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

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (4770)	6/11/2002 8:58:53 PM
From: A.J. Mullen	Respond to of 12231

I knew I shouldn't have bitten! I can't read the axis on those graphs. Co2 has fluctuated in the past. There's a feed back process, so who knows in the past whether the chicken caused the egg. As you say the chnages have been spikes. One very 100 000 years or so. We've had a spike in the couple of hundred of years since the Industrial Revolution got going. That's a chance of 1 in 5 000 that we'd get one just now - if the spoikes were independently and identically distributed. Ok, that's unlikely and, going by that graph, we seem due for one within a few thousand years, but the chances of the Co2 not being anthropogenic seems slim. Oh hang on. I've seen papers discussing the annual cycle. There's more land in the northern hemisphere, a strong signal of Co2 being drawn down in the spring as growth occurs. That is released later in the year, but superimposed on that is extra CO2 that has less of a cycle. That does not equal that realeased by fossil carbon burning. There are known and obvious sinks, but they don't fully add up. Somewhere more carbon is being sequestered than can be accounted for. If it were not for that concentrations would be higher yet. Yes, Co2 is not a physiloogical problem for us, but I take little solace from the fact that life will continue to be possible. I want more than that. Life would be possible for some thoroughout an ice age. You know enough about quasi stable equilibria to know that if you disturb a system it might end up travelling in the opposite direction from the perturbation. 20% extra to sink C02 seems expensive compared to just not wasting it. Artificial sequestration might be necessary, but let's do the easy stuff first. Although a 20% increase in the cost of energy would reduce consumption a fair bit for a start. I'm glad we agree that if you're going have taxes, you migjht as well use it as a disincentive to anti-social behaviour. And before sequestration, it would seem reasonable to have 20% to weed out those who wouldn't want to pay for the cost of energy with a Co2 disposal charge. I've typed this very quickly because I want to catch the post. I hope I haven't written anything that will embarrass me. Apologies for the typos. Ashley