Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (23516)	12/23/2008 12:17:39 AM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

Neo, it's rather obvious that plants are often short of CO2. That's the nature of living things [to be short of essential ingredients at times]. If they aren't short of the essential ingredients at times, then they are being wasteful in their allocation of resources to obtaining said ingredients. For example, our lungs are normally much more than we need to keep our oxygen levels up. But sometimes a lion is getting after us and we need to breathe deeply and rapidly to effect escape. Measuring our normal state, scientists would conclude that our lungs have far more capacity than is required and oxygen levels in the atmosphere could be dramatically reduced with no problems. Similarly, plant lungs are much bigger than necessary and it's obvious that CO2 [which is what they breathe] can be cut back without causing them growth problems. But when the sun is shining brightly, or they are short of water, or lions are chasing them, then they need more CO2 for optimum performance. Having right-sized lungs/stomata is vital. In general lungs and stomata will be fine for the job. Given optimum proportions of nutrients, water and sun, there will be enough CO2 for the plants to grow at optimum rates because they have adapted to current conditions [more or less]. Plants are battling each other for light, nutrients, water and CO2. They use any advantage they can to lord it over other plants. That includes chemical and physical warfare. CO2 is something they compete for. They have their own tragedy of the commons = they have sucked the atmosphere almost dry of CO2. No doubt there were meetings in the forests during the carboniferous with wise plants pointing out that the unfettered competition for resources was going to continue the frightening trend of CO2 from 2000ppm down until starvation was endemic. Obviously they couldn't come to any agreement and it was every man for himself, so to speak. CO2 was driven all the way down to nearly zero. Fortunately, I came along and spent a couple of decades helping get oil burned, which helped get CO2 levels up from the desperately low levels to which they had fallen. With increased CO2, there is reduced H2O demand by plants, which is great for those who suffer droughts and poor irrigation from time to time. It's also good for farmers as they don't have to buy or argue for more water rights. Farmers also don't have to buy as much LPG and other carbon sources for CO2 enrichment in their glass houses. Getting free CO2 is very convenient for them. Mqurice