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Shady stories

What is the target level of CO2? Is it pre-industrial 280ppm? Is it to hold it at its current 380ppm? Maybe you want to drop it down to 150ppm? This is a critical and serious question that NO EXPERT HAS ADDRESSED. CO2 levels used to be at 7000 ppm, when animals started roaming Earth 540 million years ago. Nature has been sequestering it underground since then in the form of oil, coal, peat. CO2 generally has been declining 10ppm per million years. On a straight line calculation, nature would have hit the tipping point of 150ppm where nearly all plants on Earth die of starvation in about 10 million years if mankind hadn't retrieved and started burning carbon based fuels. Thus would have ended Earth's 3rd atmosphere. At 380ppm, Earth now has about 20 million years before nature sequesters it down to 150ppm. Environmentalists have presumed mankind has had one of two effects on Earth - either man is bad or neutral. Where is the possibility that mankind's industrialization may have benefitted Earth?

2 Sep 2009

6:20 pm