They say that the sun isn’t massive enough to turn into a black hole when it finally burns out.
Darn. That would be such a bitchin’ legacy to leave behind.
Again, I believe 90% of the oxygen we breath comes from phytoplankton. There is a lot of data on that. Some say it is responsible for 50% of the oxygen generated by photosynthesis, some say 70%, some say 90% and so on. This is still a lot of discussion on this. Pick one. I stay with those who say 90.
That said, for the subject of greenhouse, my belief is that we could cope with the loss of all plants despite all the damage. I’m not imposing a truth here and I don’t discard the possibility that we might all die because of it, but I think we would survive through the losses.
On some recent issue of Scientific American there was an article on feeding algae with special nutrients that would make them abrosb more CO2. You should read that. It’s the August 2002 issue. A quote from the site:
[b]The Ocean’s Invisible Forest; August 2002; by Paul G. Falkowski; 8 Page(s)
Marine phytoplankton play a critical role in regulating the earth’s climate. Could they also be used to combat global warming?
[/b]
As for fuel, it’s not something that might be possible - it’s already being done. The first hydrogenium fueled car is coming from GM next year. As you said, you just don’t bet all your coins in one thing because in long term you might lose all that and get fucked. But GM and other big companies are investing billions on it. Think about it. This isn’t dreaming, I’ll get some data on it for you if you wish.
Our petroil resources won’t last another century the way things are going. The most probable is that it will last some five decades. We’ll have to resort to burn even more coal & similars than we already do, which is less eficient than oil and not less polluting, or use nuclear power. We’ll probably go with the nuke power, but then there’s the problem of where to store the nuke waste. It’ll eventually have to go out. We’ll have to resort to sun & wind (& maybe sea waves) energy on some point, unless you can think of something else.
Hydro comes here. It is not a way of generating energy, it’s more a way of storing it. We’ll use sun/wind/wave power to get hydro cells powered and then use them as batteries. Everything that needs to work while unplugged will have to resort to batteries, and in a few decades the most efficient - and cost-efficient too, due to pollution concerns - we can make is the hydro. Talk to your father about it.
Alright, now comes the food part of the thread. This is about the only one in which I might be dreaming, but nowadays saying that creating food out of minerals is impossible is being like those people from some centuries ago who said that machines heavier than air would never fly. It is perfectly possible to recombinate atoms, and the only thing keeping us from creating sugar out of coal and water is the obscene cost involved. However, as technology (in this case, specially nanotech) develops, we get more fine and efficient control over such things. It will eventually be possible, and when it is, if it isn’t common it’s because there is another better way to make sugar.
As for the sun, experts believe it’ll die out in 4 to 5 billion years. Humankind still has a lot of time to get as much energy from it as it can.
edit: sin, I got the part about chloroplasts now. You said we don’t have enough of them in our skins… It sounded to me as if you meant “we have some, but not enough”.
Originally posted by Kero Hazel
[b]They say that the sun isn’t massive enough to turn into a black hole when it finally burns out.Darn. That would be such a bitchin’ legacy to leave behind. [/b]
It isn’t, but it lights will still turn off the light with a bit of grandour: They believe it will turn into a red giant, and expand to about the Earth’s orbit. It might swallow it and it might now.
I’d say that is a pretty grand ending. Not as grand as turning into a super nova of course, but still pretty grand.
Pythoplankton might be producing a lot of the oxygen, but it also uses a lot.
Surely we would be better off with the bakteria that first started the process?
Originally posted by Nulani
[b]Pythoplankton might be producing a lot of the oxygen, but it also uses a lot.Surely we would be better off with the bakteria that first started the process? [/b]
Microbes and plants all generate more oxygen than they need (otherwise we wouldn’t be here).
