Early Plants May Have Caused Massive Glaciation

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Early Plants May Have Caused Massive Glaciation

Posted by Unknown on Wednesday February 1, 2012 @06:22AM from the plot-to-destroy-animals-failed dept.

sciencehabit writes with this excerpt from Science: "The first plants to colonize land didn't merely supply a dash of green to a drab landscape. They dramatically accelerated the natural breakdown of exposed rocks, according to a new study, drawing so much planet-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere that they sent Earth's climate spiraling into a major ice age."

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Easy solution by no-body · 2012-02-01 06:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

Everyone put a new flowerpot up and water regularly to fight global warming
1. Re:Easy solution by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 06:31 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  1) We must conserve water
  2) Global warming is simply a return to the previous state
  3) If you're growing ganja, OK then.
2. Re:Easy solution by Trepidity · 2012-02-01 06:35 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  A large-scale version of that is sometimes proposed...
  
  --
  10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
3. Re:Easy solution by DigiShaman · 2012-02-01 07:15 · Score: 1
  
  www.arborday.org
  Trees. Who doesn't love them? I refuse to live in domicile without at least a few trees nearby.
  
  --
  Life is not for the lazy.
4. Re:Easy solution by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 07:28 · Score: 1
  
  I refuse to live in domicile without at least a few trees nearby.
  I would expect nothing less from a Shaman.
5. Re:Easy solution by roc97007 · 2012-02-01 08:45 · Score: 1
  
  Oh c'mon, I'm a die-hard industrialist, own a "visualize armed insurrection" t-shirt and a "pave the planet" hat, [1] and even I wouldn't live in a domicile without a few trees nearby. There were none on my property when I bought it a couple decades ago, and I now have 15 full grown trees of various kinds. Trees are nice.
  [1] Mostly to piss off certain people.
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
6. Re:Easy solution by Marxist+Hacker+42 · 2012-02-01 09:35 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Better yet, plant Food Forests!
  http://www.permaculture.org/nm/index.php/site/Permaculture-Food-Forest/
  Then the carbon not only gets locked up in the trees, but in the bodies of animals and people!
  
  --
  SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
7. Re:Easy solution by no-body · 2012-02-01 12:01 · Score: 1
  
  About trees and forests - I just ran across these numbers since there was a radio comment about trees not doing so well.
  There is a yearly forest condition report in Germany and 28 % of trees are not doing so well in the latest, 2011 report - that's up 5 % from the year before. One reason is stress caused by higher temperatures.
  And coming up in this context - German average forest area per person is 1200 sqm (square meters) - that's ~ 0.3 acres
8. Re:Easy solution by marcosdumay · 2012-02-01 12:30 · Score: 2
  
  Unfortunately, for trees ever work for carbon capture they'd have to be converted into something that is trashed, or at least stored for a huge amount of time. Otherwise, the carbon will just go into the athmosphere again.
  So people, remember, next time you have a desire of recycling paper, contain yourself. And next time you go to the market, ask for your plastic bags. Let's help save the planet.
  
  --
  Rethinking email
9. Re:Easy solution by riverat1 · 2012-02-01 13:31 · Score: 2
  
  If you read TFA you'd see that the drop in CO2 levels wasn't caused by the plants absorbing it (although they did absorb a bit) but by the weathering the plants caused to the surface which exposed minerals that absorbed the CO2 directly out of the air. That still occurs today but it's very slow on human time scales.
10. Re:Easy solution by repapetilto · 2012-02-01 16:47 · Score: 1
  
  I don't follow...
11. Re:Easy solution by repapetilto · 2012-02-01 18:35 · Score: 1
  
  The plants around Chernobyl adapted... Heat shock proteins are there for a reason. It is probably far cheaper (energetically) to adapt to warmer temperatures than colder.
12. Re:Easy solution by mcgrew · 2012-02-02 04:18 · Score: 1
  
  He was half joking. If you plant a tree, then burn or eat it after it's grown, it's carbon-neutral. If you build a house with that tree, you've sequestered the carbon with a loss of atmospheric CO2. Eating it produces methane, which is worse than CO2.
  Burying that paper in a landfill sequesters the carbon as well. The joke is that making paper, whether from trees or recycling, produces dioxins (which are the subject of TFA) and plastics do not -- but manufacturing plastics has its own environmental problems, and burying plastic (which is mostly made of oil) re-sequesters carbon that was once sequestered until it was piped out of the ground.
  
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  Free Martian Whores!
13. Re:Easy solution by Marxist+Hacker+42 · 2012-02-02 06:07 · Score: 1
  
  Fat also contains carbon. Obesity means atmospheric carbon negative eating.
  
  --
  SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
14. Re:Easy solution by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 06:12 · Score: 0
  
  Fuck that, I hate being cold.
  I am off to clear cut a forest and burn the undergrowth.
15. Re:Easy solution by Marxist+Hacker+42 · 2012-02-04 13:06 · Score: 1
  
  You mean, kind of like houses.
  
  --
  SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
not to mention... by rwa2 · 2012-02-01 06:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

flooding the atmosphere with a caustic, corrosive gas that could, in high enough concentrations, make just about anything burst into flame.
1. Re:not to mention... by Dyinobal · 2012-02-01 06:42 · Score: 0
  
  I see what you did there...
2. Re:not to mention... by msheekhah · 2012-02-01 06:52 · Score: 1
  
  I like my O2, thank you
  
  --
  Mark Anthony Collins
3. Re:not to mention... by Samantha+Wright · 2012-02-01 07:15 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Well, at the time there was a major debate about whether or not that would happen. A lot of proto-Earth's top scientist algae were certain that releasing so much oxygen would irreversibly alter the environment and seriously affect non-oxygen-respiring organisms, but there were many plants who maintained that the young planet had already seen worse, and yet life existed in the current day despite that. What the poor, innocent archaeans who bought into all of this didn't realise was that the smooth-talking photosynthesisers were more interested in the production and stockpile of carbohydrates than the well-being of the other clades, and had already convinced themselves that whether or not the planet could support infinite population and ecological growth was not their concern.
  Conflict of interest: The author declares that she has no conflicts of interest and is clearly not trolling, nor taking a joke too far to farm karma.
  
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4. Re:not to mention... by iggymanz · 2012-02-01 07:17 · Score: 1
  
  i know, what a crummy planet, right? and 80% of it is even covered in the universal solvent, dissolves most anything from gold to rock.
5. Re:not to mention... by ColdWetDog · 2012-02-01 07:31 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Nothing but undeveloped, unevolved, barely conscious pond scum, totally convinced of their own superiority as they scurry about their short, pointless lives.
  
  --
  Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
6. Re:not to mention... by Anomalyst · 2012-02-01 07:46 · Score: 1
  
  I elongate and sharpen MY lives you insensitive clod.
  
  --
  There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
7. Re:not to mention... by ElectricTurtle · 2012-02-01 07:51 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I know you are being facetious, but the funny thing here is that if those events had not occurred, there would (very likely) be no large animal or plant life on earth. Radical change of the environment, atmospheric composition, and even the mass extinction of the majority of a whole taxonomic domain were necessary so that all the life we worry so much about today could exist at all. The problem with people today is that they are taught that we are living in The One True Sacred and Immutable Biosphere, and that if that biosphere changes, well, that's just the end of everything. The fossil record shows that time and time again biosphere changes are not only recovered from, but that the net effect is dramatically positive in terms of long term diversity.
  
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  I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
8. Re:not to mention... by dwye · 2012-02-01 07:58 · Score: 1
  
  Marvin, is that you? Got caught up in another time loop, I guess. Did you ever get that diode fixed?
9. Re:not to mention... by trongey · 2012-02-01 08:36 · Score: 1
  
  It appears that you actually did mention it.
  
  --
  You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
10. Re:not to mention... by OhSoLaMeow · 2012-02-01 08:52 · Score: 0
  
  Nothing but undeveloped, unevolved, barely conscious pond scum, totally convinced of their own superiority as they scurry about their short, pointless lives.
  Are we still talking about algae? Or politicians?
  
  --
  They can take my LifeAlert pendant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
11. Re:not to mention... by dotancohen · 2012-02-01 09:02 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The fossil record shows that time and time again biosphere changes are not only recovered from, but that the net effect is dramatically positive in terms of long term diversity.
  That is cute, but I cared about long term diversity of Earth's biosphere up until my kids were born. Now, I am interested in preserving the current state of biology, diverse or not.
  
