Early Plants May Have Caused Massive Glaciation

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."

Comments

Easy solution

[no-body]

Everyone put a new flowerpot up and water regularly to fight global warming

Re:Easy solution

[Marxist Hacker 42]

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!

not to mention...

[rwa2]

flooding the atmosphere with a caustic, corrosive gas that could, in high enough concentrations, make just about anything burst into flame.

Re:not to mention...

[ElectricTurtle]

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.

Re:not to mention...

[dotancohen]

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.

Re:not to mention...

[Chris Burke]

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?

Re:not to mention...

[Chris Burke]

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.

And this is how bad memes get started

[NeutronCowboy]

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.

Re:And this is how bad memes get started

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:And this is how bad memes get started

[next_ghost]

Typical science news cycle in progress...

Re:And this is how bad memes get started

[ceoyoyo]

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?

...major ice age which killed most of the plants

[s_p_oneil]

...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.

Re:More results

[i kan reed]

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.

Wait a minute here...

[PortHaven]

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

Re:Wait a minute here...

[GameboyRMH]

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.

Re:Wait a minute here...

[scot4875]

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

Re:More results

[DigiShaman]

Do people like Al Gore count too? Or does he get a pass because he's not a Republican? Just asking.

Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis"

[GameboyRMH]

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.

Re:Peter Wards "Medea hypothesis"

[Chris Burke]

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.