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Electric Car Drivel
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Do you have any papers to back up your assertions or have they been banned by the liberal elite global renewable cabal?
Indeed, and if it all works perfectly, that's carbon neutral - but you seem to have missed my point, which was about the isotope ratio of the CO2 - which will be the same for anything that originated in plants. In any event ....
In what sense is it not still part of the natural cycle? It will still be photosynthesised by (other) plants - and, in relation to what I said, the CO2 will have the same isotope ratios as any other plant-derived CO2. As go go on to say ....
So why are you saying that it makes a difference whether the tree died today or a million years ago?
Kind Regards, John
Yes, as that carbon has been removed from the carbon cycle (millions of years ago) and the earth became balanced. Introducing the carbon back into the cycle at the rate that we are is unbalencing the carbon cycle and the earth cannot adapt fast enough to remove it from the atmosphere. It has adapted before, but these changes took millions of years.
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I get your point, the main thrust of the argument is evidence that the co2 is not from a geological source, however the evidence shows that plants have not caused such a massive shift in co2 levels in all the time it's taken from us to move from a glacial to an interglacial period, a major geological change, and the rapid change seen in the past 200 years is strongly linked to the release of carbon that is not part of the carbon cycle, e.g. carbon that was sequestered millions of years ago.
I don't really understand that argument.
If, today, I burn 1,000 trees which were alive this morning, I have, at least for a good while, 'unbalanced' the situation in that there are now 1,000 less trees to deal with the CO2 produced by that burning - and I would think that would be at least as true if I had waited a million years after chopping down the trees before burning them.
I'm obviously not suggesting that burning the million-years-dead trees is even remotely close to 'carbon neutral', but I don't see why burning one-day-dead ones should be, either.
In fact, I would rather have expected the converse. Even if I chop down 1,000 trees today and do not burn them, I will have immediately upset the balance - such as there will be a (tiny) increase in atmospheric CO2 unless the surviving plant life can adapt quickly enough to deal with that additional CO2 - and if I do burn the trees, that increase will be even greater. On the other hand, the ecosystems have had a million years to recover from the loss of the trees which were turned into fossil fuel, so might be in a better position to respond to an input of CO2 into the atmosphere (which has no associated immediate loss of plant life).
Kind Regards, John
Indeed, that was my point - that if atmospheric CO2 levels rise because of an input of CO2 from anything other than a geological source, then the 13C:12C ratio in the atmosphere will decrease.
What evidence? As I've said, if the shift in CO2 levels has been associated with a fall in the 13C:12C ratio, then it must ultimately derive from a plant source, and I'm not sure how one could distinguish between the various (direct and indirect) flavours of that.
Yes, but that really takes us back to the simple (and strong) circumstantial evidence that the changes in atmospheric CO2 has largely mirrored the anthropogenic production of CO2, such that the former is very probably (at least largely) the consequence of the latter - and I don't really see that things like the isotope ratios really give specific support to that hypothesis. For example, a small reduction in the efficiency of photosynthesis (maybe due to 'anthropogenic' introduction of toxins into the environment since the industrial revolution started) could have had a similar effect, increasing the change in atmospheric CO2 due to burning carbon.
Kind Regards, John
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I think I didn't explain my premise regarding carbon neutral tree burning correctly. It assumes a cyclical process where the tree is grown (absorbing carbon), burnt (releasing carbon), and another tree is grown in its place (absorbing carbon) etc. Obviously if the trees are not replaced, it isn't carbon neutral!
Well yes, given a million years the ecosystem may well recover from all of the carbon we have introduced into the atmosphere, unfortunately we keep pumping it out and the ecosystem has no chance to balance
Ice core analysis of Co2 levels and isotopes from the last ice age onwards shows that organic CO2 was responsible for around 0.015% changes. Analysis from post 1850 show 0.06% from organic carbon. Given there hasn't been any serious geological events, the increase in carbon must come organic sources.
A natural change of 100ppm has been shown to take around 5000 to 20000 years. We have seen it in 150. Now is there 100% certainty its fossil fuel burning? No. There are very few 100% certain facts. But no hypotheses have been developed to explain it as well as the theory of ACC (note, ACC is a theory, not a hypothesis)
Has another mechanism been proposed that actually stands up to scrutiny? No. Your hypothesis about decreased photosynthesis has a number of issues, as I have mentioned (more Co2 in the atmosphere, increased temperatures and global dimming have all been shown to increase photosynthesis, not decrease it. This is the mechanism by which the carbon cycle has been balanced for eons, only being disrupted by massive influxes of carbon into the system (volcanic activity, fossil fuel burning etc), which we are seeing now.
You say its circumstantial, but in science you cannot always measure things empirically.
Fair enough, but that's a substantial move of the goalposts - and I still don't see how the time-lag is relevant. If one is going to replace the tree once it has been burnt, then I don't see why it matters whether the tree died on the day it was burnt or a million years earlier.