  --
  It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
12. Re:not to mention... by Chris+Burke · 2012-02-01 09:10 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The problem with people today is that they are taught that we are living in The One True Sacred and Immutable Biosphere, and that if that biosphere changes, well, that's just the end of everything.
  You think the problem is that people believe climate change will result in the end of all life on earth, when in reality is that the biosphere will just keep on chugging. So if we solved this "problem", there'd be no reason to worry about climate change. That's what you're saying?
  You don't think the problem is, maybe, what might happen to us? That the one thing that is sacred about our current biosphere is that it's amenable to human habitation and survival?
  What I think is funny is that you missed the whole point of that story-- we are the anaerobic organisms. Go ahead and tell them that in the long term the biosphere will recover, and even thrive. You think they will feel better? Why does this make you feel better? Are you one of those hippies who thinks Gaia would be better off if humanity was extinct? Or do you just think our civilizations are so robust that they can weather any storm, even widespread ecosystem collapse, and you'll be fine?
  
  The fossil record shows that time and time again biosphere changes are not only recovered from, but that the net effect is dramatically positive in terms of long term diversity.
  Interesting assertion. I think the fossil record simply shows increasing diversity over time, with each mass extinction representing a huge backward slide in those terms, from which the biosphere eventually recovers. I'd like to see some evidence that, say, there was less diversity in the late Cretaceous, and more importantly that there'd be less diversity today if the KT event had not occurred.
  More to the point, though, why would this matter either way from the perspective of Tyrannosaurus Rex?
  
  --
  
  The enemies of Democracy are
13. Re:not to mention... by Feyshtey · 2012-02-01 09:14 · Score: 1
  
  The EPA would have put a stop to this nonsense.
  
  --
  "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
14. Re:not to mention... by ElectricTurtle · 2012-02-01 09:20 · Score: 2
  
  Unless your kids are planning on living in a 3rd world hell hole, I'd rate their chance of survival as 'extremely high'. Even if environmental changes have a short term negative impact on resources that are important to people, we're the most adaptable things on earth. We can live anywhere and eat almost anything. Moreover, through technology we can adapt virtually any other lifeform to do the same (with enough effort), which is why people are able to farm deserts and drink seawater. Really the only reason we're not deploying hydroponics on a large scale is that there is no need, no cost benefit to doing so. We already have all the food we need from existing infrastructure, even if corruption and logistical challenges prevent humanity from completely feeding itself.
  
  We can create closed systems that give us everything we need, we just don't need to adapt in that way, yet, if ever.
  
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  I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
15. Re:not to mention... by DogDude · 2012-02-01 09:21 · Score: 1
  
  The problem with people today is that they are taught that we are living in The One True Sacred and Immutable Biosphere, and that if that biosphere changes, well, that's just the end of everything.
  
  No, you're way off base. The Problem is that if this current biosphere changes radically, Homo Sapiens are gone.
  
  --
  I don't respond to AC's.
16. Re:not to mention... by ElectricTurtle · 2012-02-01 09:38 · Score: 2
  
  Humans are not like other animals. We are not dependent on a tight range of temperature, diet, or other factors such that we're all going to roll over if one metaphorical leg is removed. If another animal loses its primary food source, it goes extinct. If we lose a primary food source, we eat something else. We synthesize, design, control, analyze, adapt, repurpose, refine ... everything. We are not dinosaurs with nut-sized brains that can't even control their body temperature. If any species survives the next major shift in Earth's biosphere, it will be man.
  
  Interesting assertion.
  Scientific fact.
  
  I'd like to see some evidence that, say, there was less diversity in the late Cretaceous
  Evidence.
  
  and more importantly that there'd be less diversity today if the KT event had not occurred.
  Yeah, I totally have the ability to demonstrate how things that didn't happen would have changed millions of years of evolution. Anybody who did that would have a common source: their ass. All we know is what did actually happen, and that is that all mass extinctions have had net positive effects in the long term. Even mass extinctions were not causal or catalytic, it is undeniable that they were not preclusive of those positive outcomes, because both the extinctions and the positive outcomes are facts.
  
  --
  I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
17. Re:not to mention... by Marxist+Hacker+42 · 2012-02-01 09:41 · Score: 1
  
  Not necessarily. Thanks to having technology, we are able to adapt much faster than other forms that must depend upon evolution. Our current way of life may be gone, but it will just be replaced with another.
  
  --
  SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
18. Re:not to mention... by Chris+Burke · 2012-02-01 10:32 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  If another animal loses its primary food source, it goes extinct. If we lose a primary food source, we eat something else. We synthesize, design, control, analyze, adapt, repurpose, refine ... everything. We are not dinosaurs with nut-sized brains that can't even control their body temperature.
  So I guess everyone who has died or will die from famine is just a dinosaur with a nut-sized brain?
  That's a pretty bold statement of human adaptability coming from someone who would probably be unable to feed themselves the week after the grocery trucks stop showing up (or in the unlikely event you can, then from someone who hasn't thought about all their hungry neighbors who can't).
  You really don't seem to appreciate all the things that go into making modern civilization work, the long legs that support the technology you appreciate and assume would allow us to survive anything, but in reality could have the legs knocked out from underneath it rather easily.
  
  All we know is what did actually happen, and that is that all mass extinctions have had net positive effects in the long term
  Thanks for pointing to evidence that this isn't actually true -- even if I accepted the notion that increased diversity is in and of itself "positive", and even if I accepted that the extinctions have a causal effect .
  The graphs on the page you courteously linked to clearly shows several mass-extinctions where diversity recovered to an approximately equal value, but did not regain the same slope and instead leveled off. In at least one case it didn't even recover to the same level. The K-T event shows diversity recovering both the value and the steep slope of the Cretaceous. Which is not bad, but not evidence that the result post-KT was an "improvement".
  
  Even mass extinctions were not causal or catalytic, it is undeniable that they were not preclusive of those positive outcomes
  I'd say that the only thing that is undeniable is that over the extremely long-by-geological-standards term, diversity increased regardless of mass extinctions. Looking at periods of a mere 50-100 million years, I think it becomes much harder to argue that most mass extinctions didn't preclude the positive outcome.
  Of course that still assumes that more diversity -- when diversity is not already extremely low -- is "positive". That sounds like the same kind of arbitrary application of human value systems to morally-neutral nature that you accuse the "One Sacred Biosphere" people of. Just a different flavor of Hippie.
  What's really strange is that this is the second time in under a week that I've heard this same new, and highly bizarre, argument for why Climate Change isn't a big deal.
  
  --
  
  The enemies of Democracy are
19. Re:not to mention... by DogDude · 2012-02-01 10:34 · Score: 1
  
  Find some way to make fresh water and you'll simultaneously stop multiple water based conflicts going on right now (Darfur) and become wealthy beyond belief.
  
  It's naive to think that we have the kind of technology to fix massive ecological shifts. We're just barely able to measure them. If a significant ecosystem falls in the near future, we'll have widespread famine and war over resources. It could be said that's already happening.
  
  --
  I don't respond to AC's.
20. Re:not to mention... by Mephistro · 2012-02-01 10:56 · Score: 1
  
  The fossil record shows that time and time again biosphere changes are not only recovered from, but that the net effect is dramatically positive in terms of long term diversity.
  Yep! You're totally right! If we trigger a mass extinction, in a few millions of years everything will go back to normal, and our descendants -if they miraculously manage to survive - will thank us for our hindsight in causing said extinction.
  Nah.
21. Re:not to mention... by khallow · 2012-02-01 11:14 · Score: 1
  
  So I guess everyone who has died or will die from famine is just a dinosaur with a nut-sized brain?
  An irrelevant observation since the original poster's argument is not dependent on people never dying from starvation, but rather that the species is not so vulnerable. It's also worth noting that famine now is due to societal and infrastructure problems in a few countries rather than some flaw of humanity to adapt to changing circumstances.
  
  That's a pretty bold statement of human adaptability coming from someone who would probably be unable to feed themselves the week after the grocery trucks stop showing up (or in the unlikely event you can, then from someone who hasn't thought about all their hungry neighbors who can't).
  
