From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Mon Mar 25 2002 - 07:28:24 MST
> "Smigrodzki, Rafal" wrote:
> spike66new [mailto:spike66@ATTBI.com] wrote:
>
> Had not humanity come along, all Gaia's lifeforms would
> eventually perish
> for want of calcium and phosphorus, long ere lack of carbon
> would
> become a serious issue, long ere fatal global cooling as a
> result of
> atmospheric shortage of greenhouse gases such as carbon
> dioxide and
> methane.
>
> ### While I share your contempt and hatred for the Greens,
> I this case you might be incorrect - the natural processes
> of plate tectonics continuously recycle Earth's crust, and
> indeed the majority of the mineral constituents of our
> bodies are derived from weathered igneous and sedimentary
> rocks.
However, this is not relevant to Spike's point. The point is that
sequestration of carbon to the point that Ice House conditions become
prevalent results in the Earth eventually losing most of its atmosphere
as Mars did. We've already lost 98% of the atmosphere we started with
3.5 billion yrs ago, most of which is tied up in limestone, marble, etc
and will not be released by any tectonic processes.
The human race came along just in time, it seems, to rescue Earth from
terminal stages of Ice House conditions. The colder it gets, more
atmosphere precipitates into solid and liquid, which eventually become
rock, the ozone layer dies out with increasing cold, allowing solar UV
to help boil off the upper atmosphere to space.
With technological intervention, the possible 'green belt' of
habitability become wider for much longer, independent of the Sun and
the Earth's natural processes.
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