3 ms·

Humans have dug up and burned more carbon than the amount in all living plants

6 points by bjourne 5y ago

dredmorbius 5y ago
Nitter link: https://nitter.kavin.rocks/RARohde/status/1443890619433246721 https://nitter.kavin.rocks/RARohde/status/144389061943324672... A related study of how human fossil fuel use compares with plant growth (a/k/a "net primary productivity") was done by Jeffrey S. Dukes in 2003. A write-up on the article is here: https://plus.maths.org/content/burning-buried-sunshine https://plus.maths.org/content/burning-buried-sunshine The paper itself, in PDF form: https://www-legacy.dge.carnegiescience.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange1.pdf https://www-legacy.dge.carnegiescience.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_C... As Dukes notes: - "one litre of petrol is the result of 1.1 x 10,750 = 11,825 kg of carbon from ancient plants." - Humans are burning fossil fuels at about 5 million times their rate of formation. - Each present year of fossil fuel use (as of ~1997) equates to 140 years of ancient total biomass growth. (The difference in rate and years of growth comes from the fact that not all ancient biomass growth was converted to fossil fuels.) As the Twitter thread in TFA notes, half of all human carbon emissions have occurred since 1990. As a handy reminder, this is what is implied by "doubling time", "exponential growth" or "continuous percentage growth". If a trend shows a doubling time of n years, then in the most recent n years period, half of all usage or production has occurred. You can derive doubling time from percentage growth, or percentage growth from doubling time, through the rule of 70: t2 = 70/r Where: - t2 is doubling time - 70 is a constant (derived from the exponential growth function) - r is the growth rate, expressed as percentage So a 31-year doubling time gives a 2.3% annual growth rate. For equations covering exponential growth, see: https://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/exponential-growth.html https://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/exponential-growth.html ty TY []{}
eucryphia 5y ago
Not coral and diatomaceous marine organisms, which we could easily augment with cheap iron supplimentation.

6 points by bjourne 5y ago

Nitter link: https://nitter.kavin.rocks/RARohde/status/1443890619433246721 https://nitter.kavin.rocks/RARohde/status/144389061943324672... A related study of how human fossil fuel use compares with plant growth (a/k/a "net primary productivity") was done by Jeffrey S. Dukes in 2003. A write-up on the article is here: https://plus.maths.org/content/burning-buried-sunshine https://plus.maths.org/content/burning-buried-sunshine The paper itself, in PDF form: https://www-legacy.dge.carnegiescience.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange1.pdf https://www-legacy.dge.carnegiescience.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_C... As Dukes notes: - "one litre of petrol is the result of 1.1 x 10,750 = 11,825 kg of carbon from ancient plants." - Humans are burning fossil fuels at about 5 million times their rate of formation. - Each present year of fossil fuel use (as of ~1997) equates to 140 years of ancient total biomass growth. (The difference in rate and years of growth comes from the fact that not all ancient biomass growth was converted to fossil fuels.) As the Twitter thread in TFA notes, half of all human carbon emissions have occurred since 1990. As a handy reminder, this is what is implied by "doubling time", "exponential growth" or "continuous percentage growth". If a trend shows a doubling time of n years, then in the most recent n years period, half of all usage or production has occurred. You can derive doubling time from percentage growth, or percentage growth from doubling time, through the rule of 70: t2 = 70/r Where: - t2 is doubling time - 70 is a constant (derived from the exponential growth function) - r is the growth rate, expressed as percentage So a 31-year doubling time gives a 2.3% annual growth rate. For equations covering exponential growth, see: https://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/exponential-growth.html https://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/exponential-growth.html ty TY []{}

eucryphia 5y ago

Not coral and diatomaceous marine organisms, which we could easily augment with cheap iron supplimentation.