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You're assuming passive measures only (stop producing more atmospheric carbon) and ignoring active measures (carbon scrubbing, carbon recapture). I haven't exa

by Zanni 7y ago

You're assuming passive measures only (stop producing more atmospheric carbon) and ignoring active measures (carbon scrubbing, carbon recapture). I haven't examined your math in detail, but I'm willing to stipulate that you're right that passive measures are wholly inadequate to address climate change. But then you may still be wildly wrong by not addressing active measures.

robomartin 7y ago
Active measures will not work either. Again, Conservation of Energy. It takes more energy and resources to change something than what went into creating the problem in the first place. Once again, the data shows this clearly; without humanity around it took twice as long for a 100 ppm drop than the same increase. This is common sense, requiring only basic physics principles. Simple analogy: Burn a cubic meter of wood inside a warehouse large enough that the flames will not burn it down. How much energy is required to clean the warehouse from all the particulate matter on every surface, shelf, box, counter, light, crevice, etc? The answer is: Far more than the energy that went into creating the mess in the first place. This is not meant to be a perfect analogy, of course. All it is meant to illustrate is that we cannot “clean” the atmosphere with less energy than what created the problem. In fact, we need more energy, lots more. Given that we are talking about an unimaginably large amount if energy and resources it is easy to conclude this is nowhere near possible. My concern is that we are going to cause more damage than good. BTW, this does not mean we should not clean-up our act across the board. It simply means we need to stop using climate change as a political battering ram to push these things through.
- robomartin 7y ago
  Note: The planet’s approach to carbon sequestration is far from passive. Storms, cyclones, hurricanes and rain capture CO2. This and vegetation growth is how it CO2 regulation has worked for likely millions of years.

by Zanni 7y ago

robomartin 7y ago

Active measures will not work either. Again, Conservation of Energy. It takes more energy and resources to change something than what went into creating the problem in the first place. Once again, the data shows this clearly; without humanity around it took twice as long for a 100 ppm drop than the same increase. This is common sense, requiring only basic physics principles. Simple analogy: Burn a cubic meter of wood inside a warehouse large enough that the flames will not burn it down. How much energy is required to clean the warehouse from all the particulate matter on every surface, shelf, box, counter, light, crevice, etc? The answer is: Far more than the energy that went into creating the mess in the first place. This is not meant to be a perfect analogy, of course. All it is meant to illustrate is that we cannot “clean” the atmosphere with less energy than what created the problem. In fact, we need more energy, lots more. Given that we are talking about an unimaginably large amount if energy and resources it is easy to conclude this is nowhere near possible. My concern is that we are going to cause more damage than good. BTW, this does not mean we should not clean-up our act across the board. It simply means we need to stop using climate change as a political battering ram to push these things through.

robomartin 7y ago
Note: The planet’s approach to carbon sequestration is far from passive. Storms, cyclones, hurricanes and rain capture CO2. This and vegetation growth is how it CO2 regulation has worked for likely millions of years.