  You really don't seem to appreciate all the things that go into making modern civilization work, the long legs that support the technology you appreciate and assume would allow us to survive anything, but in reality could have the legs knocked out from underneath it rather easily.
  Doesn't sound to me like you do either. What's the "easy" event that kicks over modern civilization and drives humanity to extinction?
22. Re:not to mention... by Marxist+Hacker+42 · 2012-02-01 11:22 · Score: 1
  
  "Find some way to make fresh water and you'll simultaneously stop multiple water based conflicts going on right now (Darfur) and become wealthy beyond belief."
  I know of two ways. But both are too expensive for Darfur and other poor countries. Which is the real problem- not the lack of resources, nor the lack of knowledge, nor the lack of technology, but the lack of willingness of the rich to share with the poor.
  The only thing currently happening is a small number of people using 40x the resources of the poorest people to survive, and greed.
  Technically, you could turn 95% of the Earth's surface into a garden using robotic labor, give 80 billion people ranch style houses on quarter acre lots in Texas, and feed them all. But we won't do that, because a few people think that it's better to have differing income levels.
  As a species we are NOT capable of fixing massive ecological shifts, that's true. But we ARE capable of adapting to the new world *after* the shift without losing 100% of the population. We just have to be smart about it. Increased carbon in the atmosphere is a great chance for using solar powered refrigeration units to collect water out of the air and plant food forests.
  But the real question is, will we be smart? Or just greedy?
  
  --
  SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
23. Re:not to mention... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 11:23 · Score: 0
  
  Kill off 90% of humanity, have the remaining 10% choose to actually ration growth and work together. Voila, plenty of resources to sustain them at that level more or less indefinitely on a number of technologies such as solar and wind energy.
  
  The species can continue even if a large number are killed since, theoretically, they can work together on a large scale for the common good. The problem with humanity is that we outgrew easy resources and fail to work cooperatively at anything but the smallest scale.
24. Re:not to mention... by rwa2 · 2012-02-01 11:46 · Score: 1
  
  The problem with people today is that they are taught that we are living in The One True Sacred and Immutable Biosphere, and that if that biosphere changes, well, that's just the end of everything. The fossil record shows that time and time again biosphere changes are not only recovered from, but that the net effect is dramatically positive in terms of long term diversity.
  I would submit that the plants contribute to a net increase in entropy, and human activity is contributing to a net decrease in entropy (at least on environmental scales not related to transforming rocks into microprocessors).
  Also, the drastic environmental changes lead to a decrease in biodiversity (the simpler hardy stuff survives and prospers, think nothing left but grass, cockroaches, and jellyfish).
  Finally, I would submit that a lot of conservation is about doing more with less, and not necessarily doing less with less as opponents make it out to be. But the point is to understand the energy balance and how to go on without having to ignore terms in the equation.
25. Re:not to mention... by riverat1 · 2012-02-01 11:56 · Score: 1
  
  The flooding of the atmosphere with the caustic, corrosive gas occurred about 2.4 billion years ago, long before land plants appeared around 500 million years ago.
26. Re:not to mention... by dotancohen · 2012-02-01 12:31 · Score: 1
  
  I appreciate your optimism.
  
  --
  It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
27. Re:not to mention... by Thing+1 · 2012-02-01 12:43 · Score: 1
  
  But the real question is, will we be smart? Or just greedy?
  I would hope for smart, but bet on greedy. (Along the same lines of, "Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.")
  
  --
  I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
28. Re:not to mention... by Chris+Burke · 2012-02-01 13:05 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  An irrelevant observation since the original poster's argument is not dependent on people never dying from starvation, but rather that the species is not so vulnerable. It's also worth noting that famine now is due to societal and infrastructure problems in a few countries rather than some flaw of humanity to adapt to changing circumstances.
  It's irrelevant to point out that when a human population is denied its primary food source, it doesn't just instantly adapt to a new food source and carry on but rather suffers and dies in large numbers? When refuting the idea that if humanity's primary food sources go away we can just switch to another one no problem? Yeah, I think it's very relevant.
  Aren't societal and infrastructure problems in countries that used to be able to feed themselves just changes that they should be able to adapt to? Why are these changes beyond human adaptability, but anything climate-related is assumed not to be?
  Because surely, climate change won't result in any social or infrastructure problems. Nope. If coastal cities flood and a significant percentage of the world's population has to move inland that's going to be easy-breezy. It's not like there's any important infrastructure on the coasts. If the location of arable land shifts from a nice convenient place like the Midwest to the Middle East, no problems. No wars, no upheaval, nothing to deal with but some minor climate problems.
  Don't get me wrong -- humans are very adaptable. That's for sure. Our adaptability isn't "flawed". But it also isn't perfect. Being able to survive in a wider range of environments than most other species does not mean we can survive anywhere close to anything.
  In particular in our modern world, most of us depend on the rest of civilization for our survival. In many ways, we are less adaptable today than in the past. Which is fine -- specialization and the pyramid of technology we depend on makes our lives better and supports a larger population of humans than in the days when our entire technology stack could be created in a day with access to rocks and sticks.
  
  Doesn't sound to me like you do either. What's the "easy" event that kicks over modern civilization and drives humanity to extinction?
  Ha! Please. Your city is about one to four weeks from the last delivery of food, fuel, electricity, or water from anarchy.
  Think about everything it takes for you to get a sandwich on your table. Crops grown in the midwest are brought to your city by a truck where they're kept fresh in the grocery store with refrigeration. Oh but the crops need artificial fertilizers, made in a factory. That factory needs a huge swath of input chemicals, including petroleum. Which the truck also needs. One hurricane hitting one region where drilling platforms and refineries are located caused skyrocketing fuel prices and even shortages. If a bigger hurricane, or more than one, knocked out those same pieces of infrastructure for longer, then the shortage would have become severe. The truck might not show up. The factory might not be able to make the fertilizer for the next season's crops. Your grocery store is empty.
  And that's just one of the more obvious branches in the system. If you really trace out what goes into everything you take for granted that enables your survival, you'll find there are a great many things where any one of them taken out for a significant period of time can bring the whole thing down. Is that, or any one thing, irrecoverable? No. But when we're talking about Global Climate Change, we will never be talking about any one thing. There will be many changes, many things that go wrong, many upheavals.
  Believing we don't need to worry because humanity is just so awesome (I mean look at our technology!) is naive and foolish.
  
  --
  
  The enemies of Democracy are
29. Re:not to mention... by Tablizer · 2012-02-01 13:24 · Score: 1
  
  All 5 billion of us?
  
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  Table-ized A.I.
30. Re:not to mention... by khallow · 2012-02-01 17:24 · Score: 1
  
  It's irrelevant to point out that when a human population is denied its primary food source
  Humanity's "primary food source" is global agriculture present on every continent and a huge variety of foods. What's going to take that out? It's not going to be global warming.
  
  Think about everything it takes for you to get a sandwich on your table. Crops grown in the midwest are brought to your city by a truck where they're kept fresh in the grocery store with refrigeration. Oh but the crops need artificial fertilizers, made in a factory. That factory needs a huge swath of input chemicals, including petroleum. Which the truck also needs. One hurricane hitting one region where drilling platforms and refineries are located caused skyrocketing fuel prices and even shortages. If a bigger hurricane, or more than one, knocked out those same pieces of infrastructure for longer, then the shortage would have become severe. The truck might not show up. The factory might not be able to make the fertilizer for the next season's crops. Your grocery store is empty.
  That happened in 2005 in the US when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans followed by Hurricane Rita hitting Houston. Didn't turn out like your prediction above. The reasons why? 1) The refineries and oil wells aren't delicate and were fixed fast, 2) there are other refineries and such which weren't affected, and 3) food and transportation prices are so cheap that we can absorb a massive temporary increase in oil cost.
  
  And that's just one of the more obvious branches in the system. If you really trace out what goes into everything you take for granted that enables your survival, you'll find there are a great many things where any one of them taken out for a significant period of time can bring the whole thing down.
  It's easy to mistaken a web for a tree. For my sandwich, the food that makes it up comes from many different sources, which can be replaced. If Nebraska has trouble providing the wheat, then I can get it from Alberta. If the refineries in Louisiana are temporarily out of order due to a bad hurricane, then I can get fuel to produce what needs to be produced from the other refineries that were nowhere near Louisiana.
  
  The tree is an illusion because I can replace parts that are damaged with parts that work in real time. This makes modern civilization more resistant to natural disasters than primitive civilizations.
  
  The catch is that modern civilization is much more susceptible to man-made damage. For example, Hurricane Katrina killed more people, but the financial crises of 2007-2008 caused more damage to the US. An EMP from a high altitude nuclear weapon can do far more damage to a high tech civilization than a huge solar flare. And a full blown nuclear war can do more damage than a huge asteroid strike (especially, if we know the asteroid is coming).
  
