this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2025

323 points (98.5% liked)

World News

47321 readers

2502 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world

Recommendations

How to spot Misinformation and Propaganda

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

NewsAutoMod@lemmy.world

jordanlund@lemmy.world

Tenthrow@lemmy.world

little_cow@lemmy.world

lemmyAtom@lemmy.world

323

CO2 levels just broke another record. Here's what that means (www.cbc.ca)

submitted 2 days ago by HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works to c/world@lemmy.world

36 comments fedilink hide all child comments

When man first walked on the moon, the carbon dioxide concentration in Earth's atmosphere was 325 parts per million (ppm).

By 9/11, it was 369 ppm, and when COVID-19 shut down normal life in 2020, it had shot up to 414 parts ppm.

This week, our planet hit the highest levels ever directly recorded: 430 parts per million.

"This problem is not going away, and we're moving further and further into uncharted territory, and almost certainly, very dangerous territory."

all 38 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 26 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Right now, China is the problem. Historically it's been the USA, but right now it's China.

The upcoming problem is India.

More specifically the problem is coal. China and India are ramping up their usage of coal whilst the rest of the world is phasing it out.

Yes, those countries are also building clean sources of power, but coal is about 55% of their primary energy each. 80% of Chinas primary energy comes from fossil fuels and 90% of India's. Their rate of new coal outstrips their use of wind and solar.

The earth cannot support the huge populations of these countries unless they are powered by something other than coal. Even oil and gas would be a huge improvement. These two governments hold all the power on this issue.

[–] PigsInClover@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The problem is these numbers are based on the country of origin of emissions and don’t take into account the demand/consumption that is driving those emissions. China is a huge exporter and the US is a major importer of Chinese goods. US consumption is driving a lot of China’s emissions

By not being a manufacturing economy, we’re able to offset the appearance of our emissions when the data is tracked this way

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

China is the one choosing coal to fuel it's exports. It's the government that has to change policy.

[–] Vandals_handle@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This is one place where tariffs are reasonable policy. Coal costs less than renewables but has a higher environmental cost. Products made using coal energy cost less because of this externalization/excess environmental cost. Tariff can be set to account for the environmental cost making goods produced with renewables price competitive with those produced with coal.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 day ago

Yup. Also the whole reason China produces the majority of the rare earths isn't because there's some cave that only exists in China they come from. It's because processing rare earths involves toxic waste and it's cheaper to do it when you're willing to just dump the toxic waste on the ground, which is what they do in China.

Environmentally motivated tariffs makes a lot of sense, if companies aren't gaining a competitive edge by being environmentally irresponsible, they will start being more responsible. Trying to appeal to the morals of corporations isn't going to get anywhere, there needs to be a financial incentive for them to do things right.

[–] Vandals_handle@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Does the USA still lead in per capita emissions?

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yes, but it's coming down. Also, it doesn't really matter.

Fact is, the planet doesn't care about per-capita. It cares about absolute tonnes of CO2. When 3 billion are increasing the burning of coal, 350 million reducing their coal use isn't really significant.

[–] Vandals_handle@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (3 children)

There have been five previous mass extinction events (that we have evidence of) and the planet and life are still here. Planet doesn't care at all.

Per capita does matter because non-USA citizens are not going to voluntarily accept having a lower standard of living so USA citizens can keep their higher standard. If the Chinese population consumed as much resources per capita as the USA it would take four planet earths to sustain us.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 1 points 14 hours ago

I'm not saying they need to have a lower standard of living. I'm asking them to have a better standard of living. One without air pollution. Generate the power without burning coal.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah the attitude of "let China fix this" is really annoying. Don't people want to be the world leaders in fixing a global problem?

Also "just let China fix this" means only China will have all of the skill experience with the technology that we'll all be using in the future. Why would you want that? It's just laziness plain and simple.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 1 points 14 hours ago

It's not "let china fix this". The technology can be developed anywhere. It is being developed everywhere.

However nobody can stop China burning coal other than Xi Jinping. He is the world leader that can make that decision. All anybody else can do is try to convince him.

[–] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago

Just an extra 35% since 1960. WCGW? /s

[–] theherk@lemmy.world 34 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It’s over

— from The Newsroom

[–] riquisimo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 days ago

I thought this was from "don't look up," but they respected him too much for that.

[–] HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago

:'(

[–] arin@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

When was the last year co2 didn't get worse ?

[–] Lumisal@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

2020 since the pandemic shut everything down. There was a one year respite.

Basically at this point the only thing that might make things go down would be something on the scale of covid but deadlier that would make the ultra wealthy scared enough to keep things shut down long term.

[–] BenjiRenji@feddit.org 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Before that it was the 2008 financial crisis.

I wonder if Trump's tariff chaos is causing enough economic shrinkage to bring another year of slight slow down.

We really need to decouple economic activity from CO2 emissions or we're just left hoping for the global economy to be in peril.

[–] arin@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ironically tariffs on Imports would be good for cutting global emissions. But people will starve and economy collapse.

[–] BenjiRenji@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yeah, I rather reduce emissions without people starving, but radical environmental laws are apparently a no go... radical tariffs on the other hand.. all good?

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago

The "let them eat CO2" policy. Yeah, it's insane, global warming is a solvable problem. We have the technology needed already, we're just lacking in a willingness to change. The powers that be are going all in on stagnation while facing a crisis.

[–] Gsus4@mander.xyz 19 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Welcome to the post-developed world, folks. Hope you made good use of that free fossil energy to make the world a special place for every living being on the planet...

[–] zqwzzle@lemmy.ca 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The last thermal maximum had rain forests at the poles and it was estimated that carbon was being emitted far more slowly. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ldLBoErAhz4

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Rain forest at the poles? What did the North Pole look like at that time?

[–] Rakonat@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

We aren't totally sure. Rainforest isn't the correct term but it was probably lush and green. The evidence we had is vegetation on Antarctica approx 90 million years ago. That also has the caveat that 90 million years ago, Antarctica was further north and didn't intersect the south pole. North Pole today is an ice sheet, so probably was a thinner ice sheet back then too.

[–] acidrobot@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago

This is depressing