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CyberGnu
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of the Virtual Serengeti
Apr 1999
time: 05:22
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Monk:
The CO2 released by nature is part of the equilibrium that nature has spent millions of years adapting to. (And I know what David is thinking here: Nature will adapt to the new, higher levels, right? Which is absolutely true, as long as we can wait a few thousand years. Civilization as we know it might go under in the meantime, but hey, we can always pick up where we left off)
When we burn fossil fuels, however, we don't have a process for removing the CO2 from the atmospshere. Imagine if you will a tank of water. On one side there is a pump which fills the tank by 10m^3 per minute. On the other side there is a pump that empties the tank by 10M^3 per minute. As long as we don't disturb the tank, the water level will be constant.
Now imagine that you go to that tank and start spitting into it. The amount of liquid you can spit is minute compared to the pumps. Nevertheless, since you are now continually adding liquid that is not removed from the tank, the water level will increase proportionally to how much you are spitting. Eventually the tank will overflow.
Carver, much easier to put the tax directly on the fuel... 
David, I'm assuming you're not intending to have children...
Che, 'rape the now'? Kind of doubt it, but that IS what David is advocating...
Last edited by CyberGnu on 07-09-2002 at 11:37
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:22
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Nah I'm not advocating anything I'm just mocking on general principles...
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:22
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I forgot.
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MattHiggs
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quote:
If everyone lived like you, we would need 25.8 planets.
Category
global hectares
Food
1.4
Mobility
14.4
Shelter
0.6
Goods/Services
30
Total Footprint
46.4
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CyberGnu
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of the Virtual Serengeti
Apr 1999
time: 05:22
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Starchild,
Illyrien, this would only be true if CO2 was the limitng factor for plant growth, which is isn't. Except for special circumstances, such as directly after a wildfire, fixated nitrogen is the normal limiting factor (which is why farmers spread fertilizer on fields). In some cases such as near desert water is the limiting factor.
One scientist suggested releasing hundreds of tons of ironnitrate in the atlantic to fertilize algaegrowth, and thus fixate thousands or possibly more tons of CO2...
Of course CO2 isn't evil. It is just a chemical. It depends on what we do with it. Unchecked human emissions are, however, not positive. Upsetting a balance that nature has spent millions of years perfecting is at best neutral and at worst catastrophic. Most likely somewhere in the middle. More extreme weather is expected in the future, growing progressively worse as the world heats up.
Ironically, the people who has the best intuitive understanding of this are propably the same people who burns the most oil in the first place: chemical engineers. If one understands the fundamentals of reactor design on also knows the incredibly narrow range where equilibrium is maintained, and the results when the equilibrium is perturbed...
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The Mad Monk
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of Ice Cream
Mar 2000
time: 23:22
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What equilibrium? There is no equilibrium, for it is the very antithesis of life. Equilibrium = stagnation = death.
As for the 'millions of years', would that include that spot of ice some 40,000 years ago?
Life on this planet has survived catastrophes magnatudes greater than being inflicted with us. It survived those, and came back to flourish with an explosion of new forms that changed and adapted -- until the next catastrophe.
It has always been this way. The environment is in a constant state of flux, punctuated by the odd asteroid, and life is in a continual struggle to keep up. It has developed in such a way that it must do this -- always growing, changing adapting -- or cease to be. If a particular form stops doing this -- say becoming so specialized that it can only subsist on a single food, and can only live within a certain area -- it is in grave danger of rapid extinction, for anything that disrupts that environment for even a little while (say, a fungus wiping out all the eucalyptis in a certain territory) can cause the deaths of enough individuals to doom a species. To adapt to the point where change is impossble, to gain equilibrium, is to court death.
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CyberGnu
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of the Virtual Serengeti
Apr 1999
time: 05:22
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Monk, didn't expect you to use chemical terms. The correct chemical term is a 'stable steady-state'. Yes, if your body reaches equilibrium that means you are dead. But if your body goes to far from the stable steady-state, you also die. Examples of this would be deficiency in trace elements, overexposure to CO2, dehydration, etc.
You see, a stable steady state is selfcorrecting if the preturbations are small. Your body can deal with minor changes in your environment. But if the changes are to big, the situation goes outside of the stabe steady state region, and the system goes amock.
(Incidentally, this is exactly what happens when chemical reactors blow up. One of the most important tasks when building a reactor is to figure out in what region stable steady state is reached, as one cannot do it evolutionary... Would take too many reactors.)
The global environment follows the same priniciple. A small change is selfcorrecting. A big change, however, such as a dinosaur killer, cannot be corrected for, and global parameters will change enough to the more vulnerable life forms to die.
I don't quite undertsand your last paragraph. Are you claiming that we shouldn't worry about global warming because even though humanity dies out, cockroaches will survive? Interesting... Well, I guess that makes me a stinking humanity-lover, as I'd prefer humanity and civilization to survive...
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07-09-2002 11:29
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