Plants have a thing called ‘point of photic compensation’. It is an environmental condition that may be represented in a graph in which they generate as much oxygen as they use. When the conditions get better than on this point, they will generate some excess O2 that will be fred to the atmosphere. In good-illuminated, nutrient-rich, good-aired places plants and photosynthetizing microbes spend most of the day above the photic compensation point, thus generating enough oxygen for themselves and nearby breathing creatures and with some excess that’ll do for the time they spend below the compensation point.
Hey, Ren, that’s a pretty horible quote. It doesn’t actually give a fact, and you didn’t give enough information to let people find it easily. Is “The Ocean’s Invisible Forest” a magazine, or is it an article title? Maybe you should just stop now with your, semi-factual, quasi-researched argument.
As for your hydrogen-powered cars, they gotta get the hydrogen from somewhere, since it’s not very common in it’s diatomic elemental state. Hence it will come from the most readily available source: water. The amount of energy needed to seperate water into hydrogen and oxygen will undoubtedly create much pollution, bringing us back to the issue of killing off the plants.
Phytoplankton may produce more oxygen than they need, but I doubt that the excess oxygen may amount to much. This means that in conclusion, Phytoplankton are not much of a factor.
Your research may be true, but you’re forgetting way too much about the world. For instance, without plants, we don’t have enough oxygen, and plus they have many important nutrients, some of which other animals do not have enough of.
Lemme guess, Ren. You’re reading the first few lines of some articles and pasting them into your message and hope it makes you sound smart, right? Stop while you’re ahead, kid.
EDIT: It takes more energy to get the hydrogen from the water than we can get from the hydrogen. And, as I said before, Hydrogen cars won’t be profitable to the gas companies and thus, they will not be used.
Post your sources for this stuff Ren. Really, you’re making yourself look dumber every time you click the Submit Reply button. Either back your stuff up with things other than some say without any references or shut up. Seriously. Your continued spouting of complete and utter garbage is making my head hurt.
“Environmental laws are just like that; the government has to watch every single plant, every single animal, every single mineral; things it doesn’t have time for.”
Bullshit. The government does have time for it, and even if it didn’t, it would need to find some. Republicans don’t have enough money to help keep the fucking world in check, but they have enough money to start wars to make free-terror zones halfway across the world.
Originally posted by Silhouette
im confused. can some republican eliterate to me why he hates plants?
Why do people make poorly spelled assumptions about an entire political party. ;p
Fuck, I meant Dave Gravis! I’m voting for Dave Gravis!
I fucked that joke up, I put the hurt into that joke…
If I remember right, the sun will first expand into a red giant and then live out the rest of its life as a white dwarf. Once it loses its energy it’ll be a non-luminous lump with a lot of gravity.
That’s roughly correct. In about 5 billion years it’ll nova (not to be confused with supernovas, which occur with bigger stars and are more akin to bombs) to a red giant, growing so large Mercury and Venus are destroyed by the sun’s diameter eclipsing their orbits. Earth’s temperature will rise to the point that its atmosphere will probably be obliterated. After a short while the sun will shrink down to a white dwarf, then many years later, just stop glowing.
W/out plans you’d also not have any soil, and the entire world, other than the oceans, would be nothing but a giant desert.
If any crust at all.
It seems ironic that the death of a star is called a nova, when nova means “new” in Latin.
Not really. Early astronomers mistook the novas for being “new stars”, as the new product was usually brighter than the old, so a star might appear when there was none before.
poorly spelled? i made the fucking word up, bitch. also, all republicans do hate plants, so there is no assumption.
Uhh, it’s an actual word, Sil. And just because I have some conservative tendancies and I’m a phytophile does not mean all Republicans hate plants.
All you keep spouting , Ren, is utterly baseless, opininated, unbacked bullshit that makes absolutely no sense to anyone that knows anything about how ecosystems and organisms work and interact. Please, shut the fuck up. You’re annoying.
Does anyone else besides me think that’s dangerously close to flaming? If not flaming?
conservative != republican
Originally posted by MegamanX2K
Does anyone else besides me think that’s dangerously close to flaming? If not flaming?
Well, it could be… but that doesn’t stop it from being true. 