That process has been going on for eons. It has already happened. Now the world is so cold that it has entered an ice age with regular glaciations and the next one was about to happen and they happen quickly. But people have probably, if the climate scientists are right, which I doubt, stopped it by recycling the carbon back to life.
Greenies usually like recycling, but for some reason, they don't like dead carbon being recycled back to life.
An example of a gradual thing that can suddenly become apparent. People are born and get older. It takes decades. At any particular time, they seem reasonably okay. But suddenly, they have run out of telomeres and it all catches up on them and they die quite quickly. It was slow coming, but quick happening.
Similarly, it is only gradually that subduction and sedimentation stripped the ecosphere of carbon, but the effects are sudden. First, the ice age, which flips Earth regularly into glaciations, which last quite a long time, but so far, living things have battled back and there was enough life left to roll the glaciers back again.
One day, the process will have gone too far and the glaciers, ice and reflection will win. Earth will flip over into a highly reflective white ball. Viewed from space at present, it's largely a deep ocean blue with lots of dark chlorophyll green, both of which absorb a LOT of energy from the sun.
Slow to prepare, quick to occur. Like straws on a camel's back.
Life itself acts to destroy itself. It's only the advent of smart humans who have inadvertently been reviving Gaia by bringing out some of the carbon. People say Gaia rebalances. Hey presto, humans are doing just that to keep Earth warm. The usual view of Gaia is that humans are acting in opposition by creating the greenhouse effect. Without humans, Earth would have died. And maybe it would already have happened last century. It might have been in the nick of time that we saved Earth. Thank goodness for the oil diggers and SUV drivers. It costs them a lot of money, but at least they had the fun of working on oil rigs and sitting in traffic jams.
Indians, Chinese and others haven't pulled their weight, but noblesse oblige. I suppose Americans were happy to save them too. Americans had to save themselves and the others could go along for the ride. Anyway, now Indians and Chinese are buying $billions of CDMA equipment, so they are paying their way soon enough.
Mqurice |
