Quote:
Originally Posted by pelathais
... interestingly (at least to me!) when plants colonized the land they found an atmosphere that was incredibly rich in CO2. Atmospheric CO2 levels dropped incredibly fast at this time and have never really recovered. This loss of an important greenhouse gas eventually led to the Ice Ages which devastated life on the planet.
Because colder air is drier - it doesn't carry moisture like warmer air - deserts expanded along with the ice sheets. I've got an entry in my blog that goes into more detail: http://xcomplex.com/.
Basically, life is "killing" our planet because carbon-base life buries the carbon needed for warmth and life in the rocks where it can't be recycled. I have to ask - Is one of the purposes of man to return at least some of this carbon to the biosphere? Check out the graph on my blog. The loss of CO2 was dramatic and even man with his full industry pumping out CO2 won't ever recover it all. |
Wow, that's extreme, but I've just finished a discussion about how a 3 degree or so avg. global warming would actually benefit mankind? Lots of land opens up, I guess, to ag, etc.
Threaded Mode
