but usually every year the snow and ice melts and next year it forms again. Even with animals systems there are also feedbacks, say in prey and predator. So if there are too many predators, the prey dies out, the predators die out the prey recovers. So you get cycles,like the ones we see in the Arctic ice extent. Summer and winter and even cycles every decade.
What you see with dissolved gas is a ratio between how much is in the air and the water, say in coke cola. And it’s quite stable until you drop a menthos in the water.
The ratio in a laboratory is calculated from Henry’s Law, which is basically about pressure,temperature and concentration. If you add CO2 to the air, most goes into the water as it is highly soluble. If you add it to the water, a proportion is released to the air. About 2% at our earthly temperatures and pressures. In hot latitudes more CO2 comes out and in low latitudes, more CO2 is absorbed.
So the Elon Musks of this world don’t know about how tiny fossil fuel CO2 is in total, or how incredibly quickly it goes in the water and the fact that 98% of it stays in the water.
Most people don’t. But it is really quite basic science, life, equilibrium. And we humans have zero control over the amount of CO2 in the air. The atmosphere is just the vapour pressure of gases in the ocean. Fish breathe too and they predate us. Human embryos show gills.
What is certain is that if the water gets a little hotter, more CO2 comes out of solution. And the ocean surface gets hotter if the sun is a bit hotter or slightly warmer water surfaces from the gigantic heat bank which is the ocean, 350 x the weight of the air and which never freezes. Warming increases CO2. No surprise there.
_______________________________
Increasing CO2 was never a problem until Al Gore said it was our fault in 1988 in his first attempt at the US Presidency. But the UN loved the idea that political bodies, like themselves, could be paid to control the world’s climates, so they formed the IPCC. It has Climate Change in the title. And it is easily the greatest bit of non science in human history.
The brilliantly successful part is that all politicians love the idea that they control the weather. Not Zeus on Mount Olympus. Who really cares about science? Politicians are science illiterate but they understand power.
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Musk is probably quoting that 1000ppm figure because it appears in a generally good book, Steven Koonin’s climate-sceptical work Unsettled. On p67-8 Koonin writes, “Concentrations up to 1,000ppm (2.5 times that in open air today) are common in classrooms or auditoriums. Humans start to feel drowsy above that level, so when students start to nod off in my classroom, I like to believe it’s that 1,000ppm, not the quality of my lecture. More serious physiological effects begin above 2,000ppm.” But Koonin is a physicist, not a biologist, and he doesn’t give a reference for these statements.
60
Elon is no fool. He wants to colonize Mars to save humanity. The atmosphere on Mars is 95% CO2. Leaving Earth to live on Mars because you want to escape the ravages of CO2 is the most idiotic position ever. Elon isn’t an idiot, he is just playing the fools so they continue supporting the government giving him enormous amounts of cash.
50
Nuclear Submarines have CO2 levels around 10,000 ppm. If 1,000 ppm is a danger, then we are in real trouble…but we aren’t. Greenhouses have CO2 levels around 2,500 ppm and farmers do just fine. If high CO2 levels are bad, your lungs would kill you. Exhaled air is 50,000 ppm. Kissing would be deadly.
40
I think our only chance is getting more billionaires to be mad at the other billionaires.
30
Elon is a psudo-oligarch, a front-man for the trillionaires. He has made nothing, he was made by bigger money, he obeys his orders, he does very little for his companies as he is mostly doing politics, but he knows who’s the boss. The people who worship him; man, what happened to people who wanted to rule themselves?
His love for netanyahu and the gazagenocide tell me more than he could ever say; his actions tell me who made him, who he obeys, where his pseudo-values come from, why X censors gaza pictures etc. Only idiots cheer for Elon. You have to understand that the rich didn’t get that way by being one of us, they got that way by doing a deal with the devil. No exceptions.
13
Thank you. I agree.
03
All good, except the statement about ‘viruses’. Where’s the proof that they exist?
01
two volumes but lays it all out with thousands of references to read
https://www.thenile.com.au/books/jane-flint/principles-of-virology-volume-1/9781683672845?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwt4a2BhD6ARIsALgH7Dp2mE5ZsiuPAX87PE-S8-k_BQNG4vIxelIFgI6NZj3KxAi0jIWun8gaAkeeEALw_wcB
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‘Proof’, as in isolation of an alleged infectious particle. I think you’ll find that this has never been achieved in the history of the world.
01
There’s not a lot of fresh air on the London Tubes except on the stretches that are above ground and yet it is quite uncommon for people to struggle with breathing given the number of journeys made.
Amazingly Mother Nature designed us to have very robust constitutions except for the examples that confirm her general rules. She also thought up the rather clever combination of humans breathing oxygen and expiring carbon dioxide alongside plants ‘breathing’ carbon dioxide and ‘expiring’ oxygen.
Unlike human beings Mother isn’t into alarmism and She just gets on with stuff without wasting any energy at all on stupid projects.
30