  Along these lines, I remain more concerned about the damage from human attempts to avoid global warming and such than from the effects of global warming.
31. Re:not to mention... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 21:49 · Score: 0
  
  I think "hell-hole people" are more fit to such environments since, you know, they already live in "hell-holes", been there for long enough to become recursive and not spoiled nanny-state consumercitizens
32. Re:not to mention... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 23:02 · Score: 0
  
  The biosphere will do just fine. But there's a lot of human suffering that can occur (e.g., widespread agricultural failure) long before the biosphere fails on any grand, geologically-significant scale. The current condition on which human society depends is a lot more fragile than the biosphere is.
  "The fossil record shows that time and time again biosphere changes are not only recovered from, but that the net effect is dramatically positive in terms of long term diversity."
  Not exactly. There is evidence that long-term diversity reached an equilibrium level after the introduction of metazoans (animals) back in the Cambrian or so, and that this equilibrium was knocked down substantially at mass extinction events. The appearance that diversity has been climbing over the long term is thought to be mainly an artifact of preservation, although there is some argument to the contrary about that for some fossil groups in the Cenozoic, for example. At the very least the interpretation that there is a "net positive effect" is debatable.
33. Re:not to mention... by mcgrew · 2012-02-02 05:13 · Score: 1
  
  Conflict of interest: The author declares that she has no conflicts of interest and is clearly not trolling, nor taking a joke too far to farm karma.
  "Funny" gains no karma, making it actually dangerous to your karma, as many here are entirely humorless and will mod any joke they see as "troll" or "overrated". Tough room. Looks like you got your five, though, so you're safe this time.
  
  --
  Free Martian Whores!
34. Re:not to mention... by Marxist+Hacker+42 · 2012-02-02 06:05 · Score: 1
  
  No, not all 5 billion of us. Potentially 80 billion of us. But the transition between will cause some deaths. Any given individual may not survive. But the species *will* survive, it's just a matter of adaptation. Those who fail to adapt, will die. Such is the way of evolution.
  
  --
  SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
35. Re:not to mention... by Marxist+Hacker+42 · 2012-02-02 06:08 · Score: 1
  
  And that's the reason we still need nations and national borders protected by military.
  
  --
  SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
36. Re:not to mention... by Samantha+Wright · 2012-02-02 08:20 · Score: 1
  
  I know :) I'll take it anyway.
  
  Moderation +4
  50% Funny
  20% Informative
  20% Overrated
  
  --
  Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
And this is how bad memes get started by NeutronCowboy · 2012-02-01 06:33 · Score: 5, Insightful

The headline says "plants MAY have started glaciation". The summary says "plants created a major ice age". The actual article says that some scientists did some experiments that could potentially indicate that the earliest plants may have been at the root of a positive feedback loop that ended in a major glaciation period. The amount of hedging in the actual article goes so far beyond the statement in the summary that I have to think the summary was deliberately written to mislead.
I look forward to reading years from now how in the teens, scientists were all worried that more plants would turn the earth into an ice ball, and that everyone was told to cut down any green things they find.

--
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
1. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by JTsyo · 2012-02-01 06:35 · Score: 1
  
  yea, not sure how the summary went from planet warming gas to ice age.
2. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by JTsyo · 2012-02-01 06:38 · Score: 1
  
  reading the article cleared it up.
3. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by alienzed · 2012-02-01 06:48 · Score: 1
  
  seems someone told the McDonalds corporation about this a long time ago... they are way ahead of us.
  
  --
  Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
4. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 06:53 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Hmmm, so what caused all the other ice ages then?
  Why do the ice cores reveal co2 concentrations at the height of the last ice age at 20 times todays readings?
  Al Gore wants to know - so he can getyou to send him more money.
5. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by next_ghost · 2012-02-01 06:56 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Typical science news cycle in progress...
6. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by somersault · 2012-02-01 06:57 · Score: 2
  
  Reading the summary and knowing the meaning of the word "drawing" should have cleared it up.
  
  --
  which is totally what she said
7. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by icebike · 2012-02-01 07:18 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  The phrase "at the height of" means "the beginning of the end."
  I'd be more interested in knowing what the deepest cores show, from the beginning of the last ice age. If they were similarly high, then your question is insightful.
  If however the co2 peeked sometime within the ice age, and that was followed by the decline of the ice age we have an interesting coincidence, but still no causation.
  The question then becomes where did this co2 come from. Did it come from the much reduced plant intake of co2 due to having significant areas of the planet in a deep freeze? Were the oceans chilled enough such that marine organisms ceased sequestering co2 into reefs?
  Or was there some as yet undocumented sources of co2 that were ramping up production?
  Or was the output of the sun reduced during this period and any suggestion about co2 merely mistaking the effect for the cause?
  
  --
  Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
8. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by instagib · 2012-02-01 07:20 · Score: 1
  
  This is a good one. The main culprit of this cycle seems to be the Uni PR office - if they wouldn't start to simplify the research results, they would only be picked up by those who understand it, and no dumbing-down-let's-all-panic-and-draw-wrong-conclusions cycle would start.
9. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 08:01 · Score: 0
  
  "from" is the word you need to know the meaning of.
10. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by ceoyoyo · 2012-02-01 08:14 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  It's the Internet version of "Telephone." Except with the Internet you can actually follow the links back and see how the message changed with each hop. Fascinating, isn't it?
11. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by somersault · 2012-02-01 08:22 · Score: 1
  
  Well, that one helps too.
  I thought everyone learned in basic science classes that trees absorb CO2 and pump out O2 anyway, so it all should have been obvious.
  
  --
  which is totally what she said
12. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by roc97007 · 2012-02-01 08:48 · Score: 2
  
  > I look forward to reading years from now how in the teens, scientists were all worried that more plants would turn the earth into an ice ball, and that everyone was told to cut down any green things they find.
  Man, I never thought of that. PANIC! Cut down your trees! I'm buying stock in STIHL.
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
13. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 09:02 · Score: 0
  
  "peaked"
14. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by Feyshtey · 2012-02-01 09:17 · Score: 1
  
  Weird. You mean that some random person would actually purposefully change verbage about a news item in an attempt manipulate public perception? Really? Damn good thing real journalists never do that.
  
  --
  "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
15. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by icebike · 2012-02-01 09:31 · Score: 1
  
  "peaked"
  Yup. Guilty. I save my best spelling for people who pay me. ;-)
  
  --
  Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
16. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by StillNeedMoreCoffee · 2012-02-01 09:50 · Score: 1
  
  Well I recall that something akin to this did happen in China. Mao in his infinite wisdom (or the wisdom of his advisors) decided that birds were eating crops so he had everyone go out and bang pots and pans around trees that birds were roosting in. They could not land, fatigued and millions, yes millions of birds died. The next few years witnessed plagues of insects eating crops, followed by famine.
  Don't underestimate either the stupidity of man, or the quick and important effect of large changes in an ecosystem. I suspect that the article has it right, just like the global winter in Europe that may have been due to massive volcanic eruptions. (http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/318831).
17. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 11:51 · Score: 0
  
  Fascinating? No. Depressing? Yes.
18. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by riverat1 · 2012-02-01 12:03 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Why do the ice cores reveal co2 concentrations at the height of the last ice age at 20 times today's readings?
  Where did that come from? Got a reference? From what I know CO2 concentrations were around 190 ppm at the height of the glaciations and today they're around 390 ppm, over twice as high.
19. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by marcosdumay · 2012-02-01 12:35 · Score: 1
  
  Then remember that until just a few years ago all you had was the last link. You couldn't by then know enough to feel depressed.
  
  --
  Rethinking email
20. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by Thing+1 · 2012-02-01 12:46 · Score: 1
  
  I even know that it's a brand name, but when my brain saw a word in all caps it reflexively tried to disambiguate it; it got to "Shut the (in?) hell (low?)" -- but before the period, I realized all is well with the parser. :)
  
  --
  I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
21. Re:And this is how bad memes get started by Thing+1 · 2012-02-01 12:48 · Score: 1
  
  Conversely, I use my turn signals even when there are no cars around.
  
  --
  I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Damn! by Vinegar+Joe · 2012-02-01 06:34 · Score: 1

I don't know whether I should go out in the backyard and plant kudzu or burn tires!

