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Pastimes : The New Qualcomm - write what you like thread. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: A.J. Mullen who wrote (4769)	6/11/2002 5:51:38 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12231

Ashley, these two graphs are pretty good for taking a broad look at the climate over 400,000 years and CO2 levels: nicl-smo.sr.unh.edu nicl-smo.sr.unh.edu The spikes are substantial and the increases rapid. The declines are more gradual. Apart from the last 100 years, it's obvious that the latest spike was reached and the temperature has been on the way down since the peak about 10,000 years ago. Unless we do something different from the previous spikes, we'll be sliding off into another ice-age over a period of 30,000 years, with an initial quite rapid drop [over 200 years or so]. However, it seems that the bonus CO2 we've produced might be enough to stop the slide in temperature. Personally, I quite like the idea of avoiding an ice-age, so I'm all for the CO2 increases. I'm not saying we'd be better to have things back to the carboniferous era, except that I don't believe it would be a problem and from the places I've been, being warm enough is more of a problem than being cool enough. My main point is that life on earth was functioning perfectly way back then, so I don't see how there could be a runaway greenhouse effect because we might return atmospheric CO2 to the proportions of that era. Our tolerance for a wide range of CO2 levels is obvious, so it's not as though we are going to be in trouble at 400 ppm from a physiological point of view. But that'll make a big difference to plant growth rates, especially if we get another degree or two of warmth. The simplest way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere is to charge carbon taxes instead of sales taxes on CDMA [which causes zero pollution]. That would cause people to avoid the taxes by choosing more cost-effective energy usage where it's an either/or choice such as insulation or more heating. Technologically, I invented [though Mitsubishi patented it] the idea of compressing, cooling and storing under 400 metres of sea water, liquid CO2 from big power stations. The cost would be something like 20% more energy consumed, plus the equipment for compressing and cooling and separating nitrogen and NOX. I forget the approximate costs I worked out [it was 14 years ago now]. However, I don't believe the costs are justified because I don't believe there's really a CO2 problem. Since taxes are raised anyway, on harmless products with no tragedy of the commons issues, they might as well be put on oil/coal and gas, it would not be economically harmful to raise them on one product any more than another and if there is in fact an environmental cost to CO2 production, that's the thing to tax. Tax rant here: Message 17583675 I don't see why more CO2 would cause an ice age. That's not what I see in the graphs. Yes, I know there are computer models which show that more cloud would form, more ice drop out and ironically there'd be an ice-age, presumably after the runaway greenhouse effect burnt earth to toast. These seem to me to be mutually exclusive problems resulting from increased CO2. Up to a certain point there does seem to be a feedback loop between increasing CO2 and increasing temperature [hence the sharp spikes upwards] and these feedback loops are timed with recession of ice-ages. So a receding ice age causes a CO2 increase, which causes a temperature rise, which causes more ice-age recession, which further increases CO2 etc, until the ice has fully receded and the plants start cleaning the CO2 out of the atmosphere again and temperatures start dropping again. With us increasing CO2 levels, we prevent that slide back into the next ice age which would otherwise be under way as the plants remove the CO2. Keeping a planet covered in green satisfied is going to be an impossible job and the plants are going to defeat us. I don't believe we'll be able to keep up with the greedy brutes. It's like feeding stray cats; the more you feed them, the greater the numbers, until there are hundreds, then thousands. We do limit plant growth, but there are plenty of opportunities for them to get more CO2 where we aren't looking and can't cut them down [such as CO2 eaters in the ocean]. That's how I see it. Maurice