Are oxygen levels falling?Oxygen is elemental and non-radioactive; it would
take far more energy than the burning of hydrocarbons to destroy the
oxygen. The oxygen atoms have simply attached themselves to other
molecules - they are still there. *** The oxygen (O) is not destroyed when something is
burned, it is the attaching of the oxygen to the carbon (C) as CO2 or CO
(or to hydrogen, (H), which makes water, H2O) that releases the energy.
so you still have the oxygen but it is stuck inside a bigger molecule,
until released by, for example, plants (which want the carbon as a
building material), which use sunlight to split the carbon away from the
oxygen again and release the oxygen back into the air. *** The hysteria over oxygen depletion is so desperate
and ill-informed it's amusing. The oxygen content in our atmosphere
remains constant at around 21%. The CO2 level, even though it's
increasing, still hovers around .04% of the atmosphere. So we may have
displaced some oxygen with CO2 but in such a tiny amount it would be
impossible to measure it with any certainty. Keep in mind, plants love
CO2 and they produce oxygen so more CO2 is good in many ways, and
warming has always been good for humanity as well. Read about the Bronze
Age warming, the Roman Warming period, and the Medieval Warming period,
all were times when temp was higher than it is today and harvests were
bountiful and humans flourished.
*** Oxygen is conserved. Consider what would happen to
the oxygen content of the atmosphere if all of the biomass burned. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080830120619AA0x7px |
The "Iron
Hypothesis" is a method of increasing marine bioproductivity and
sequestering carbon. It has been tested a dozen times and companies are already
lined up to fertilize the ocean and sell
carbon credits.
If we need to remove CO2 from the air, there is a tested solution.
Please don't confuse CO2 with pollution. It is not...CO2 is actually nutrition
for plants and Earth is dominated by plants. The rise of CO2 is actually
fertilizing the planet.
Greenhouse gases
are necessary for life on Earth. 100 million years ago, there was ten times the
amount of CO2 as today. Neither the Earth or its mammals perished in a ball of
flame. Did you know we are due to go back into an ice age according to the O-18
record?
If you'd like to criticize CO2, try this angle: the rise of CO2 means the
decline of atmospheric oxygen. C + O2 = CO2.
One more thing, the gas most responsible for the greenhouse effect is H2O. Water
vapor accounts for 50-60% of the GE. CO2 accounts for 25%.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110412134537AAznmG7