Ever had a beer or soft drink go flat after it gets warm? You know why that happens? The solubility of a gas into a liquid is inversely proportional to the liquid's temperature. As it heats up it becomes oversaturated and releases gas. This happens regardless if it's Corona, Pepsi, or water;
Science tells us the majority of the CO2 is trapped in oceans and other bodies of water.
If CO2 drove increases in temperature, instead of following it, the first increase in temperature, for any reason would increease water temperature, which would increase the release more CO2, which would increase temps.....
Until it created a runaway cycle that would push global Temps and CO2 levels so high it would extinguish all life on the planet, Since we're having this conversation, obviously this never happened.
This "runaway" fear mongering is utter bull.
Let's start with the realization that the amount of Carbon atoms is constant on this planet if we ignore the miniscule amounts we shot into outer space. This carbon is either in the ground as coal and oil, or in biomass (plants and critters), or floating around in the atmosphere as CO2 which is in balance with the portion of CO2 dissolved in the oceans.
The fear mongers are correct that warming oceans would cause less CO2 being dissolved which would drive it into the atmosphere.
But before we panic, let's look at the total.
Before the Cambrian period, about 500 million years ago, most of the Carbon existed as CO2. There was no coal, no oil and little life at that time.
That changed during the
Cambrian Explosion which ushered in a rapid growth of plant and plankton in both amount and diversity. These species grew out of the air by photosynthesis of biomass from CO2 with the help of solar energy.
The Oxygen atoms of the 'digested' CO2 were released back into the atmosphere. This allowed oxygen-breathing life to flourish and also explode in quantity and diversity.
The Carboniferous period then followed the Cambrian. As the name implies, this was the time when coal, which is mostly elemental carbon, was formed underground from plant matter via high pressure, temperature and the exclusion of Oxygen.
Oil was similarly formed from dead plankton. The reason we call these substances "fossil fuel" is that they are the remnants of earlier life aka fossils.
Let's recap. The "evil" fossil fuels were unarguably pre-dated and ultimately created by an explosion of life on this planet both in quantity and diversity. They are clear, irrefutable evidence that life thrived in a relatively carbon rich atmosphere. (On coal mine tailings you can easily find rocks with beautiful imprints of ancient plants that turned to coal hundreds of million years ago.)
Could the current release of CO2 from the oxidation (i.e. burning) of fossil fuels cause some discomfort for humans? Possibly, but there are many other factors that have a bigger leverage on the Earth's temperature. (What caused the ice ages to come and go long before the industrial revolution?)
The Earth's history provides clear evidence that the balance between plant life and atmospheric CO2 is stable and that there is no runaway scenario.
As atmospheric CO2 levels increase due to industrial activity it should not be a mystery where the visible greening of the planet comes from. Again, plants feed and grow from the CO2 in the air.
So, let's chillax, save some gas and oil to stretch our supply of medicines, paints, plastics and other very useful petrochemicals for as long as possible, but tell the marxist fear mongers to shove the green revolution up their tailpipe.
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