"th" <someguy@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:BMGpf.152632$dP1.510099@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Malt_Hound > wrote:
> > th wrote:
> >> Malt_Hound > wrote:
> >>
> >>> th wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> True, but as the fuel is mostly produced from plants absorbing CO2
> >>>> the net effect is almost zero. Compare with gasoline that uses a
> >>>> source where the CO2 from the atmosphere was stored millions of
> >>>> years ago and no CO2 is pumped back into the earth.
> >>>>
> >>> <devil's advocate>
> >>>
> >>> So where do you suppose that the carbon came from in that plant-life
> >>> all those millions of years ago, which eventually became the fossil
> >>> fuel?
> >>>
> >>> Hmmm.... It's still a "balanced" equation.
> >>>
> >>> </devil's advocate>
> >>>
> >> From the air of course. However, burning gasoline requires that
> >> mankind starts growing more forests to return the carbon back to
solid
> >> form. And extending the forests is not really what we are doing right
> >> now. . .
> >>
> >
> > So then, the real problem is lack of forests, not the burning of
fossil
> > fuels?
> >
> . . or both?
>
The ecology of the planet was radically different 100 million or so years
ago
when the dinosaurs roamed around. For the oil and coal reserves we have
today to
be formed there had to be an enormous amount of raw plant material. The
Earth
was almost certainly far far warmer, far sunnier which provided the solar
energy to
grow the plant life, there was also far more shallow seas with enormous
amounts
of plant material as well. And undoubtedly the atmosphere had a far
higher
concentration of CO2 in it at that time, once again needed by the
tremendous
plant growth. A lot of this is backed up by the fossil record and by rock
strata.
I doubt very much that even if every scrap of land on the globe today was
covered
by forests that this would provide the amount of plant material to create
a
carbon
cycle that would carry the amount of carbon locked up in the oil and coal
reserves.
The anti-global warming people would do well to read the latest National
Geographic
(January 2006) article Arctic Hunters on Thin Ice, a quote from that
article:
"...During the past few decades temperatures have risen in Greenland by
more
than
2 degrees Farenheight - twice the global average - and the island's
massive
ice
sheet, almost two miles deep in some places, has been melting faster than
at
any
time during the past 50 years..."
"...Arctic biologists say the entire ecosystem is in collapse..."
The ironic thing about all of this is that during the early Earth's years
when
the supercontinent Pangea existed, there were almost certainly far, far
fewer species. It wasn't until plate tectonics split everything apart and
the
landm***** became isolated, that the high species diversification became
possible and we saw so many more species evolve.
Today, with the ecosystem destruction and the carrying of so many
different
species, both plant and animal, around the globe by ****ps and such, we are
seeing massive dieoff of many species. With the global warming trends on
top
of that, we are basically turning the clock backwards 100's of millions of
years,
and if things keep up we will end up right back where we started from.
That's
great if you want to live on a planet full of dinosaurs I guess. Too bad
they are
all extinct now.
Ted
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