5 ms·

How long must an item be buried before burning it loses its carbon neutrality?

lopmotr 7y ago
If you first ask why CO2 in the atmosphere is a problem, then you'll find the answer. It's the same time scale at which the change in atmospheric CO2 is a problem. It's only a problem because it's changing rapidly. It would be OK if it happened slowly enough for species to adapt or at least for human activity to adapt without too much disruption to our daily lives. Ultimately, it's rapid disruption to our daily lives we don't want. We don't want to have to move somewhere else, have less spending power of our wages, get a different job, or change our eating habits. But if it happens gradually generation by generation, so we hardly notice it, then it'll be OK.
- garmaine 7y ago
  This is very much not true. Look at Venus, which was (we believe) subject to a runaway greenhouse event. Also, the Permian period ("Snowball Earth"). Climate change can be catastrophic whether it occurs fast or slowly.
  - crimsonalucard 7y ago
    But he has a point. The real answer is more complicated. Slow change gives natural selection several generations to evolve a complex solution to the problem and our minds the time to come up with a technological solution. Life exists within the boundaries of available sunlight and liquid water. Changes that occur slowly within these boundaries don't necessarily have to be catastrophic. However if the changes exceed these boundaries whether fast or slow then yes the change will indeed be catastrophic. Venus possibly has no liquid water and snowball earth doesn't have much water either, hence the catastrophe.
    - garmaine 7y ago
      Venus had oceans at the time. They boiled off. The Permian Earth had oceans too, just ice capped ones. Microbial life and the simplest algae-like life survived, but that’s it. I just don’t think it’s all that correct or useful to say the equivalent of “life will adapt” when life has never adapted to changes this fast, and we are hurtling towards changes so extreme as to wipe out complex life entirely.
      - crimsonalucard 7y ago
        As long as water and sunlight are available, we're good.
        garmaine 7y ago
        Venesians, if any existed, would disagree.
        crimsonalucard 7y ago
        On earth there is life capable of existing in water far hotter than boiling. Not little bacterias either. Actual multicellular animals. Catastrophic change will leave pockets of deviants in some dark corners of the earth that will remain protected somewhat. These deviants will go on to populate the world. There was one such catastrophic change that happened before. A meteor. Wiped out an entire class of creatures called dinosaurs, now replaced with mammals. Mammals at this time lived as tiny rodents underground.
        garmaine 7y ago
        There is no life anywhere on Earth that is able to survive 90 atm and 500 deg C, like the surface of Venus. And fwiw, the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs is one of the milder mass extinction events in Earth's history. We are on trajectories in excess of those that predated the worst mass die-offs in Earth's history, and more resemble the lead-up to Venusian conditions.

If you first ask why CO2 in the atmosphere is a problem, then you'll find the answer. It's the same time scale at which the change in atmospheric CO2 is a problem. It's only a problem because it's changing rapidly. It would be OK if it happened slowly enough for species to adapt or at least for human activity to adapt without too much disruption to our daily lives. Ultimately, it's rapid disruption to our daily lives we don't want. We don't want to have to move somewhere else, have less spending power of our wages, get a different job, or change our eating habits. But if it happens gradually generation by generation, so we hardly notice it, then it'll be OK.

garmaine 7y ago
This is very much not true. Look at Venus, which was (we believe) subject to a runaway greenhouse event. Also, the Permian period ("Snowball Earth"). Climate change can be catastrophic whether it occurs fast or slowly.
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  But he has a point. The real answer is more complicated. Slow change gives natural selection several generations to evolve a complex solution to the problem and our minds the time to come up with a technological solution. Life exists within the boundaries of available sunlight and liquid water. Changes that occur slowly within these boundaries don't necessarily have to be catastrophic. However if the changes exceed these boundaries whether fast or slow then yes the change will indeed be catastrophic. Venus possibly has no liquid water and snowball earth doesn't have much water either, hence the catastrophe.
  - garmaine 7y ago
    Venus had oceans at the time. They boiled off. The Permian Earth had oceans too, just ice capped ones. Microbial life and the simplest algae-like life survived, but that’s it. I just don’t think it’s all that correct or useful to say the equivalent of “life will adapt” when life has never adapted to changes this fast, and we are hurtling towards changes so extreme as to wipe out complex life entirely.
    - crimsonalucard 7y ago
      As long as water and sunlight are available, we're good.
      - garmaine 7y ago
        Venesians, if any existed, would disagree.
        crimsonalucard 7y ago
        On earth there is life capable of existing in water far hotter than boiling. Not little bacterias either. Actual multicellular animals. Catastrophic change will leave pockets of deviants in some dark corners of the earth that will remain protected somewhat. These deviants will go on to populate the world. There was one such catastrophic change that happened before. A meteor. Wiped out an entire class of creatures called dinosaurs, now replaced with mammals. Mammals at this time lived as tiny rodents underground.
        garmaine 7y ago
        There is no life anywhere on Earth that is able to survive 90 atm and 500 deg C, like the surface of Venus. And fwiw, the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs is one of the milder mass extinction events in Earth's history. We are on trajectories in excess of those that predated the worst mass die-offs in Earth's history, and more resemble the lead-up to Venusian conditions.