The global warming/CO2 emissions/Global CO2 level.

Status
Not open for further replies.

Thread Starter

dannyf

Joined Sep 13, 2015
2,197
The largest global source of NOx emission is that of fossil fuel burning, with a recent estimate of 33 Tg per year.
Think about this through.

If we could stop burning fossil fuel all together, what will happen to NOx (or CO2) emission over the long term? and what will happen to their presence in the atmosphere?

It is not a simple question.


===================
Mod edit:
This thread was split from --
VW - not so "Clean Diesel"
http://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/vw-not-so-clean-diesel.115588/
 

Brownout

Joined Jan 10, 2012
2,390
Think about this through.

If we could stop burning fossil fuel all together, what will happen to NOx (or CO2) emission over the long term? and what will happen to their presence in the atmosphere?

It is not a simple question.
More than likely, their levels would return to pre-industrial levels, after a few hundred years.. What else could happen?
 
Last edited:

Thread Starter

dannyf

Joined Sep 13, 2015
2,197
What else could happen?
The answer depends on time scale and your perspective.

carbon content in the atmosphere come from two sources:
1) natural decay of plants and burning of such plants: surprisingly, burning plants is carbon neutral -> the carbon would have been returned to the atmosphere anyway through decaying.
2) burning of fossil fuel / creating of fossil fuel: burning of fossil fuel releases carbon captured millions of years ago and creation of fossil fuel stores carbon away for millions of years.

So if we didn't burn carbon fuel over a long period of time, you will see more and more carbon being stored away and if that continues sufficiently long, you would have greatly depleted carbon in the atmosphere.

A biology major can probably answer what happens to earth if there is very little carbon in the air, :)

BTW, there existed pre-historic periods in earth history where carbon PPM was much higher than it is today.
 

Brownout

Joined Jan 10, 2012
2,390
So if we didn't burn carbon fuel over a long period of time, you will see more and more carbon being stored away and if that continues sufficiently long, you would have greatly depleted carbon in the atmosphere.
We already tried that experiment. Fossil fuel burning has only been used for a couple hundred years. Before that, atmospheric COtwo levels were healthy and not depleted.

Sorry, keyboard going out and numbers not working.
 

Thread Starter

dannyf

Joined Sep 13, 2015
2,197
They weren't healthy.
I thought you just said that historical levels were healthy?

During the rise of civilization, and for the last ten thousand years,
Look before the rise of civilization. Go maybe a few hundred million years.

The atmospheric levels of CO2 has been on a general and dramatical decline, just as our reasoning earlier on carbon sinks would have suggested.
 

Thread Starter

dannyf

Joined Sep 13, 2015
2,197
The atmospheric levels of CO2 has been on a general and dramatical decline,
The same also holds true for earth temperature: historically, it was much hotter and the current temperature on earth is below historical average.

That means that if things do go back to "average" or "normal" or "healthy", we should see a temperature rise naturally.

:)
 

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
The rules and standards might be goofy but VW lied and cheated knowing the rules and standards that others must follow to sell products here.

VW is a
View attachment 91803

I also find it ironic that the EPA is opposing rules to open up car electronics to legally reverse-engineering the codes for the public.

http://www.wired.com/2015/09/epa-opposes-rules-couldve-exposed-vws-cheating/
The title of "Cheater" looks to be the winner for VW.
Shareholders, not winning....


image.jpg
 

tcmtech

Joined Nov 4, 2013
2,867
I thought you just said that historical levels were healthy?
He did in fact say it in post 58,

We already tried that experiment. Fossil fuel burning has only been used for a couple hundred years. Before that, atmospheric COtwo levels were healthy and not depleted.

Sorry, keyboard going out and numbers not working.
BTW don't bother arguing with him about his posts and what he says in them. Believe me I and others have tried. If you find one post saying something that contradicts himself from an earlier post statement all you will get is the 'Your taking it out of his intended context' excuse even when the as said context of each contradicting statement fits perfectly with the topics being discussed in the thread. :rolleyes:

Look before the rise of civilization. Go maybe a few hundred million years.

