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Historical Carbon Emissions From Dragons In Middle Earth
An anonymous reader writes "The climate of Middle Earth has recently been under the spotlight, with the current and future climate of Middle Earth simulated using the HadCM3L General Circulation Model. However, to the best of our knowledge, there has been little work investigating the historical carbon emissions of Middle Earth. Specifically, what impact has the demise of dragons had on carbon emissions? To shed some light on this question, we start by considering the carbon footprint of the antagonist, Smaug."
Smaug is surprisingly environmentally friendly.
Of course the dying off of dragons will result in a reduction of Smaug.
Of course, the eruption of Mount Doom should offset most or all of the reduced carbon emissions from dragons.
I'm far more concerned about the emission of methane gas by dragons
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl...
Of course. He keeps the dwarf population in check, whose excessive mining wreaks havoc on the environment.
Even nerds and geeks need a little laugh now an then. Don't worry your little head - we'll all be back to the task of designing the next quantum computer as soon as we've had a chuckle, and another Mountain Dew.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Replace the denizens of an entire city with a single creature - check. Single creature spends most of it's time lounging about and doing nothing - check. Single creature reuses the work product of others instead of making their own emissions - check. Single creature eats far less than an entire city - check.
It's a no brainier - Smaug is good for the environment.
Some dragons are herbivores, so they eat lower parts of the food chain.
It's really the dragon burps from those that we should be worried about.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
For most of the time, Earth was a very hot humid place with an atmosphere you wouldn't want to breathe.
Dragons might like that.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The problem is not that we, animals and plants take part in the global carbon cycle.
The problem is we are freeing carbon deposits (burning hydrocarbons) which were not part of this cycle for 60 million years or more. And no one knows the outcome of this experiment with our biosphere.
The really funny part is we have to get of oil/gas/coal anyway.
Middle Earth runs by Magic not science
I'm surprised Middle Earth isn't in a constant Ice Age with Mt. Doom erupting all the time.
Volcanic Winter
The problem isn't all CO2. Of course, if we somehow magically removed all CO2 from our atmosphere we'd have horrible consequences. The problem is that there are vast stores of carbon that have been sequestered out of the atmosphere in the form of coal and oil. We're taking that carbon and putting it back into the atmosphere (as CO2) in massive amounts. The plants can't consume the CO2 as quickly as we burn it and even if they did, that's not taking the CO2 out of the system. You don't introduce a massive amount of something into the climate without having repercussions.
Nobody's saying that we should remove ALL CO2 from the atmosphere. Just that we shouldn't be pushing so much of it into the atmosphere from underground (*not* in the atmosphere for millions of years) sources. Just because it's natural for some to be there doesn't mean a ton more will have no consequences.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Glaurung
Anacalgon
Smaug
It's interesting that all were slain by Men, while the only ones who killed Balrogs were Elves or Maiar. In the original Gondolin myth the dragons were actually mechanical and basically giant troop transports, again highlighting the pastoral and anti-industrial themes in a lot of JRRTs work. Dragons were noisy, mechanical, destructive things, part of the mortal world of Men, while Balrogs were basically demons, part of the immortal world (Heaven/Hell).
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
if dragons only eat other creatures and plants, they are carbon neutral
if dragons insult Santa Claus to obtain and eat coal, like the ones in Johnny Hart's Wizard of ID, then yes they are a carbon source
Trolls are heavy CO2 producers. And methane producers too.
Anonymous Coward, cite your source. Let us vet it.
Ok, so what were the carbon deposits before they were deposits? And how about before that?
How do you know I'm not a dragon?! You insensitive clod!
Ok, well, don't believe everything you see on TV. The dinosaurs roamed when the earth was hospitable. I've never heard of proof that the period of which you speak was caused by liberated carbon dioxide...if I'm wrong, cite your source.
You're not missing anything, the carbon we are releasing right now was liberated before it was sequestered...so...the earth was obviously a bad place then.
We'll survive, whatever happens.
Good catch, that figure is actually the _gross_ deforestation per year.
Net deforestation is actually 34,000 acres per day, accounting for afforestation and natural expansion.
Of course that figure comes from a fly by night Liberal mouthpiece called the Food and Agriculture Of the United Nations, and I'm sure that they're backed by some sort of militant panda bear extremists so you shouldn't trust anything they say.
Ok, so 'they' said that an increase in CO2 would equal an increase in global temperature, called global warming (Al Gore's famous and patently false hockey stick diagram). Now that we haven't observed an increase in global temperature (we've seen a cooling), 'they' can't now call it 'global cooling' because that would be painfully obvious that they are a bunch of ass-hats. Instead, they call it climate change. So which is it, does CO2 warm or cool? It's agendized propaganda, plain and simple. How about before the coal and oil was coal and oil? Where was the carbon then? And how about just before then? Keep in mind, there's no proof that oil is dinosaurs. Liberated CO2 is not a pollutant, or detrimental to our planet. The god damned SUN is the driver of weather on this planet, not CO2.
If assholes like you weren't ruining science, your comment would be laughable.
No, I don't remember any such episode, and apparently neither do you. A check of Memory Alpha reveals no such episode.
Pretty much my understanding is that any major study is biased by whomever funds it. Seriously, who is going to fund a multi-hundred thousand dollar study that hurts one's own cause? Who is going to fund a study where there is no (financial/political) interest? Automatic conflict of interest before anyone does anything!
It's hard for me to take statistics seriously when one side of the equation is a dollar sign.
Indeed, we do have to deal with the consequences. Which, to date, has been nothing. I have not seen one -actual- piece of evidence that shows CO2 causes the earth to warm. It is -all- conjecture/opinion.
Oh, and you're so afraid of pollution, why aren't you railing against the 4 -very- unclean (due to no regulation) power plants being built in China/Inda every week? No, -WE- have to make our lives turn upside down (bullshit cars, bullshit products, bullshit taxes, bullshit prices) to have a very minimal effect when China/India get to sponsor our carbon neutrality, multiplied by god knows how much.
Do you even know where the money you spend on carbon neutrality goes? I bet you don't even care. I bet you don't even care that "our" industrial society has moved to China.
Hah. It's assholes like me that make it so government "scientists" get laughed out of their office when they publish asshole findings. Look up "climategate" and the "scientists" at East Anglia who wrote Email messages back and fourth about "how the hell" they were "going to convince people" that global warming is real.