That's what I said - that the isotopic data seems to indicate that, whatever details of the source, the ultimate source of the increased CO2 in the atmosphere must have been 'organic'. That's why I asked what you meant when you wrote: ".... however the evidence shows that plants have not caused such a massive shift in co2 levels in all the time ...". As we have both said, it seems that plants have (ultimately) been responsible for all the increased CO2 - but it's difficult to be sure how different variations on the 'plant' theme (including the burning of fossil fuels) contribution to the observed total.
Indeed - but, as I have said, for example, traces of toxins (probably introduced into the environment by man) could easily reverse all that. Some groups of herbicides can, at herbicidal levels, totally kill photosynthesis, so it's not unreasonable to assume that, at low levels, some chemical environmental pollutants could result in markedly impaired photosynthesis. Pure speculation/hypothesis, but certainly not impossible. If the toxins were introduced by man, I suppose that would count as 'ACC', albeit nothing to do with the burning of fossil fuels.
Of course, particularly if the subject is historical. However, that does not alter the fact that it is essentially circumstantial, which, even if often inevitable, is not ideal, and makes 'certainties' difficult/impossible to get.
Kind Regards, John
Well you cited him (Cook) as a source of information, but now you are saying that he s/b ignored. You seem rather confused.
So rather than responding to my points, which were supported by data, you merely throw in a snide comment.
Normally (always?) the sign of a week or non-existent argument.
Well, over the millennia, tress have been growing up, dying, and then either rotting away (releasing the carbon "a few" years after sequestering it) or ending up as peat/coal/oil/etc. In the latter case, the CO2 sequestered during growth is now locked away "permanently". The earth has gone on like this for a long long time, with this sequestering and long term storage of CO2 being part of the CO2 cycle & balance.
I geological terms, growing a tree, cutting it down, and growing another one isn't even a blink of an eye. So it is indeed carbon neutral (ignoring things like fuel burnt to cut it down and transport it) in terms of today's ecosystem. However, if you burn the trees that grew and died a million years ago (by burning coal/oil/etc) then you are releasing into TODAY's ecosystem, carbon that was locked up from the ecosystem of a million years ago.
One could hypothesise that if nothing else had changed in that million years, if we burned the coal/oil slowly enough then the system would rebalance itself and we'd get back to the state it had a million years ago before that carbon was taken out of the system. But it would need to be done at a rate the system could adapt to, rather than the step change (in geological timeframes) we've done since industrialisation.
There is another option hinted at earlier. If you grow a load of trees, chop them down, but DON'T burn them - then you've taken a load of carbon out of circulation (principally by removing CO2 from the atmosphere). And that carbon will remain out of circulation for as long as the wood remains as wood. The trick is to prevent the wood rotting away, or getting burnt later when someone finds a stash of nicely seasoned firewood
I think simonh2 made my point rather well
Well we know from the ice record the contribution of just plants, and it shows a marked difference prior to the burning of fossil fuels
It could, but evidence I have seen suggests global photosynthesis is on the rise, and has been for the past 200 years.
Large historical growth in global terrestrial gross primary production, Nature,
Most herbicides don't linger in the ecosystem and are broken down quite quickly.
I don't really understand. If you burn, say, 1 tonne of 'tree' it will put the same amount of CO2 into the atmosphere whether it is from a current tree or one which turned into fossil fuel a million years ago - and if one is, in either case, going to plant a new tree, that new tree will grow, and start participating in the carbon cycle, in exactly the same way (and speed) in both cases. What is the difference?
Yes, it was me who did that hinting, but I don't get your point. Yes, chopping down a tree and doing nothing with it takes carbon out of circulation, but a living tree is a net remover of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, so, far from what you suggest, cutting down trees should tend to increase (not decrease) the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Carbon which is out of circulation is not really relevant to this discussion - whether it be chopped down trees or the bricks and wood in our houses. As above, all one will achieve by chopping down trees is a fractional decrease in the ability of the ecosystem to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.And that carbon will remain out of circulation for as long as the wood remains as wood. The trick is to prevent the wood rotting away, or getting burnt later when someone finds a stash of nicely seasoned firewood
Kind Regards, John
When that tree (that is now oil) grew, the atmosphere had a much higher level of co2 in it than it does now. Reintroducing that carbon has the effect of shifting the equilibrium of carbon in the cycle upwards. It would be neutral if that tree was replaced now, as it would soak up as much carbon as was released by burning it. But we are not replacing the trees that we are burning. Normally nature would grow more trees as the carbon increased, but carbon is increasing faster than nature can absorb it. So the carbon in fossil fuel is part if the cycle, but has been removed from the atmosphere (when carbon levels were much higher)
And removing carbon from the active carbon cycle, which is a key point.
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