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Anthropogenic Mass Extinctions cause Global Climate Change by J. S. Pettingill, published 15 July 2007 Page 4 At this point, I feel I must address the current Global Warming debate. 600 million years of Historical Data shows almost zero correlation between CO2 Levels and Average Global temperature. Where we do see parallels over the last 600,000 years of Earth's history, there is not yet, evidence of a corresponding Lag Time (indicating one precedes the other) between CO2 and Temperature. Physical properties of carbon dioxide do show that it is a greenhouse gas, but there is no proof of cause and effect between CO2 and temperature in the geological record of Earth's climate. Using CO2 levels as a rough guide to ocean acidity, we see that speciation rates were accelerated, and life thrived duirng long periods with average CO2 levels, over 2,000 ppm.
Recent Global Temperature Data.
The vostok chart shows that for the last 10,000 years, we've been rapidly oscillating between +2.0 and -2.0 with most of the activity between +1.0 and -1.0, and have enjoyed an unprecedented 10,000 years of stability in our climate. The current average global temps are well within this range. Note: from 8,178 years BP (before present) to 8,135 years BP, temperatures increased +1.47 degrees in 43 years. From 8,135 years BP to 8,091 years BP, temperatures decreased by -1.76 degrees in 44 years. The total temperature swing for the combined 87 year period is 3.23 degrees. Anthropogenic CO2 is a reality. The total human fossil fuel Carbon emissions per year are equal to about .000000001% of the total volume of carbon contained within the global carbon cycle pictured below.
The above chart includes the geological carbon cycle. Carbon is cycled through subduction of the seafloor and back to the surface by volcanic emissions. Not included on either chart, are the .72 billion tonnes of Carbon that 6.6 billion humans exhale each year at a rate of 1 Kg of CO2 per day. Reliable data for wildlife exchanges and volumes are not yet available. Note: The atomic weight for carbon is 12, oxygen 16, and CO2 44. Charts are in billions of tonnes of CARBON While it is true that plants are an excellent net O2 producer, in contrast they make a relatively poor CO2 reservoir or 'sink'. During night time respiration, they are net CO2 producers returning most of their daytime carbon uptake to the atmosphere while additional CO2 is continuously released back through the process of decay. Any remaining carbon is then sequestered in the soil. We see in the above chart, in billions of tonnes Carbon, the soil and vegetative carbon sinks with arrows showing an exchange with the 750 atmospheric carbon sink. The uptake is 61, the return is 60 leaving a net 1 Billion carbon tonnes sequestered in the soil sink. To be either lost back once again to the atmosphere through weathering and erosion, or become a fossil fuel of the future as it continues it's journey throughout the carbon cycle. The IPCC's version of the same chart, excludes much of the carbon cycle.
CO2 is one of the least likely, of many candidates, to be singled out as an overwhelming "driver" of the weather. We don't know if CO2 is the poison or the cure. The ecosystems of the Earth are being drastically changed minute by minute as mass extinction continues to accelerate. For the most part, present day organisms have already stood the test of time and survived at least 10 pre-glacial temperature spikes over the last million years. A pre-glacial temperature spike is a natural occurrence. When 100,000 year temperature cycles reach peaks, the background and speciation rates, both accelerate, and new species begin the process of replacing their less fit brethen. Yet man has even managed to magnify this unusually high rate by a hundred to a thousandfold. Why CO2 credits are a bad idea. Can I buy the right to harvest pristine forest? Yes, that's exactly what CO2 credits allow. And they are advertised as being very inexpensive. One would only have to contribute a few dollars to a government funded institute which will ensure that a 100,000 tree seedlings will be placed in the ground somewhere in the world, offsetting the damage to the atmospheric carbon exchange rate and volume, the vegetative and soil CO2 sinks, as well as the rest of the entire carbon cycle. Or at least, that's one idea. Technology, using ammonia to sequester CO2 in saltwater for storage in underground geological sites, is already being employed as an alternative to planting seedlings. The bottom line is that CO2 credits fund, facilitate, encourage, promote, and provide an argument for the moral justification of, ecosystem destruction. The use of CO2 as a yardstick to measure environmental damage is, at best, silly. Creating a similar tax program in correlation with Species extinction/ecosystem destruction would be ... self defeating. Trying to buffer the weather is a natural instinct instilled in all life. But is it really as easy as, simply turning down the living room thermostat? Adjusting the CO2, and using sea level as a gauge? And who will control the global thermostat and make the ultimate decision of defining an "acceptable" level for our oceans, to permanently, "fix" the shoreline at a government controlled height? All of our history, shows us that "mother nature" laughs last. The ability for a species to influence climate is not a new phenomenon, nor an exclusively unique ability only belonging to Man, but an ability that belongs to every living organism on the planet. Species diversity is at its lowest point since the arrival of man by a magnitude of thousands. Since his arrival, Homo Sapiens has systematically targeted top predators and large grazing animals. The cumulative effect is marked in the geological record by a missed Ice Age. "Welcome to the Dawn, of the 'Age of Man' ".
*********************************** "The amount of energy needed to create a new species is fixed—as well as enormous. It takes 1023 joules of energy—more than the entire world consumes via fossil fuels in a year—to create just one new species of plankton." ***********************************
Anatomically modern humans appear in the fossil record in Africa about 130,000 years ago, coinciding with the last pre-glacial temperature spike.
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