--
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
1. Re:Damn! by dietdew7 · 2012-02-01 07:04 · Score: 1
  
  Why not do both?
2. Re:Damn! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 07:10 · Score: 0
  
  I can't, I'm too busy buying carbon credits and paying for taxpayer funded grants to inviable green energy companies
3. Re:Damn! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 08:11 · Score: 0
  
  I deny all of this
4. Re:Damn! by hjf · 2012-02-01 08:40 · Score: 0
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGnTW8EhGSk
More results by mr1911 · 2012-02-01 06:35 · Score: 4, Funny

Scientists have classified these plants as Republicans in order to keep the blame for climate change consistent throughout history.

--
This post comes with a double-your-money-back guarantee!
Any offense taken to this post is at your sole discretion.
1. Re:More results by i+kan+reed · 2012-02-01 07:00 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yeah, no. Grow up. Scientists don't go around blaming republicans for doing much of anything other than lying about science, and that's just the politically active scientists.
2. Re:More results by DigiShaman · 2012-02-01 07:21 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Do people like Al Gore count too? Or does he get a pass because he's not a Republican? Just asking.
  
  --
  Life is not for the lazy.
3. Re:More results by ColdWetDog · 2012-02-01 07:36 · Score: 2
  
  Do people like Al Gore count too? Or does he get a pass because he's not a Republican? Just asking.
  Manbearpig isn't a plant. Get your biology straight, man.
  
  --
  Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
4. Re:More results by Archangel+Michael · 2012-02-01 08:00 · Score: 1
  
  Al Gore wasn't lying .. he was ... just ... wrong .. yeah, that's the ticket!!
  
  --
  Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
5. Re:More results by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 08:03 · Score: 1
  
  Do people like Al Gore count too? Or does he get a pass because he's not a Republican? Just asking.
  Or maybe because he's not a scientist.
6. Re:More results by i+kan+reed · 2012-02-01 08:12 · Score: 1
  
  I can't even comprehend what this has to do with my post. Seriously. I can't seem to make a mental bridge here. The word "Republican" appears in both our posts, I guess?
  Please to be statement having more cogent.
7. Re:More results by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 08:40 · Score: 0
  
  Then you fail at reading comprehension. He was responding to your previous comment. You doofus. But I guess that's par for the course for someone whom... kan't read. Hardy har har!
8. Re:More results by roc97007 · 2012-02-01 08:49 · Score: 2
  
  He has been described as "wooden"...
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
9. Re:More results by i+kan+reed · 2012-02-01 09:36 · Score: 1
  
  Since this was posted as AC, I'm wagering I won't get a response, but... what earlier comment? In some other thread? Is there some other conversation happening in some other dimension? That last one seems like it would work. If all conservatives had discussions partially existing on some higher plane us liberals are incapable of perceiving through some profound failure on our part, it would explain how they can simultaneously hold the air of being certain in their correctness, and simultaneously speaking what appears to be complete nonsense.
  More seriously, what are you talking about? I really did reread the entire thread of discussion a couple of times to try and glean some sort of understanding as to how his comment might relate. Whatever point that post seems to be opposing is one I have never made in my life.
Oddly reminds me of a SimEarth scenario... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 06:37 · Score: 1

Daisyworld, anyone?
1. Re:Oddly reminds me of a SimEarth scenario... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 08:16 · Score: 2
  
  Years ago, a friend playing SimLife set up a rich multi-species planet, and let it run overnight. In the morning, after thousands of generations, the entire planet was covered by an oak forest, inhabited by.. squirrels. Nothing else. Oaks and squirrels.
2. Re:Oddly reminds me of a SimEarth scenario... by ZeroSumHappiness · 2012-02-01 11:25 · Score: 1
  
  Those dastardly squirrels. They always gave me the creeps. Now I know why -- they're plotting our dooooooooooom!
Jurassic Garden by GameboyRMH · 2012-02-01 06:38 · Score: 2

We need to get the DNA of these plants and reanimate them ASAP!

--
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
1. Re:Jurassic Garden by sorak · 2012-02-01 09:07 · Score: 1
  
  We need to get the DNA of these plants and reanimate them ASAP!
  We would also have to make the sun 6% cooler and remove all oxygen-breathing organisms.
2. Re:Jurassic Garden by Tablizer · 2012-02-01 13:27 · Score: 1
  
  We would also have to make the sun 6% cooler and remove all oxygen-breathing organisms.
  Launch the oxy-breathers toward to the sun and kill two birds with one stone: the plasma vapors will blot out the sun 6%.
  
  --
  Table-ized A.I.
3. Re:Jurassic Garden by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 16:29 · Score: 0
  
  Plants breath oxygen. They do not create the food and break it down anaerobically. They also release the CO2 when they rot. The only way to have plants release oxygen is to have them not release the carbon back into the atmosphere.
Confusion by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 06:41 · Score: 1

Considering that marine plants produce the most of the world's O2 (and subsequently consuming the most CO2) and the Earth is 3/4 covered in water... it seems like another possible contradiction.
Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by peter303 · 2012-02-01 06:45 · Score: 5, Interesting

The Medea hypothesis is the mirror of the Gaia hypotheis. Gaia says life is in ecological balance and self-balancing.

Part 1 of the Medea hypothesis says that life isnt necessarily in ecological balance and sometimes overruns resources nearly killing itself off. Several past mass extinctions, particularly the Permian may have been caused by this.

Part 2 says the ultimate end of life on Earth may be running out of CO2. CO2 has been falling from tens of percent on the early Earth to about one percent in the Phanerozoic to .025% now. (Human activity has temporarily raised it to .04%.) When CO2 falls below .01% then plants cannot survive and neither animals. Just bacteria. This is predicted in few hundred million years. Life consumes CO2 and buries in hydrocarbons and limestone. Unless some imbalance like humans come along, the trend is to pretty much lock up carbon for good.

Geo-engineering CO2 increase is straight forward. Burn limestone to release CO2. There is 100x more carbon in limestone than hydrocarbons.
1. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by UziBeatle · 2012-02-01 06:52 · Score: 2
  
  Sounds good to me.
  I'm going to do my part by going out to buy mass quantities
  of Roundup (TM) and the like to hose down any
  greenery in my neighborhood.
  Doing so in full knowledge I'm doing ultimate good for
  dah whole world, despite what it does to my neighborhood
  lawns.
  
  --
  Something between the lines jumps out and bites your arm off. Soltan Gris / London
2. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by DeathFromSomewhere · 2012-02-01 06:57 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Volcanoes release massive quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere that was previously locked up in limestone. In fact the CO2 released by volcanoes is the main reason snowball earth came to an end.
  
  --
  -1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
3. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by dietdew7 · 2012-02-01 07:08 · Score: 2
  
  Get off my lawn!
4. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by ElectricTurtle · 2012-02-01 07:18 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Indeed, and it makes me want to slap the shit out of everybody who starts talking about 'carbon footprint'. Carbon is life itself.
  
  Everybody worried about global temperature should really take a look at temperature over geologic timescales. Two centuries ago it was colder than any other time in the last two millennia. That last two millennia have been colder than most of the last ten or so since the last glacial period. Glacial periods notwithstanding, the last few million years have been the coldest in the last hundred million years. Modern, industrialized mankind was essentially born during the coldest period outside of an actual glacial cycle. Modern meteorology/climatoloy started at the bottom of a very cold well, and now that we're starting to get to temperatures that used to be normal, we're freaking out just because we haven't had to deal with it before in a conscious way. E.g. last time it was this warm we were still performing human sacrifices to appease imaginary agents of dubious intent. This whole society needs a clue-by-four to snap them out of the delusion that warming is the end of the world and any more a threat to life than all the other environmental changes that have already killed 99% of all species that have ever existed.
  
  --
  I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
5. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by iggymanz · 2012-02-01 07:19 · Score: 1
  
  no worries, in 300 million years the earth will be too hot for multicellular life anyway due to expansion of Sun. Problem solved. And thus catastrophic global warming is guarenteed.
6. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by DigiShaman · 2012-02-01 07:27 · Score: 0
  
  Wha! Say it ain't so! We are....we are....we're LIFE GIVERS to the planet. SUVs are the savior's instruments of choice. How the fuck do you like them apples eh?! I just love irony when it tastes so delicious!
  
