Thread: Fate of Earth
View Single Post
  #14 (permalink)  
Old 01-September-2004, 12:24 AM
ASEI's Avatar
ASEI ASEI is offline
Established Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 1,416
Default

I've looked at Algenon's sources. I would prefer ones that put reasonable numbers out there. Percentages of growth do not demonstrate that we have had an effect. Because certain groups or agencies claim certain things sometimes certainly doesn't mean they are facts.

The comparison between natural and human carbon dioxide emmissions provided me with a degree of scale that I could work with to look at exactly how much influence we have.

5 billion tons/220 billion tons = 0.0227 human/nature emission ratio. We have a marginal effect,
Another source somewhere said that it was 20 billion tons for mankind.
20/220 = 0.0909, not entirely insignificant, but not earth shattering either

My argument is that if the earth could absorb 220 billion tons of CO2 for millions of years, it can probably change to absorb 225 or 240 billion tons/year. All that is required is a bit of suboceanic plant growth. It wasn't as if the earth has had a fixed capacity to handle a fixed output : both have changed over time. The capacity to deal with carbon dioxide, plant matter, grew to accomadate the carbon dioxide state in the atmosphere.
Reply With Quote