Something nearly everyone's overlooked.

mortifiedpenguin · Heavy Crude Joined: Oct 15, 2004 Posts: 119

There's a little problem we're all forgetting. When we stop using as much oil and start converting to nonrenewables, the amount of CO2 we produce will go down. That's good, you might say. Actually, it's not. It causes a big problem:

Oil peak (What I'm talking about is at the bottom of the article.)

By the way, I highly recommend this site. It tells about all the numerous ways our world could end, and it explains it in a simple and entertaining way.

So basically the idea is that when we stop producing huge amounts of CO2 like we've been doing for decades, all those plants and algae that have lived off our CO2 will suck all the remaining CO2 out of the atmosphere. Trouble is, the heat from the sun will no longer be trapped inside. Our CO2 blanket has been eaten up. So since there's nothing keeping heat in, it will get cold. Very cold. Ice Age Part 2 cold.

Wildwell · Fission Joined: Feb 03, 2005 Posts: 2080 Location: UK

Suck the remaining Co2 out of the atmos? Hmn, I don't think so. There's plenty of coal and wood to burn anyway! Cool

Breathing creates CO2 as well!

kambei · Tar Sands Joined: Dec 03, 2004 Posts: 31 Location: UK

Hmm, to say the least.

Do you have any links with evidence for this? What's the evidence that increased CO2 has increased the amount of plants/alage? If so, wouldnt it be offset by deforestation, overgrazing etc? Oil consumption will be a slow and gradual decline and CO2 stays in the atmosphere for a long time, so what sort of timescale are we talking about? Severity?

Sounds a bit silly to me.
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ohanian · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Oct 17, 2004 Posts: 1143

Sure the next ICE AGE may come in the next 50-60 years but by then I shall be dead and it is NOT MY PROBLEM.

PEAK OIL is MY PROBLEM.

Egon_1 · Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 8:26 pm Post subject:

I think mortifiedpenguin has a point.

Most systems in nature tend equalize themselves. If there is more CO2, then CO2 consumers would probably tend increase as well. The flip side would be a decrease in CO2 consumers with a decrease in CO2.

I guess the net effect would depend on how fast the CO2 levels dropped. I'm thinking they wouldn't drop very fast, even if humans stopped producing CO2 instantly. And as they did drop, there should be a corresponding drop in CO2 consumers, as well, eventually reaching equilibrium again.

Does that sound reasonable?

mortifiedpenguin · Heavy Crude Joined: Oct 15, 2004 Posts: 119

^^ Yeah. Something like that.

I don't have any other links at the moment, but I would easily bet my money that this web page is right. I can't think of a single time that it's been wrong. Read it for yourself.

savethehumans · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Oct 20, 2004 Posts: 1541

I'm with Wildwell. Lots of coal, methane, tar shale & sands out there. I don't think a lack of CO2 in the atmosphere is gonna be a problem anytime soon.... Sad

DriveElectric · Intermediate Crude Joined: Mar 12, 2005 Posts: 639

The rate of change for C02 in the atmosphere is slow and the trends do not reverse themselves on a dime.

280 ppm in 1860
340 ppm in 1981
379 ppm in 2004

The average increase per year in the past decade is 1.8 ppm each year. The most recent year had an increase of about 3.0 ppm.

This trend is not likely to reverse anytime soon. We still have 1/2 of the oil to burn. At best, the rate of growth might decelerate.

The goal of the planet is to stabalize CO2 at 500 ppm (in 2100) because if we go above that level the computer models show us frying.

There is a theory that Peak Oil and Global Warming are not completely compatible concepts. For example, if we are peaking now and 83-84 million bpd is the max for oil and the downslope begins, that means the worst case scenarios for Global Warming are not possible.

Many Global Warming models are based on 120 million bpd of oil being consumed in 2030.

Sys1 · Intermediate Crude Joined: Feb 25, 2005 Posts: 678

Something else about fast growth of CO2 in atmosphere. Some scientists believe that a lot of methane hydrate prisonner of permafrost is liberated in while global warming.
It's a kind of trigger hypothesis where global warning start to aliment itself in an exponential way. Even if we would stop any producing of CO2, it wouldn't stop. But well, that's just an hypothesis, we not sure of anything regarding climate.

EnviroEngr · Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2005 11:02 am Post subject: IPCC

The IPCC folks call this a "positive feedback loop".
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| Whose reality is this anyway!? |
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SpasticDancer · Coal Joined: Jan 20, 2005 Posts: 18 Location: OR, USA

mortifiedpenguin · Heavy Crude Joined: Oct 15, 2004 Posts: 119

Uh, there's not going to be a zombie apocalypse. Did you even read that one?

Keith_McClary

Ebyss · Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 1:55 pm Post subject:

But wait, what about global dimming? As I understand it (and please correct me if I'm wrong) Global dimming from pollution, particularly aviation pollution, keeps the world slightly cool as the suns rays can't fully get in. Now, after peak oil hits, and pollution drops (as there's less oil being burnt and less aircraft flying), won't global dimming reduce, and thus the earth will heat up?

This is what happened when the airplanes were grounded during 9/11, a significant rise in temperature was noted across America. Is it possible that a large reduction in pollution would speed up global warming?

(I'm not sure if I understood all this correctly, so excuse me if I got it completely wrong Crying or Very sad

)
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kerosene · Tar Sands Joined: Mar 31, 2005 Posts: 70

I think the global dimming is more mental than physical

(sorry couldn't resist)

I have really big difficulties believing this claim. In Philippines you see nice green hills full of palm trees and banana and you think what a nice tropical environment. Then you see a tree (that hasn't been cut for some reason) from the original tropical forest that used to exist there - The old tree stands 10 times higher than the current green mass. The current state is way closer to the Sahara desert than to the original tropical pre-homo-sapiens forest.

I totally can not believe that the fauna can tie in carbon at any amazing rate. The changes humans have done are enourmous and faster than any natural change in state. + many places that used to be forest (Ethiopia in 19th century 80-90% forest ) are now totally incapable of growing it back (Ethiopia again - nowadays les than 3% forest and very dry, huge erosion).

Nature's own changes don't take place in 60 year or even 100 year periods - unlike human caused.

Why on earth wouldn't the fauna seek the pre human era balance? Why it suddenly would suck all carbon? Ok more temperature might make it nicer for plants but if the situation started to change that would balance out.

Heikki