why is co2 such a concern?

New to the global warming debate, eh?

Not enough plants to absorb CO2. If trees are planted that improve absorbsion of CO2, a possibility of producing more methane which is a worst greenhouse gas. Catch 22?

I think some major sources of methane would be difficult to capture, such as cow farts.

Were you on the Bush "environmental" team???

Too much of a good thing can fry you.

Natural cycle, or not, too much CO2 will adversely affect us all.

since I am a newbie and cannot seem to wrap my mind around the adverse effects of "too much" CO2, I'd really appreciate some scientific qualification and quantification from any expert out there.

Thanks

for a newbie on this matter, you'll like this site.

HTH!

Perhaps the problem is one of perspective. The co2 that traps the heat is well above the reach of any plant life. And the volume of air in between must be substantially thinned out first before the partial pressure of co2 at ground level starts to drop.

The effects we are seeing now only came about in the last 100 years. And during that 100 years the annual rate of production of co2 due to human activity has been accelerating. It is expected to continue to accelerate as the demand for machine based transportation and electricity continues to grow with population and modernization. Consequently, if we wait to react until we feel the full effect, it will be like trying to stop a freight train with your bare hands.

Those plants that we need so desperately to remove co2 may not tolerate elevated temperatures very well. Then what? And, the process of photosynthesis is fairly slow compared to the rate at which we can produce co2. Are we producing co2 faster than the existing plants can use it up? Yes, no question about that. How much can we stand before conditions really get bad? No one knows, but it will surely be a long and hard road to recovery. There may have to be some massive population reduction or extinction before significant co2 reduction can begin. That would not be my preference.

CO2 is heavier than the major constituents of the atmosphere, N2 and O2. Why would it be at a higher altitude where plants couldn't use it? Wouldn't it tend to sink lower, or at least commingle with O2 and N2 at ground or sea-level?

It would seem with that reasoning there would not be any plant growth in the highest mountains.

Perhaps this will explain.

Did you want to live like dinosaurs? If oceans covered much of the earth who cared at the time. It is not what about happened in the past, any global warming would be about our future. The earth would survive and probably other species as well. Something as cyclical as an ice age would make it extremely difficult for northern societies and put enormous requirements on resources. There are too many humans now just to relocate. Technology would not have been developed to save us, because once again we are making our survival political.

Hi, fisher!

re your question, "why the push to regulate and eradicate [CO₂]?

Here's reason two for concerns surrounding over-production of CO₂ inside the earth's atmosphere.

It turns out that some of the excess CO₂ that doesn't get eaten up by the natural CO₂ consumers in the biosphere mixes with seawater to produce Carbonic Acid (H₂CO₃) and a chemical called Carbonate (CO₃).

50% of the uneaten amount of the 3% of the earth's current excess CO₂ ...produced in a very small way by burning of fossil fuels... is reported to have become dissolved in the oceans over a surprising number of years of recent human history.

This leads us to think that the human-produced excess CO₂ is more attracted to ocean-mixing than normally produced excess CO₂.

The additional amount of CO₃ (carbonate) now in the oceans makes them less able to absorb the extra CO₃ that used to be contributed by limestone (CaCO₃) areas on the ocean floor here and there around the world. The additional CO₃ also means super-saturation of that chemical by the oceans...in some areas, they can't absorb any more.

At the same time, the H₂CO₃ (carbonic acid) lowers the PH of the oceans in general, which means oceans are becoming more acidic.

Wikipedia explains this in more detail (although it's not necessary to know the details, just the results):

"When CO₂ dissolves, it reacts with water to form a balance of ionic and non-ionic chemical species : dissolved free carbon dioxide (CO_{2 (aq)}), carbonic acid (H₂CO₃), bicarbonate (HCO₃^-) and carbonate (CO₃^2-). The ratio of these species depends on factors such as seawater temperature and alkalinity (see the article on the ocean's solubility pump for more detail)."

As you may well imagine, it's not possible to lower the amount of alkalinity (or raise the amount of acidity, depending upon which way you look at it) of the oceans without having some sort of effect on sea life.

We already know from experience that fly ash [sulphur-containing air pollution --from high smoke stacks-- mixes with rain and becomes sulphuric acid,] and the resulting "acid rain" has caused thousands of entire freshwater lakes in North America and elsewhere to have no (zero, none!) fish life any more because the fish were not able to live in the higher acid environment; as well as burning the foliage off millions of trees throughout North America.

Raising the acidity in the oceans is having two negative effects.

The most noticeable is that it becomes more difficult for shellfish to make and keep their shells, which suffer a little when the amount of carbonate rises in seawater.

The second is that the amount of available oxygen for the fish to breathe is lessened. There are already "dead zones" in the ocean where fish refuse to live because the available oxygen is too low to sustain them. And when you think about the possibility that we might have something to do with them, mankind-caused dead zones in the oceans is a very scary thing.

Our oceans are under attack in a variety of ways already. Over-fishing has depleted some fish stocks to the point where they are off-limits for fishermen until they can bounce back, and perhaps also "IF" they are able to bounce back. Bottom dragging is a variety of fishing characterized by dragging fish nets across the bottom of the ocean to catch more fish; and is messing up the life-sustaining eco systems along the ocean's bottom and killing other species that can't be used for food but get caught by the nets anyway.

Several species of animals, birds, and fish, etc. that are ocean-aquatic dwellers have been doomed to extinction by these attacks. Even knowing this, several countries still have fishermen who follow these damaging fishing practices because there are too many mouths to feed with a very small agricultural production capability at home and a tradition of living off the sea.

This is putting the oceans under attack as well; and marine biologists, oceanographers, and food economists and ecologists around the world warn that with the extinction of ocean species due to carbonic acidification of the oceans, human extinction may follow rapidly.

That's another good reason to be concerned about the excess production of CO₂, don't you think?

The third reason will follow soon. (Or, just tell me you can't take any more, and I'll stop! )

Mark

Fisher,

It's not just about the CO2, there are many other gases released by our industrial processes that harm the atmosphere and the environment.

All these gases have been given a CO2 equivelant to make it easier for people to get thier heads around the problem.

From memory, for some of the CFC's, 1 tonne of CFC = 22 tonnes of CO2 = 20 Cars

Trees wont help with some of the gases.

Regards,
Sapper

I thank all of you for your contributions to the discussion on this hot topic.

Sincerely

Dan