  --
  Life is not for the lazy.
7. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by peter303 · 2012-02-01 07:42 · Score: 1
  
  Correct. But Peter adds the Earth is cooling off and plate tectonics will slow down too. It looks like PT has been rpetty active for the past billion years. Earlier evidence is more sketchy.
8. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by peter303 · 2012-02-01 07:45 · Score: 1
  
  The competing Gaia hypothesis says life may do something to counteract this. Possible a combination of changing the atmosphere to repel radiation and new biochemistry to live at 100C.
9. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by GameboyRMH · 2012-02-01 07:59 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Last time it was this warm we didn't have a massive modern civilization to support.
  If you're not worried about warming at all - say you live somewhere that will still have a secure food supply and won't be at any risk from harsher weather, and you have a FYGM attitude - maybe you should be worried about ocean acidification. Allowing runaway fossil carbon release because you don't personally mind the heat isn't even a viable option.
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
10. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by ElectricTurtle · 2012-02-01 08:15 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I suppose you think the ocean has been the same pH forever too. Life adapts, and ocean life itself has shown an ability to spring back from as much as 90% species extinction. I'm not worried, especially as humans have the technology to build closed systems for environmental control and resource production/management. (Humanity too has sprung back from an immensely small population, as low as thousands at one point. We could lose 99.99999+% of our population and still have precedent for survival.)
  
  The truly ironic thing is that people will now jump up my butt about how cold I am and what about all those people who might die. The same critics who, in a different context would be whining about overpopulation. Let me break it to you, the only way it is physically possible to have less people is for them to die. There is no magical fairy dust that makes population lower without people pushing up daisies. The cognitive dissonance is staggering.
  
  (The double irony is that overpopulation is itself a myth, and anybody who knew anything about the real demographic data that shows that fertility rate has been on a downward rollercoaster for something like fifty years in almost every nation on earth. Population growth is leveling off, but that doesn't sell newspapers.)
  
  --
  I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
11. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by ceoyoyo · 2012-02-01 08:17 · Score: 1
  
  There are a few things that release CO2... volcanos come to mind. And some of that is CO2 recycled from limestone.
  The current amount of life on the planet may be unsustainable, but it's not likely to be eliminated. It'll just die back a bit.
12. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by iggymanz · 2012-02-01 08:18 · Score: 1
  
  well, there already are sngle celled hypothermophiles that can live at over 120 degree C, but DNA and RNA itself comes apart at 150 degrees C., so that puts a rather huge constraint on what can form in this world. there are theoretical alien chemistries with other elements, but they can't form on present or future earth.
13. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 08:20 · Score: 0
  
  Unless some imbalance like humans come along, the trend is to pretty much lock up carbon for good.
  Ah, the insight of George Carlin, world famous biologist:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw#t=5m25s
14. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by JSBiff · 2012-02-01 08:41 · Score: 1
  
  Wait, Peter Wards. . .
  Shouldn't it be:
  Tyler Perry Presents. . .
  Tyler Perry's "Medea Hypothesis"
15. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by roc97007 · 2012-02-01 08:53 · Score: 1
  
  A year ago when we had this discussion, I responded "But what will the trees breathe?" and got marked troll. Oh well.
  But seriously, I can see a possible counterbalance. At least in the US, we have been artificially repressing naturally occurring forest fires for over an hundred years. Could it be that periodic mass forest fires are one of nature's answers to too much carbon sequestering?
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
16. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 09:03 · Score: 0
  
  eeerrr, Hello all "Cooling deniers". Solar influences seem to be signaling a cool cycle is on the way. For those that want to test food security? We'll see how that goes in Alaska, Canada and Europe when the ground is covered with Snow & Ice. Oh while we're there. I wonder what happens to Africa's rainfall when the water is locked up making it snow in the northern latitudes? You want food security? Co2 accelerates plant growth! Cold temperatures enable the oceans to absorbe Co2. HHHmmm doesn't sound like a real good idea, reducing Co2, does it?
17. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by DogDude · 2012-02-01 09:28 · Score: 2
  
  I'm not worried, especially as humans have the technology to build closed systems for environmental control and resource production/management.
  
  You're not worried because you're hopelessly naive.
  
  "Modern" people are so out of touch with the natural world because everything they need comes wrapped in a nice plastic container to their doorstep right now. I really can't wait to see the collective looks on their collective smug faces when food and water start to become scarce due to collapsing ecosystems. "What do you mean I can't get a McFish sandwich because there are no more fish in the ocean?"
  
  --
  I don't respond to AC's.
18. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by DogDude · 2012-02-01 09:31 · Score: 1
  
  This whole society needs a clue-by-four to snap them out of the delusion that warming is the end of the world and any more a threat to life than all the other environmental changes that have already killed 99% of all species that have ever existed.
  
  It's a threat to HUMAN life, dolt. Nobody's arguing that the planet Earth is going to become a sterile rock floating through space.
  
  --
  I don't respond to AC's.
19. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by Chris+Burke · 2012-02-01 09:42 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I suppose you think the ocean has been the same pH forever too. Life adapts, and ocean life itself has shown an ability to spring back from as much as 90% species extinction.
  Yeah, and maybe ocean life will adapt in such a way to create a new equivalent to the Oxygen Catastrophe only this time with a gas that is toxic to us. I mean it's not like there would be any other repercussions to a a drastically more acidic ocean, and the resulting collapse of existing ocean ecosystems, am I right?
  
  I'm not worried, especially as humans have the technology to build closed systems for environmental control and resource production/management.
  No we don't. There is no such system. Everything that is pretending to be such a system is in reality dependent on an extremely long and broad pyramid of precursors that at many points could easily be disrupted by such mundane things as war or weather. A dramatic change in the nature of the biosphere would practically be a shoe-in for the collapse of broad swaths of civilization. The idea that it can all just be weathered with closed systems is a pipe dream. You might as well say you're not worried because we could just move to Mars.
  
  (Humanity too has sprung back from an immensely small population, as low as thousands at one point. We could lose 99.99999+% of our population and still have precedent for survival.)
  Yes it's possible, but if you don't think we got lucky to survive such a population bottleneck, then you're just wrong. Counting on us doing it again is just foolish. And what about yourself? Surely you don't believe you're sure to be one of the lucky 0.0000001% do you?
  You aren't worried about the vast majority, even the entirety, of humanity dying.
  You aren't worried about the collapse of our current civilizations.
  You aren't even worried about your own life.
  Uh... that's nice, but maybe we should talk to someone who has a functioning survival instinct.
  
  Population growth is leveling off, but that doesn't sell newspapers
  The real irony is that people concerned with population growth are most concerned with those parts of the world where population growth has not leveled off. The parts of the world that are responsible for the rest of the world still having positive population growth due to immigration.
  
  --
  
  The enemies of Democracy are
20. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by Marxist+Hacker+42 · 2012-02-01 09:45 · Score: 1
  
  Burning limestone to release CO2. Isn't that how we make Portland Cement?
  
  --
  SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
21. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by darkwing_bmf · 2012-02-01 09:49 · Score: 1
  
  "What do you mean I can't get a McFish sandwich because there are no more fish in the ocean?"
  I have faith in American ingenuity and McDonald's marketing to invent a McFish product that doesn't involve actual fish. Go America!
22. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by GameboyRMH · 2012-02-01 09:56 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  So you'd prefer many human deaths, oceanic mass extinction and living in sealed dome environments to being more eco-friendly, and call anyone who thinks being more eco-friendly is a better solution a stupid alarmist.
  Maybe you should lock yourself in a room of pure CO2. After all, carbon is life itself, and I guarantee you no stupid alarmists will follow you in.
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
23. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by StillNeedMoreCoffee · 2012-02-01 10:14 · Score: 2
  
  Sorry to disapoint you, but like our current situation with 15% of the US population under the poverty line and 46% (according to a recent research article) are 3 paychecks away from poverty. We have an unprecedented population on earth. The global warming is increasing desertification of large areas of the world. We are plowing under large areas of farmland for cities and other structures. Those idiots in the Amazon are cutting down our carbon sinks at an alarming rate.
  And our oil reserves are just about half used up which are much of the basis of fertilizer and pesticide production which allow up to hyper produce agriculture.
  What will happen is a short few years is a total change in rainfall areas which changes what crops can be produced.
  The problem will get down to (in probably 50 years) how can we support the growing population. We will have to develop new farming and new crops and shift locations and ... We can try that, but getting the crops to respond as quickly as the climate does may be a problem.
  One theory about the demise of the Neanderthal was that they invented clothes so they could stay in Europe during the ice age, and they weakened and did not survive as a separate race because they lacked Vitamin D. The same is a problem with peoples living far north without dietary supplements.
  There are usually mass extinctions with there is a change in temperature and thereby vegetation. Look at the sensitivity of the coral reef environments.
  Your suggestion that more heat must be a good thing is conjecture and does not look at what global temperature changes have done in the past.
  A good example of what might happen is the shifting of the Gulf Stream away from Europe. That would make Europe not a nice place to live, wine and cheese production would be eliminated, wars would break out as large populations that could not support themselves coveted Southern countries that could.
  Don't underestimate either the stupidity or greed that can have global consequences on the human population.
24. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 10:43 · Score: 0
  
