"Don Foreman" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:09:10 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Jul 27, 9:55 am, "Ed Huntress" wrote:

People that do not understand the details, generally do not understand
the problem.
Understanding the problem is important.

But the particular details raised by lumping together all sources and
sinks
of CO2, in this case, lead to a mistaken understanding of the problem.
That's not unusual.

--
Ed Huntress

Lumping all the sources and sinks of CO2 may lead you to a mistaken
understanding of the problem.

However it does not cause Don or I to have a mistaken understanding of
the problem. In fact it does exactly the opposite. For example I
have not seen you address the fact the food production involves the
use of a great deal of energy that is obtained from fossil fuels. So
the cycle you describe as atmosphere CO2 converted to food by plants
and then the food converted back to CO2 is way too simplistic and
leads to a mistaken understanding of the problem.

Dan

But Ed has just made clear that he wants discussion limited to
"the core issue in comparing human respiration with running engines
on fossil fuel", however simplistic that might be.

You can take the discussion anywhere you want to, Don. But you've been
"discussing" it by responding to me, starting off by talking about sources
and sinks, as if you could make some change in the balances of CO2
entrainment and emission in the food cycle by altering those sources and
sinks. You cannot, which is the basic error in your argument.

As I say, go anywhere you want to with this discussion. But when you respond
to me, don't expect me to go along with you. You're just going to confuse
the dynamics of the situation, and I won't join in. Maybe you and Dan can
have fun with it.


I dislike the term "cycle", preferring "process" but that's another
side trip. A cycle is the set of events in one period of a repeating
event or process with periodicity. The CO2 exhange between breathers
and plants occurs in continuous processes which, from a macro
viewpoint, are not periodic. Breathers are always exhaling somewhere,
and plants are always growing somewhere. But nevermind that.

Anyway, I think Ed has cleared things up here.

I don't know if you're sincere about that or not, but if you are, thank you.
d8-)

--
Ed Huntress