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and, what percentage of the total carbon on the entire planet was sequestered verses re-released on decay?LOL. Every bit of the carbon in each barrel of crude oil ever processed, or vein of coal ,mined, was sequestered.
Matter is neither created nor destroyed. The co2 had to come from somewhere and has to go somewhere.
If trees/plants sequester co2 only to re-release that co2 back into the atmosphere when they die and decay, millions of years worth of co2 is missing, right?
Let me try to make my confusion clear (is that an oxymoron?):No matter was created. The plant material and the bodies of the tiny animals fell to the bottom of the giant swamp where there was no oxygen to breakdown and decay the material. It is not CO2. Carbon is found in the structure of the plants and the tiny animal bodies. When we extract that carbon, and burn it, that releases the long sequestered carbon back into the carbon cycle as CO2.
This is what I can't logically connect:
Earth started with X amount of co2.
y amount of co2 was sequestered.
Thus, Z amount of co2 is in the atmosphere.
Before any sequestration ever occurred (with the exception of a minuscule addition due to meteor strikes) X amount of carbon existed in some for or another.
Let me try to make my confusion clear (is that an oxymoron?):No matter was created. The plant material and the bodies of the tiny animals fell to the bottom of the giant swamp where there was no oxygen to breakdown and decay the material. It is not CO2. Carbon is found in the structure of the plants and the tiny animal bodies. When we extract that carbon, and burn it, that releases the long sequestered carbon back into the carbon cycle as CO2.
Sequestration started at some point in time (millions of years ago). Was there a higher percentage of atmospheric co2 then?
So, before the Carboniferous period, Earth would have had much higher concentrations of co2 in the atmosphere, right?Let me try to make my confusion clear (is that an oxymoron?):No matter was created. The plant material and the bodies of the tiny animals fell to the bottom of the giant swamp where there was no oxygen to breakdown and decay the material. It is not CO2. Carbon is found in the structure of the plants and the tiny animal bodies. When we extract that carbon, and burn it, that releases the long sequestered carbon back into the carbon cycle as CO2.
Sequestration started at some point in time (millions of years ago). Was there a higher percentage of atmospheric co2 then?
The Paleozoic Era
So, before the Carboniferous period, Earth would have had much higher concentrations of co2 in the atmosphere, right?Let me try to make my confusion clear (is that an oxymoron?):No matter was created. The plant material and the bodies of the tiny animals fell to the bottom of the giant swamp where there was no oxygen to breakdown and decay the material. It is not CO2. Carbon is found in the structure of the plants and the tiny animal bodies. When we extract that carbon, and burn it, that releases the long sequestered carbon back into the carbon cycle as CO2.
Sequestration started at some point in time (millions of years ago). Was there a higher percentage of atmospheric co2 then?
The Paleozoic Era
Then, there is this:
"On long timescales, atmospheric CO2 concentration is determined by the balance among geochemical processesincluding organic carbon burial in sediments, silicate rock weathering, and volcanism. The net effect of slight imbalances in the carbon cycle over tens to hundreds of millions of years has been to reduce atmospheric CO2. On a timescale of billions of years, such downward trend appears bound to continue indefinitely as occasional massive historical releases of buried carbon due to volcanism will become less frequent (as earth mantle cooling and progressive exhaustion of internal radioactive heat proceeds further). The rates of these processes are extremely slow; hence they are of no relevance to the atmospheric CO2 concentration over the next hundreds or thousands of years.
In billion-year timescales, it is predicted that plant, and therefore animal, life on land will die off altogether, since by that time most of the remaining carbon in the atmosphere will be sequestered underground, and natural releases of CO2 by radioactivity-driven tectonic activity will have continued to slow down.[29] The loss of plant life would also result in the eventual loss of oxygen. Some microbes are capable of photosynthesis at concentrations of CO2 of a few parts per million and so the last life forms would probably disappear finally due to the rising temperatures and loss of the atmosphere when the sun becomes a red giant some four billion years from now.[30]"
Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere - Wikipedia
Summary:
The earth had much higher concentrations of co2, but due to fewer volcanic events as the Earth's mantle cools, co2 will continue to decrease, due to natural, unavoidable sequestration that cannot easily be reversed.
Looks to me like we are prolonging the Earth's life by de-sequestrating co2, no?
The prediction is that life on earth will die out eventually because ALL the co2 will be sequestered and no volcanic activity will reintroduce it because as the earth ages, volcanic activity decreases.How does that relate to the human caused increasing CO2 concentration today, in 2018?
It's the "hurry, quick, chop your dick off before man-bear-pig disease takes you" that raises questions and breeds doubt.If someone told me that "here's this cool new technology and here's why it's a good idea to incorporate alongside fossil fuels in order to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels over time" then i'm all ears. If someone told me "YOU MUST USE THIS TECHNOLOGY AND ONLY THIS TECHNOLOGY OR ELSE EVERYONE IS GOING TO DIE" then i'm not going to be as receptive to the idea and i'm going to think you've got an ulterior motive.