  Indeed, and it makes me want to slap the shit out of everybody who starts talking about 'carbon footprint'. Carbon is life itself.
  So's Chlorine -- you'd die pretty quick without NaCl and not quite as quick without HCl just for starters.
  Therefore worrying about Chlorine emissions is pointless.
  Because if something is good in one context it must be good in all contexts, right?
  Fuckin' idiot.
25. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 10:59 · Score: 0
  
  you're an idiot.
  -signed, everybody else
26. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by rastoboy29 · 2012-02-01 11:26 · Score: 2
  
  It's not the warming per se, but the *speed* of it. As you say--in geological timescales, it's no big deal. But we're talking about a significant increase in CO2 in a hundred freaking years. That's lightning fast, and at best will cause only major famines and disease outbreaks. We have enough trouble feeding the people we have now, without a) adding another couple billion people and b) having to deal with massive climate change in a short period of time.
  
  --
  expandfairuse.org
27. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by riverat1 · 2012-02-01 12:09 · Score: 1
  
  I read somewhere that there's enough energy inside of the Earth that plate tectonics won't stop before the Sun expands and engulfs the Earth around 4.5 billion years from now.
28. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by riverat1 · 2012-02-01 12:48 · Score: 1
  
  eeerrr, Hello all "Warming deniers". Solar influence alone (even if it's as low as during the Maunder Minimum) is not enough to induce a cooling trend. At most they will delay the warming that is coming by 5 or 10 years. There's a paper about that very subject. (Feulner & Rahmstorf, 2010)
29. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by Thing+1 · 2012-02-01 12:51 · Score: 1
  
  Indeed, and it makes me want to slap the shit out of everybody who starts talking about 'carbon footprint'. Carbon is life itself.
  Absolutely agreed. I think more recently we should be talking about "Banker Footprint".
  
  --
  I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
30. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by Thing+1 · 2012-02-01 12:58 · Score: 1
  
  We could lose 99.99999+% of our population and still have precedent for survival.
  I watched Thrive recently. From the conclusion the author reached, it certainly seems like that is the "Banker's Solution."
  The good news? At the end they listed their website as a method for "millions of people to move at an instant" which certainly sounds (to me) like rebellion or perhaps "terrorism" as it's defined by the US government (i.e., "anything that is against our greedy interests"), but at least was not described as "We're all going to visit the Rothschild's/Rockefellers'/Morgan's homes and murder them"...
  
  --
  I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
31. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by Thing+1 · 2012-02-01 13:02 · Score: 1
  
  Uh... that's nice, but maybe we should talk to someone who has a functioning survival instinct.
  Sounds like his survival instinct does exist, just at a higher level: that of the species.
  
  --
  I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
32. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by Chris+Burke · 2012-02-01 13:08 · Score: 1
  
  Sounds like his survival instinct does exist, just at a higher level: that of the species.
  Someone concerned about the fate of the species wouldn't be cavalier about our chances after passing through a 99% population bottleneck. They would be incredibly concerned that we not put all our eggs (literally in this case) in such a tiny basket (the basket is metaphorical).
  
  --
  
  The enemies of Democracy are
33. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by Thing+1 · 2012-02-01 13:44 · Score: 1
  
  Well, I can't really argue with what you said, apart from the judgement that the poster was being cavalier; but, it also does not dispute what I said: the poster appears to be thinking farther.
  
  --
  I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
34. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by Chris+Burke · 2012-02-01 17:08 · Score: 1
  
  No, they're thinking shorter. They're thinking "I don't have to do anything, because in the future (when I don't have to experience it) if problems occur I just assume humanity will be okay."
  
  --
  
  The enemies of Democracy are
35. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 04:09 · Score: 0
  
  ...
  The truly ironic thing is that people will now jump up my butt about how cold I am and what about all those people who might die. The same critics who, in a different context would be whining about overpopulation. Let me break it to you, the only way it is physically possible to have less people is for them to die. There is no magical fairy dust that makes population lower without people pushing up daisies. The cognitive dissonance is staggering.
  Maybe this scholarly article Scientists: 'Look, One-Third Of The Human Race Has To Die For Civilization To Be Sustainable, So How Do We Want To Do This?' will help to convince them. Feel free to ask them if they're a volunteer or a hypocrite.
36. Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis" by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 04:40 · Score: 0
  
  I really can't wait to see the collective looks on their collective smug faces when food and water start to become scarce due to collapsing ecosystems.
  What a fucking sadist you are
...major ice age which killed most of the plants by s_p_oneil · 2012-02-01 06:52 · Score: 2, Insightful

...major ice age which killed most of the plants, causing them to decompose and release the carbon again, starting an enormous cycle that is still going on today.
What is the moral of this story? Don't mess with the global carbon cycle if you don't want the Earth's climate to change enough to kill "most of us". Having said that, I'd rather live on a warmer world than a giant ball of ice. But I'm thinking there's probably a sweet spot somewhere between ball of ice and mosquitos the size of your head coming to give you drug-resistant malaria and dengue. If the latter happens, I'll probably carry a racquetball racquet with me everywhere I go (just in case). I don't think the DEET spray will cut it at that point.
As Spock said... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 07:01 · Score: 0

The need of the many outweigh the need of the few
Wait a minute here... by PortHaven · 2012-02-01 07:03 · Score: 2, Insightful

So us crazy whack-O, "It's not man's CO2 emissions to blame for warming." May in fact be right.
I've argued against man made CO2's effect, but have been very vocal in that I think deforestation is far more to blame for climate change.
Now it looks like you're finally admitting what I've know all along. A little gas is one thing. Chopping down 20% of the rain forest...BIG EFFECT
1. Re:Wait a minute here... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 07:18 · Score: 0
  
  mod this up
2. Re:Wait a minute here... by GameboyRMH · 2012-02-01 07:27 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  They're two sides of the same problem, on one hand we're moving more CO2 from the ground to the atmosphere and on the other we're reducing nature's ability to put it back (at the very least, when rainforests are cleared and the trees are burned), but you can't put the blame on one factor and not the other - and if you try you'll find that it's much harder to squeeze the blame onto deforestation.
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
3. Re:Wait a minute here... by srmalloy · 2012-02-01 07:40 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  From the article:
  
  About 460 million years ago, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere ranged somewhere between 14 and 22 times the current level, and the average global temperature was about 5C higher than it is now.
  
  From www.globalchange.gov:
  
  Based on scenarios that do not assume explicit climate policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, global average temperature is projected to rise by 2 to 11.5F by the end of this century
  
  Taking the data on trends in carbon dioxide measured at Mauna Loa, the 1960 concentration of CO2 was 320ppm. Taking an extreme value for annual increase in CO2 from their data of 2 ppm, doubling the CO2 concentration from the 1960 value wuold take 150 years, and increasing it to fourteen times the 1960 value -- a (low estimate) CO2 concentration at which the average global temperature was 5C higher -- would take almost 2000 years. But we're expected to believe the AGW doomcriers that, according to their tight, rigid, and scientifically-accurate climate models, we might see an increase of 6.4C by the end of the century with a tenth the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere?
  And everyone running down the AGW skeptics wonders why we find it difficult to believe the reports 'proving' AGW and painting doomsday scenarios if we don't pour trillions of dollars into reducing CO2 emissions. Or even if we do pour trillions of dollars into reducing CO2 emissions, if you believe the reports that say we've already passed a tipping point.
4. Re:Wait a minute here... by scot4875 · 2012-02-01 07:49 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Now it looks like you're finally admitting what I've know all along. A little gas is one thing. Chopping down 20% of the rain forest...BIG EFFECT
  Yeah, good for you. Have a nice little pat-yourself-on-the-back-for-being-so-smart? Now recognize that both in combination have a greater effect than either one alone, and you'll be right there with the rest of us.
  --Jeremy
  
  --
  Jesus was a liberal
5. Re:Wait a minute here... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 08:08 · Score: 1
  
