From: Spike (spike66@comcast.net)
Date: Wed Jul 23 2003 - 22:24:18 MDT
From:Andrew Clough
...When a reduction in atmospheric CO2 progresses far enough, the
polar caps grow, and the increased albedo from them further cools the
Earth
in a runaway process that ends with our planet becoming one big
snowball. This seems to have happened several times in the distant
past,
put with massive death among photosynthesizers, the CO2 released from
volcanos (that's where inducted carbon eventually ends up) built up
enough
to reverse the process...
The process you are describing is the sputtering gasping
end of life on an earthlike planet. I agree that some
carbon can be freed by volcanos, but over the long haul
volcanos become ever scarcer, as does the free carbon.
For every lifeform we have today, there was something
bigger and better in the Jurassic: dinosaurs in place of
our lions, for instance, and those big honking dragonflies,
oh my! Life was almost finished on this planet when we
came along and saved it all. Not Gaia, not an expanded
sun, it was technological capable humans. Take a bow,
friends, our kind saved the planet.
spike
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