normally, if you destroy woods, you do this in the process of urbanisation. this includes destroying the soil. nobody just like that goes around killing trees because of fun.
to all geeks: it's a struggle for life out there - stand up, leave your computer and check what is happening outside!;-)
oh, then it's ok. i didn't read the "earth releasing" as literarly as it can be, because it would be really funny to assume earth actively releasing CO_2 to get rid of humans.;-)
on your question "can we destroy earth?" i think we must specify what we mean by "destroy".
destroy astronomically/geologically i think this we can answer with a clear "no", because not even all weapons of this world would really harm the crust of this planet seriously.
to make it more interesting, i would exchange the question with "can we destroy life?". and here it gets tricky... theoretically, we "can" do such a stupid thing, but not without hurting the principle of the selfish lifeforms wanting to survive. everybody of us - even the species humans as such wants to survive. it would be really interesting from the biological point of view (i study mol. bio) to investigate if the humans evolved even further to do not respect this dogma of life any longer. can we act that suicidal? ----
in hope of good times to follow bad times caused by climate change caused by too much emissions of by-products of civilisation - have a nice day!
nobody asks you to hold your breath;-)
what we all _should_ do more is to behave more respectfully with energy. especially energy that was once biomass (coal, oil,...).
-> shut down the computer/light/... when you leave the house and are not using this resources
-> use bicycle or rollerblades for short-distance instead of a fuel-engined car
-> plant trees, help others protecting woods/rainforests
and so on... it can be really easy starting, without suffering much from less confort.... and it will be much confortable in the future - especially for future generations - if we start now!
i think, the word "cancelling out" is a wrong one.
the earlier models were suggesting that the biotope (that acts as a STORAGE of Carbon and therefore also as a SINK but if you burn parts of it (wood, plants...) then it is a SOURCE) is a more effective sink than we know now from new data. the reductions that politicans agreed to aspire and we should do are calculated on the early models. now with new data, this actually means that we should reduce our emissions even more than agreed because the natural sink is actually not as effective as thought before.
so i think "cancelling out" is simply a cooler and more "press-like" way to say this.
Well, the earth is huge. Sure, humans have a huge impact on the earth, but the area we occupy is a small percentage. Volcanos put out large amounts of CO2. The believe that when earth was a complete snowball (entirely covered with ice) it was the volcanos putting CO2 into the atmosphere which warmed the earth again (despite the high reflectivity of the snow/ice).
volcanos are not that effective as humans are... have a look at the measurements done in the last 45 years on CO_2 in atmosphere (for example here [Wikipedia Image:CO2-Mauna-Loa.png]) and you will realise that this data cannot be explained with volcanos but can be explained with CO_2 producing engines that burn C_n containing molecules.
we (humans) ARE changing the atmosphere - that's a fact!
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normally, if you destroy woods, you do this in the process of urbanisation. this includes destroying the soil. nobody just like that goes around killing trees because of fun.
;-)
to all geeks: it's a struggle for life out there - stand up, leave your computer and check what is happening outside!
oh, then it's ok. i didn't read the "earth releasing" as literarly as it can be, because it would be really funny to assume earth actively releasing CO_2 to get rid of humans. ;-)
on your question "can we destroy earth?" i think we must specify what we mean by "destroy".
destroy astronomically/geologically i think this we can answer with a clear "no", because not even all weapons of this world would really harm the crust of this planet seriously.
to make it more interesting, i would exchange the question with "can we destroy life?". and here it gets tricky ... theoretically, we "can" do such a stupid thing, but not without hurting the principle of the selfish lifeforms wanting to survive. everybody of us - even the species humans as such wants to survive. it would be really interesting from the biological point of view (i study mol. bio) to investigate if the humans evolved even further to do not respect this dogma of life any longer. can we act that suicidal? ----
in hope of good times to follow bad times caused by climate change caused by too much emissions of by-products of civilisation - have a nice day!
in a funny way, you are absolutely right... have a look here: how much is that tree worth?
nobody asks you to hold your breath ;-)
what we all _should_ do more is to behave more respectfully with energy. especially energy that was once biomass (coal, oil, ...).
-> shut down the computer/light/... when you leave the house and are not using this resources
-> use bicycle or rollerblades for short-distance instead of a fuel-engined car
-> plant trees, help others protecting woods/rainforests
and so on... it can be really easy starting, without suffering much from less confort .... and it will be much confortable in the future - especially for future generations - if we start now!
i think, the word "cancelling out" is a wrong one. the earlier models were suggesting that the biotope (that acts as a STORAGE of Carbon and therefore also as a SINK but if you burn parts of it (wood, plants ...) then it is a SOURCE) is a more effective sink than we know now from new data. the reductions that politicans agreed to aspire and we should do are calculated on the early models. now with new data, this actually means that we should reduce our emissions even more than agreed because the natural sink is actually not as effective as thought before.
so i think "cancelling out" is simply a cooler and more "press-like" way to say this.
Well, the earth is huge. Sure, humans have a huge impact on the earth, but the area we occupy is a small percentage. Volcanos put out large amounts of CO2. The believe that when earth was a complete snowball (entirely covered with ice) it was the volcanos putting CO2 into the atmosphere which warmed the earth again (despite the high reflectivity of the snow/ice).
... have a look at the measurements done in the last 45 years on CO_2 in atmosphere (for example here [Wikipedia Image:CO2-Mauna-Loa.png]) and you will realise that this data cannot be explained with volcanos but can be explained with CO_2 producing engines that burn C_n containing molecules.
volcanos are not that effective as humans are
we (humans) ARE changing the atmosphere - that's a fact!