This is good for cash, which I think more people should use since it is more anonymous and strips some power away from nosy corporations and governments. Bad for VISA and Mastercard, especially because this reeks of collusion between the two major credit card companies, since both companies are raising their fees essentially simultaneously. This is probably a racket and these two companies should be the target of an investigation by the Department of Justice for anti-trust violations.

Great response. Thank you. I think Slashdot is moderated by some trolls and I'm going to be marked troll just for pointing that out.

Exactly. They will still be subject to California's onerous freedom and wealth depriving laws. Laws are the software that governs people, and it is full of bugs, especially in California. Get out of there.

Yeilds are not falling, they're rising sir. Additionally, trees are growing faster as CO2 levels rise. There was an article about this in Nature magazine this year.

When I say "optimal" I'm also factoring costs and feasibility. It would be prohibitively expensive to build sealed greenhouses for growing all our crops in controlled higher CO2 environment, and also sealed spaces for humans to reside and breath air that contained 0% CO2.

If we were serious about irrigating deserts, then existing oil and gas pipelines would be repurposed for bringing water from areas where there is a surplus, back the opposite direction to the desert oil fields. Maybe we could do this once our demand for fossil fuels diminishes, but that won't happen until we have more nuclear power plants, which the ignorant hypocritical environmentalists are opposed to.

With that in mind, What atmospheric CO2 levels optimize the Earth's carrying capacity for human life? Is that optimal level higher or lower than current levels? Why? Also, why is it assumed that pre-Industrial Revolution CO2 levels are optimal!?

Ummmmmm. Humans aren't plants. Humans can grow all year round and don't directly require photosynthesis. Apples to oranges comparison. More like apples to rocks actually. Aside: I think all the real nerds don't bother reading Slashdot anymore. I'm about ready to leave too. Too many people born after 1990 are too dumb, misguided, clueless.

No. I'm saying "Ye are of more value than many sparrows". In other words, the value of 1 human life far exceeds that of many animals. Therefore, it is better to optimize the Earth's carrying capacity for human life compared to the life of say, polar bears. Furthermore, if in order to optimize the Earth's carrying capacity for humans necessitates higher CO2 levels (along with the irrigation of deserts), so that the Earth's temperature can rise, so that we have more precipitation, more arable land, longer growing seasons for crops, and ultimately greater food production for humans, then we should DO THAT rather than the opposite which is what the WEF and other globalists are pushing; reduce the world population, lower CO2 levels, etc. Plus, the more humans on the Earth, the more Elon Musk and Eisteins we will have, which can innovate and invent technologies will may improve the quality of life for BILLIONS, as well as increase our chances of colonizing other celestial bodies. So yes, the correct question to ask is "What atmospheric CO2 levels optimize the Earth's carrying capacity for human life?"

All other forms of life are secondary to human life, so no, pre-industrial CO2 levels are irrelevant.

Why are these climate alarmist articles being posted to Slashdot? This is supposed to be "news for nerds" not news for useful idiots. The question people should be asking regarding CO2 emissions is: What atmospheric CO2 levels optimize the earth's human carrying capacity? If the answer is "higher than current CO2 levels", then all these alarmists need to STFU.

Spot on. Well said.

the reason they formed was to subjugate nations, and to effortlessly siphon away the wealth of nations in order to sustain themselves and their friends. Rothschilds "Give me control of a nation's money supply, and I care not who makes its laws." Why didn't he care? Because he understood these facts; power corrupts, and when you control the printing presses, you can bribe or blackmail anyone in power to do your bidding.

so of course central bankers hate crypto and want to squash it. Squash them instead. Every time they expand the money supply and benefit from seigniorage, they steal from everyone who uses their fiat money. Fact: central bankers = the biggest thieves in the history of Earth.

Yup. Anytime you create data on an Apple device, it is very difficult or impossible to export it to non-Apple devices and services. I'm an IT professional and some years ago I could not for the life of me figure out how to get my sister's iPhone SMS messages exported into a CSV or JSON file. Also, Apple uses its own proprietary image format for its photos, and I could only copy them in a cumbersome way, with each copy operation limited to 1000 photos. Thus, I avoid Apple like the plague and encourage others to do the same. They get you hooked and then you have to pay subscription fees in order to access your own data in their iCloud.