The atmospheric levels of CO2 has been on a general and dramatical decline, just as our reasoning earlier on carbon sinks would have suggested.
The whole concept of what is normal and what isnot is entirely dependant on what point of view you are looking at things from.
Based on past million plus year ago numbers we are at a dangerously low CO2 level. RIght now the majority of people view that what it was 200 years ago was the correct one but as far as the planet as whole goes nature adapts to whatever conditions are at hand and thus makes the immediate conditions the correct one.

As for the present it is neither good or bad. It is what it is and life will find a way to go one regardless of what us humans declare to be correct incorrect favorable or unfavorable being all of those classifications are ours. Nature itself has no universal perfect value for anything.

As us humans go even right now we can't agree on what is good or bad about anything being what is favorable for one may not be favorable for another. What we do know is so far the those who have cried out that things are going to get worse have yet to ever be correct in their predictions. Some places have changed to being less favorable by human standards and others have become more favorable but as a whole everything has yet to go outside of the limits of our and everything else's capacity to adapt.

To the believer who sees all human kind as bad we have made things worse and anyone who disagrees is a denier.

To the skeptic there is too much evidence going both ways to declare everything all bad or all good and the only thing they can agree with is things have changed just like they always have been doing.

To the denier, well so far I have not found one that fits the believers descriptions of a denier other than themselves being if you do not agree with their view they are the only ones who deny that there can be any other view than their own. :rolleyes::p
 

joeyd999

Joined Jun 6, 2011
5,234
To the denier, well so far I have not found one that fits the believers descriptions of a denier other than themselves being if you do not agree with their view they are the only ones who deny that there can be any other view than their own...
And, the most important aspect of the believers: they'd prefer that the deniers were dead (or at least incarcerated).
 

Brownout

Joined Jan 10, 2012
2,390
I thought you just said that historical levels were healthy?
I don't think I used the word "historical", but I believe I have referred to pre-industrial levels many times, which is widely accepted as the time of man before the indutrial age. For an estimated 2 million years before the indstrial revoluton, CO2 levels were lower than today.

Look before the rise of civilization. Go maybe a few hundred million years.
Why? It's the disruption to civilization and the life that evolved in a cooler, lessor CO2 level period which is at risk.

The atmospheric levels of CO2 has been on a general and dramatical decline, just as our reasoning earlier on carbon sinks would have suggested.
So, there were no plants before the decline? Why did the levels stop declining a couple million years ago, even with the earth covered with plants?
 
Last edited:

mcgyvr

Joined Oct 15, 2009
5,394
What?
Corruption/Dishonesty at an auto company?
Impossible..
Next I'll hear that Santa isn't real..

#Theyalldoit..
 

tcmtech

Joined Nov 4, 2013
2,867
And, the most important aspect of the believers: they'd prefer that the deniers were dead (or at least incarcerated).
That's the thing. Who exactly is denying anything? I have yet to find a single person who denies that the climate throughout the world is constantly changing in some way everywhere all the time.

The only persons I have found that deny anything are the believers being they outrightly do their best to deny that anything good comes from change and that before taking major action on our human part the science of the whole concept should be solidly and undeniably sound which in this case anyone who has tried to follow and study how our planetary climates works tends to agree that there are huge grey areas and unknowns very much in play.

For example the commonly used term Global Warming Potential, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global-warming_potential , that relates to greenhouse gases says right in its name 'potential' meaning we do not know exactly how these greenhouse gases act in the real world grand scale environments so at best we apply fairly rough estimated values and make asumptions to their affects and durations.
We know what effect they do in controlled laboratory tests but when applied to the highly complex actions of nature well we sort of just have to take a guess and hope we are sort of right even though we can not exactly prove it one way or another because other GWP gases like water vapor, which we have zero control over, in the real world have the capacity and potential to easily nullify the other gases potential actions.

Personally it's that heavy reliance on our use of best guesses and estimates that can and in some ways have admittedly huge margins of error associated with them that leaves me highly skeptical of the true values and effectiveness of our actions.
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
Guess time to lock this one.

I love how religious deniers are. It is a matter of degree, not that the climate doesn't change.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top