  Yes. Yes. Yes.
  Plants breath in CO2. Like, our vegetables? Fruit. Grains, etc.
  With a background in farming and later microbiology, I don't understand how so many have extrapolated "pollution is bad", which is true, into "CO2 is the unit of measure", which it is not. Interesting how actually dangerous industrial pollutants aren't *ever* brought up.
6. Re:Wait a minute here... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 08:10 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  Way to cherry pick. In the very same paragraph "At the time, the sun was as much as 6% fainter than it is now, Lenton says, so the planet-warming effect of greenhouse gases wasn't as strong."
7. Re:Wait a minute here... by deander2 · 2012-02-01 08:22 · Score: 1, Troll
  
  ohhhh.... you know, good point. i bet those thousands of independent scientists worldwide who've been studying global warming for decades forgot all about deforestation as a possible cause. it's a good thing concerned citizens with awesome gut instincts like yourself are around to show them the way! :)
  
  --
  http://kered.org
8. Re:Wait a minute here... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 08:23 · Score: 1
  
  Your calculations are meaningful if all other variables between our current situation and the situation 460 million years ago are the same. However, they're not. As a single example, note the sentence at the end of the first paragraph you quoted, which states:
  
  At the time, the sun was as much as 6% fainter than it is now, Lenton says, so the planet-warming effect of greenhouse gases wasn't as strong.
  Or how about just the very next sentence after the one you quoted:
  
  Climate models suggest that widespread glaciations couldn't take place at that time unless CO2 levels dropped to about eight times what they are at present
  They're stating that for glaciation to occur, CO2 levels had to drop to a level that is 8 times higher than our current level, which by your calculations should mean that we're currently about 3C below the next ice age. Clearly, conditions are just a tad different than they were 460 million years ago, and your calculations are meaningless.
9. Re:Wait a minute here... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 08:50 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  And this is why the AGW deniers aren't taken seriously: you cherry-pick your facts. Besides the fact that the rest of the paragraph that you quoted explains why your assumptions are wrong, you also ignored that the rate of CO2 growth is increasingly linearly, which means that the actual CO2 output is increasing exponentially, thereby making your calculations way, way off.
10. Re:Wait a minute here... by tomboalogo · 2012-02-01 10:16 · Score: 1
  
  ummm around 70% of the O2 comes from algae and no one is chopping down the algae forests............
  (oops there I go spouting facts again, sorry)
11. Re:Wait a minute here... by PortHaven · 2012-02-01 12:19 · Score: 1
  
  No, no, no...
  I've been repeatedly told that deforestation and heat island effect are inconsequential.
  Now you say they're two sides of the coin. Before it was inconsequential.
  Hmm...what do you think that makes me think? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. But it makes me think the climate change (realclimate.org) folks are fucktards lying out their rears.
12. Re:Wait a minute here... by PortHaven · 2012-02-01 12:22 · Score: 1
  
  Correct me if I am wrong. But as a farmer you might be able to confirm this for me. My understanding is that greenhouses often pump in CO2 for increasing plant growth.
  CO2 = beneficial for botany.
  And I totally agree, suddenly "environment = CO2", that toxic pesticide, GMOs, waste from making plastic toys in China is unimportant. It's all focused on a tax system for CO2.
  This is NOT the environmentalism I grew up believing in.
13. Re:Wait a minute here... by PortHaven · 2012-02-01 12:23 · Score: 1
  
  Hmm...
  Well, I tend to be out the experts. I've beat every single bubble and bust in the market since I've been of age.
  Ironically, every time the so-called experts seemed to be wrong. One other fact I noticed, those so-called experts were usually politically or financially connected.
  Lastly, there are thousands of scientists who disagree and question. But it's a hard thing to do, you're likely to lose your career doing so.
14. Re:Wait a minute here... by Thing+1 · 2012-02-01 13:09 · Score: 0
  
  BUY. MY. SNAKE. OIL! DO NOT ASK QUESTIONS! (Hi, lameness filter, I'm not yelling, I'm making a salient point... Oh, and just in case, I am supporting the OP, unlike the other responses; and sure, he might be cherry-picking, but that's better than the shit-picking that the global warming advocates are doing.)
  
  --
  I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
It's the Economy! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 07:13 · Score: 1

An excess of plants, especially trees, can lead to runaway inflation, as proved when earth was largely populated with telephone sanitizers and other middle management types. We must burn the forests to save the economy!
So that means... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 07:20 · Score: 2, Funny

We need to ramp up our deforestation programs. We're in a race here, gentlemen! Either it's the plants, or us.
1. Re:So that means... by HornWumpus · 2012-02-01 09:44 · Score: 1
  
  Axle Pressbutton is that you?
  
  --
  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Then HUMANS came along by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 07:28 · Score: 1

Then HUMANS came along and began replenishing all that CO2, destroying the ice left over from the ice age. I guess we all have to die for this cycle to repeat again....
We need this on Mars by WindBourne · 2012-02-01 08:17 · Score: 1

Seriously, we need to get plants to mars that can break down the rocks and provide an atmosphere.

--
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
1. Re:We need this on Mars by VortexCortex · 2012-02-01 08:48 · Score: 1
  
  Seriously, we need to get plants to mars that can break down the rocks and provide an atmosphere.
  Sounds like a recipe for harsh living conditions. I wouldn't want another China on our hands.
  I'll only support your agenda if the Martian Plant workers are allowed to unionize.
Mars can't keep it by JSBiff · 2012-02-01 08:45 · Score: 1

From what I understand (IANAA - I am not an astronomer), the reason Mars doesn't have any atmo is that it lacks a magnetic field. Lacking a magnetic field, the Solar Wind strips away the atmosphere.
Also, in order to have plants that can break down the rocks, you must first have enough atmosphere to support the plants.
1. Re:Mars can't keep it by WindBourne · 2012-02-01 14:41 · Score: 1
  
  The issue becomes, how long would it take to strip it? LONG TIME. And actually, we do have plants that CAN exist at the martian atmosphere. Not sure how they will thrive, but they are capable of existing in it.
  
  What is needed is to drop some heat source on one of the poles, and/or send an ammonia asteroid careening into mars. That would do the trick.
  
  --
  I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Finally we have the purpose for animals! by bussdriver · 2012-02-01 09:05 · Score: 1

The plants created animals simply to keep warm! brilliant!!
That is, until their new creations evolved into monsters out of their control!

--
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
So this proves that global warming is just by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 09:34 · Score: 0

So this proves that global warming is just, "Nature".
three carbon cycles on different time scales by peter303 · 2012-02-01 09:53 · Score: 4, Informative

(1) Biosphere: (medium) abundance of plants and peat deposits, waxing and waning with ice ages. Changes over 10,000s years.
(2) Plate tectonics: (long) carbon capture in limestone, release from subduction volcanoes, possible permanent burial in subduction. Plates change speed, length of subduction zones over 100,000s to millions of years. Limestone contains 100 times the carbon in the biosphere and draining out the atmosphere over 100s of millions of years.
(3) Human: (short) deforestation, extraction and combustion of hydrocarbons. Just centuries. Deforestation will reach steady state soon like in North America and Europe. We are probably midway through 300-400 year "hydrocarbon age" of consuming all the extractable petroleum, natural gas and coal.
Re:Why such verbosity ? by roc97007 · 2012-02-01 10:34 · Score: 1

See part about "mostly to piss off certain people". Looks like it worked.
In point of fact, I can afford a Hummer, I just don't have a use for one.

--
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Re:...major ice age which killed most of the plant by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-01 10:41 · Score: 0

I'll probably carry a racquetball racquet with me everywhere I go (just in case)
Like this one??? Electronic Fly Swatter. It works rather well against Texas mosquitoes.
It Doesn't matter by alfredo · 2012-02-01 16:58 · Score: 1

Really

--
photosMy Photostream
Location? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-02 02:09 · Score: 0

It seems to me, that plants growing in the wrong location, were the cause of the polar ice caps? Interesting premisis. I thought that the location of the plants was wrong. But the article states that the locations tested and posiited were then at the poles. And then covered with Ice. Ok, seriously? who would-a thought that.
All humans as Texans by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-03 16:21 · Score: 0

Your have finally posited a scenario where human extinction is preferable.
1. Re:All humans as Texans by Marxist+Hacker+42 · 2012-02-04 13:04 · Score: 1
  
  Ok, then pick your favorite area the size of Texas- it's not the specific state that matters in this instance.
  
  --
  SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.