Mass Extinctions from Global Warming?

uncleO writes "The current issue of Scientific American has an interesting article, Impact from the Deep, about the possible causes for the five major global extinctions. It contends that only the most recent one was caused by a 'dinosaur killer' asteroid impact. Evidence suggests that the others were caused by 'great bubbles of toxic H2S gas erupting into the atmosphere' from the oceans due to anoxia." From the article: "The so-called thermal extinction at the end of the Paleocene began when atmospheric CO2 was just under 1,000 parts per million (ppm). At the end of the Triassic, CO2 was just above 1,000 ppm. Today with CO2 around 385 ppm...climbing at an annual rate of 2 ppm...to 3 ppm, levels could approach 900 ppm by the end of the next century."

Comments

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[ericartman]

Well said, thank you. Loved the "tree hugging hippy" part. Ecartman

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[notnAP]

I wish I had mod points right now...

The reply made so many arguments against the original post that had nothing to the original poster's arguments it should be mod'd Off Topic.

Ballooning healthcare - and poor spelling.

[Anonymous Coward]

You talk about the inability to fix things over a 10 to 20 year period. Ballooning health care is something that could be fixed almost overnight by booting out 10 to 20 million illegal aliens. These people do not have healthcare. Their idea of going to the doctor is a trip to the emergency room because they can't be refused. Colds, minor stuff that can be taken care of is instead being handled at the emergency room. The cost for handling a patient at an emergency room is 3 to 5 times the cost of a regular office visit.

Another thing that has driven medical costs sky high: Guys like John Edwards, who manufacturers lawsuits about medical malpractice. Scummy attorneys who make $10 to $20 million per year suing big corporations "because they can afford to pay". $25 million dollars is a little ridiculous for a plaintiff award. Yet that's what these lawyers insist upon, "to send a message". Every lawyer wants to send a message.

So next time you have to pay $200 for insurance for the month for a family of four, thank a lawyer, and thank a liberal democrat for allowing illegals to flood our country.

Re:Give Up - Commercial Interests too Powerful

[ChrisMaple]

Social security is driven by political pandering. Health care costs are driven by advancing medical technology (which is expensive) and detaching medical service payments from medical service reception (employer-paid insurance, which has been caused in part by the tax code). In short, malicious and stupid politicians combined with a malicious and stupid electorate are responsible for most of those two problems.

The political approach to pollution has had an effect, possibly but not certainly a net good effect. The hypothesis that global warming is mostly man-made, and that global warming is a bad thing, is unproved. The media and pseudo-environmentalists are stirring up a storm against supposed human causes of global warming, with the predictable result that gullible people and political panderers are paying attention and starting to cause damage to business through the political system.

The idea that "Commercia [sic] interests are too powerful to care about Global Warming" is silly. Persons who qualify as "commercial intersts" are as affected by global warming as anyone; power has nothing to do with it. They are far more likely to be rational about a problem because they lose money if they're wrong. Being wrong seldom affects politicians, they just have to be popular.

Re:Fearmongering is not the way to do this.

[fyngyrz]

Out of curiosity, are you a climate scientist?

Seems like it deserves an answer. No. I am a different kind of scientist; I'm an AI researcher working on tying emotional and other "tones" to memory. I employ several other PhD's in that pursuit. I also own and manage several businesses: A literary agency, a software company, a martial arts studio (I'm an instructor there), a recording studio (musician and recording engineer), and a lingerie (stockings) store. So you might say I'm somewhat diversified.

I have a broad interest in science, bleeding edge and otherwise, and I try to pay attention.