3 ms·

Here is something I've always wondered about. Coal, oil and gas is originally organic matter. By the creation of coal, oil and over millions of years the overal

Here is something I've always wondered about. Coal, oil and gas is originally organic matter. By the creation of coal, oil and over millions of years the overall level of free carbon was reduced and probably lower temperatures. However by starting to burn oil, coal and gas we are increasing the freed carbon again back to some earlier historic level. I seems we would just be setting us up to a return to a even lusher greener planet like during the Jurassic period. Of course it would be a disaster for our current civilization but it does not seem world-ending.

graeme 10y ago
>Of course it would be a disaster for our current civilization but it does not seem world-ending. That's the point. We probably can't destroy all life on earth. But we can destroy the conditions that created our civilization and sustained it.
euyyn 10y ago
I mean, not even the Oxygen Holocaust was world-ending. Not sure that's the bar we want to measure our actions against :)
akvadrako 10y ago
This really needs to be given more attention, because the natural alternative to global warming is probably significant global cooling. Looking at the long-term trend we've been in a geological ice age for the past 2M years, due to the poles being permanently frozen. During this ice age we've had a few interglacial periods lasting about 10K years, but the current one is still dragging on. Either we are due for a return to glacialization or we've broken the trend; human caused warming is a likely factor.
stillsut 10y ago
The Anabaena Event is something you'd be interested in. Also, the decrease in atmospheric CO2 below 200ppm would be catastrophic to almost all photosynthesizing crop-type plants. For reference the natural cycle has had us oscillating between 220 and 280 ppm for the past 4M years.

3 ms·

Here is something I've always wondered about. Coal, oil and gas is originally organic matter. By the creation of coal, oil and over millions of years the overal

by christkv 10y ago

graeme 10y ago
>Of course it would be a disaster for our current civilization but it does not seem world-ending. That's the point. We probably can't destroy all life on earth. But we can destroy the conditions that created our civilization and sustained it.
euyyn 10y ago
I mean, not even the Oxygen Holocaust was world-ending. Not sure that's the bar we want to measure our actions against :)
akvadrako 10y ago
This really needs to be given more attention, because the natural alternative to global warming is probably significant global cooling. Looking at the long-term trend we've been in a geological ice age for the past 2M years, due to the poles being permanently frozen. During this ice age we've had a few interglacial periods lasting about 10K years, but the current one is still dragging on. Either we are due for a return to glacialization or we've broken the trend; human caused warming is a likely factor.
stillsut 10y ago
The Anabaena Event is something you'd be interested in. Also, the decrease in atmospheric CO2 below 200ppm would be catastrophic to almost all photosynthesizing crop-type plants. For reference the natural cycle has had us oscillating between 220 and 280 ppm for the past 4M years.