4 ms·

What mechanism for "killing all plants" through sudden atmospheric CO2 increase do you have in mind?

• hwillis 10y ago
  I'm just saying that the biggest, most sudden, longest lasting change in habitability would be made with CO2. The temperature change is what kills the plants, not CO2. It's a bigger temperature change than an asteroid impact and lasts longer. It's like setting up a bomb, and it has multiple stages. You load co2 into the air until the bomb goes off, causing enough temperature change to cause large desertification. That releases even more stored carbon. That triggers the polar melt feedback, which triggers the permafrost melts, which triggers even more deforestation, which triggers wildfires and weather, which trigger even more polar melting, which wrecks ocean circulation, which fires the clathrate gun, and suddenly there are a handful of species in an earth that is set to random and they will inevitably die out.