Friday, March 27, 2009

Saving the planet


When we take off from LAX for Hawaii, the plane will produce more CO2 than the entire morning commute in the area.
You're welcome. We're doing our part as a family to save the planet.
Media's saying CO2 levels are higher than they've been in the past 650,000 years. So, geologically, yesterday. .01% of the history of the planet. There has been a rash of well intentioned people blinded by political motivation that have actually worked to DECREASE the atmospheric CO2. They saw a movie once, and since that guy was passionate it must be true.
It's not. Relax.
Here's the thing. The earth is like a giant battery. There is a MACRO carbon cycle you need to participate in. CO2 is in the air, plants convert it to sugars, binding it with hydrogen. Plants die, get buried, take the precious carbon with them deep under ground. Fortunately the plants had the foresight to evolve some organisms to the point they could re-extract the carbon and liberate it again back into the atmosphere, getting work done and powering this blog in the process.
The oceans can then fix some of the CO2 as limestone. This limestone is needed to grow crops. It's mined and spread on crops to feed higher organisms to extract more hydrocarbon to support the MACRO carbon cycle. When you deprive plants of their CO2 they really get angry.

2 comments:

Tina said...

Why don't they just change it to "Save the Humans." The planet will be here no matter what we do to it. If we nuke ourselves into oblivion, the PLANET will still be here!

flyingvan said...

Well, that's true of course. All the debate is over a very slight change in the chemical composition of the scuzz that surfaces the planet. I like the scuzz that can look around and fling tiny pieces of itself into the cosmos. We COULD concentrate some uranium, cause a chain reaction, and commit intra-species euthenasia, but who would feed all the fuzzy bunnies??