On Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:29:39 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:



It's not. All you have to do is to recognize there are many different
processes that produce CO2, and cycles thereof, and that one that's
essentially self-mitigating over a period of a few years produces a vastly
different result than one that suddenly releases CO2 that was sequestered
underground for millions of years. The distinction clarifies the issue.

Continously repeating your strongly-held belief emphasises it, but
clarifies nothing.

Mixing it all together muddies it.

I'm going to snip the rest, because we're going around in circles
repeating your strongly-held belief, bashing engineers for a while to
discredit me, and conveniently snipping questions I posed that your
cycle viewpoint cannot address like how might a change in the total
vegetative mass (and carbon entrained therein) affect atmospheric
carbon. The editor's snip, remove pesky questions.

It is true that all CO2 emitted by breathers (and spoilers) was
entrained in vegetative matter a short time previously. You've
asserted this several times.

It is true that burning fossil fuels introduces CO2 that has been
sequestered for millions of years. You've asserted this several times.

It is true that plants remove CO2 from atmosphere, converting it to
biomass for awhile. How much or at what rate? Depends on how many
plants there are. I submitted, thus far without refutation or even
comment (other than to rail at engineers and scientists as writers
inferior to yourself) that a greater amount of biomass must remove CO2
from atmosphere at a greater rate.

Considering this as a continuous interactive process with rates of
introduction and rate of removal accomodates this variable, and that
of change in atmospheric CO2 quantity or concentration.

This model accomodates your notion of a cycle. Unlike that notion,
this model can deal with the processes quantitatively. Your view does
not, other than to insist (with no defense) that respiratory CO2 is
"different" from fossil-fuel combustion product. Again, I stipulate
that all resiratory carbon was sequestered in biomass a relatively
short time ago. That leaves the matter moot of how much carbon being
emitted now will be removed by biomass extant now, if the total
biomass is not constant. For that matter, rates of growth (and
assimilation) can be positively influenced by atmospheric CO2 level.

Your cycles assume that everything is constant. That isn't so.
Atmospheric CO2 has varied signicantly over the centuries long before
anyone was burning fossil fuels. If all CO2 cycles between biomass
and atmosphere in a closed system with no net change, this couldn't
happen.

Along comes fossil fuel. You handle this by labelling that CO2 as
"different", with an attendent "different" cycle for exactly the same
gas. Sounds a bit like the rationalizations of a worried wizard,
nevermind science.

Engineers and scientists with whom I have discussed this understand
how accounting must be done in a closed system to properly understand
it and get meaningful answers. I'd like for you and others to at
least try to understand it. I don't need to be "right" here on this
forum, but I think we have a better chance of making good decisions if
we bother to understand what is going on.