CO2 balance

[GJB]

Please help me out,

 

I have a question about CO2 balance.

 

There seems to be quite a big discussion going on about this subject.

 

One opinion is that there is a natural dynamic balance in CO2 emission and absorption, and the man made CO2 production is disturbing this balance.

 

The contrary opinion is that ther is no balance and CO2 levels have allways varied.

 

At least that's what I understand.

 

Hence my question : Is there a natural balance in CO2 emission and absorption or not.

 

Please enlighten me

[CaptainPanic]

It's a bit of both. The natural balance changes slowly over time. But most scientists seem to agree that humans are increasing the speed of this change.

[iDevonian]

There is a balance, however, with modern technology, we are destroying what took earth hundreds of millions of years to create, in the blink of an eye. We are altering the balance.

[acryllic]

On a side note, do you think it is possible that someday the CO2 level in the air would be too high clean air would actually become a commodity sold in supermarkets?

[CaptainPanic]

On a side note, do you think it is possible that someday the CO2 level in the air would be too high clean air would actually become a commodity sold in supermarkets?

 

No, not CO2. By the time CO2 in the atmosphere becomes toxic, our planet will be toasted from global warming.

 

However, perhaps smog can make the air (locally) so bad that people will want to spend money to get clean air. But I think that instead even the worst governments will prefer to implement regulations to clean up the air. The last resort, in my opinion, is to install filters in buildings (and vehicles) to clean the air.

 

I don't think that bottled clean air will ever sell. Just look at the size of the tanks of a scuba diver. Such a tank only lasts for an hour or so. Imagine going through 24 of those in a day.

[EdEarl]

I don't think that bottled clean air will ever sell. Just look at the size of the tanks of a scuba diver. Such a tank only lasts for an hour or so. Imagine going through 24 of those in a day.

People who need oxygen therapy do not need bottles at home. There are machines that concentrate oxygen from the air. I suspect that similar technology combined with air filtration could supply clean air without bottles, regardless of CO2 levels.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_therapy#Storage_and_sources

[Enthalpy]

To understand CO₂ in the atmosphere, the best way is to follow the carbon.

 

Carbon can be in the soil, put there over hundreds of millions of years in the form of coal, petrol, gas, peat...

Or on the soil as organic matter, in forests, crop...

Or in the Ocean as biomass, dissolved CO₂, methane hydrates.

Or in the atmosphere as CO₂.

 

If you think at the transformations between the molecules containing carbon, and their location, you understand more. For instance, that a forest stable in height and extension does not transform CO₂ into O₂ - it only stores carbon as organic material, this carbon being away from the atmosphere.

 

From the excess CO₂ we inject by burning fossil fuels, the Ocean takes a part, the rest is in the air to stay. The proportion of atmospheric CO₂ has already risen a lot, the amount fits the quantity of fossil fuels Mankind has burnt, and the epoch of CO₂ rise fits the consumption of fossil fuels.

 

So independent thinkers don't need to believe one group or an other, nor study twisted arguments. All the data is available. Compare it, and conclude that Mankind has increased the atmospheric CO₂ by burning fossil fuels.

[EdEarl]

The world consumes more than a cubic mile of oil a year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil

[Tim the plumber]

Normally there would be a natural balace between the release of CO2 from volcanoes, natural errosion/leaking of fossil fuels and errosion of limestone and the absorbsion of CO2 by vegitation and oceans.

 

Since we are burning quite a lot of fossil fuel the amount of CO2 has increased.

 

This higher level of input into the atmosphere has resulted in an increase in the the amount in the air.

 

The rate of absorbsion is strongly related to the amount of the stuff in the air.

Untill the abundancy of CO2 reaches a level where the rate of release matches the rate of absorbsion the level of CO2 will increase.

 

I expect that long before such a time we humans will have developed new tecnologies which will be cheaper at making electricity and fuel.