large random numbers
Ann Barnhardt posted her (previously linked) post on the power of randomness in a deck of cards and how that inspired her Awe in God.
well, that post got me to thinking about how BIG thing really are, mostly in comparison to us wee peeps that crawl around the surface of this marble on some outlier arm of a galactic spiral.
Current popular estimates put our numbers at 7.5B ,, this is an arguable number for multiple reasons, but the biggest of which is that it is formulated with what amounts to a “wild ass guess” using numbers from only a few accurate censuses (which have a certain amount of fudge-factor themselves). For sake of argument, I’ll play with ‘accepted’ estimates and rip on it anymore. Seven and half Billion bi-pedal form factors with a wide range of actual mental acuity. All of us are pumping out various amounts of CO2 just by being alive. From breathing to operating equipment (be it actual use of Dead dinosaur juice, or vicariously through electricity that was MOSTLY generated by dead dino means.). They claim we pump out hundreds of tons of CO2 a year individually and that the actual (WAG) accumulated amount is killing this planet.
Uh-huh,, Pull this one, it has bells on it.
They never EVER talk about trees and plants,,,,
For every one of us ‘grunts’ runnin’ around this planet, how many trees are there. Simple ratios would do,,, no need for actual numbers. Betcha not one of those experts could tell you. Wanna know why I say that? I can’t find any numbers, no WAGs or census on world trees.
Why am I bringing up the trees, (the smarter ones already know). Trees ‘breathe’ CO2,,, A LOT OF IT. And obviously not just trees,,, all plants do. And I think its a pretty safe bet that trees and plants outnumber us funny looking monkeys by at least 100:1 (and I am being overly conservative)
There was a gentleman farmer in the Senate hearing rooms recently that asked one simple question of our “expert” statesmen. “What is the percentage of CO2 in earths atmosphere?” Not one of these legislators could give the man an answer,,, People that are making life and death decisions on ‘carbon laws’ had not one clue. I saw several aides scrambling on smartphones trying to find out, so their ‘masters’ wouldn’t be blindsided by a question like that.
The answer: 0.04%. Look it up. (and keep in mind, WIkipedia is edited by many leftists and indoctrinated well wishers,).
Then said Gentleman farmer told them what would happen if that number drifted off center by one one-hundredth. UP, things would grow faster and we would have bigger algea blooms in the ocean,,, Kinda gross, but not life threatening. DOWN, things STOP GROWING,,, like food production would be cut in half world wide,,,,
One One-hundredth a percent.
And these people want to ‘REDUCE’ our carbon,,,, YeupS, they wanna reduce US,,,
BUT that got me to thinking about just how much CO2 does do. How it works in our oceans, not just the atmo. I recall reading about ‘burping lakes’. Sound funny but these things have wiped out entire villages: quite serious in reality. It’s always a deep lake that does this (keep this in mind for when I take that left turn) and usually in a seismicly active area. The CO2 builds in the lake, and as it does, drops to the lower depths. The surface will still be ‘normal’ even though the pH of the lake is up (CO2+H2O= Carbonic Acid). SO,,, Over time, this CO2 builds up in the bottom of these deep lakes, the water is cold, usually near freezing (Sealevel points) but still liquid and loaded up with this CO2, and then Mama-Earth has a nervous tic. Its like shaking up a bottle of Champagne and poppin’ the cork: the lake ‘burps’ and the area about suddenly has quite a bit higher level of CO2 than four one-hundredths percent. People sleeping continue breathing because our bodies recognizes CO2 as a ‘not threatening’ but they are sucking in what they should be blowin’ out and not getting enough of what they should be getting (Oxy) so suffocate and die. Rather painlessly too, but thats not the point. (left turn)
Now the same thing happens in the big wide ocean. CO2 builds up, drops to the depths,much much deeper than those deep lakes, much more pressure so the levels can build a little higher (Higher pH factor) and deep enough that Mama-Earths little twitches and tics don’t disturb the bottle and pop the cork. And there is all this bio-mass that falls to the same depths, dead algae blooms, dead fish that didn’t get ett on the way down, not many living things down there that do eat on such (if any) and the bottom of the ocean starts to take on this gelled appearance of muck-n-mud that is bathed in this acidic water full of Carbon, Oxygen and Hydrogen. Oxidation is encouraged by acidic breakdown, and the remaining components are merged by pressure and exothermic reaction into
HYDROCARBONS.,,,
Methane gas is the most obvious one, its the simplest and smallest chain hyrdorcarbon, and under pressure like that is dissolved in seawater same as CO2 and O2 are. But its also buried in that muck-n-mud, more so than is dissolved in the waters. That in turn continues to grow those chains into other HC combinations,,,,
I will say, this is not a fast process, at least to us flea-like beings scrabbling around on mama-earths surface. it takes a long time to build to ‘reservoirs’ like we tap to get fossil fuels,
BUT
That is how this process works (and believe me, I dumbed it down for my benefit,,,). Right there is why I read ‘Carbon Laws’ and ‘Peak Oil’ and chuckle. The moaners and complainers don’t take any of those processes into thought,, they look at the earth as static and fixed,,, She doesn’t work like that. THIS EARTH is a closed system that has been doing its thing for apx 5 billion years, ( MOSTLY Closed system,,, we get new stuff in all the time, but only recently started shipping things out) and We Monkeys have only been around for 300000 of those,,,, And we only started recording our time here for the last 5000 or so. (and WAG the prior times that weren’t recorded)
WE ARE AN EYE-BLINK in Gaia’s time line.
We are a brief spark in the Universe,
We are that Boson detected in the Large Hadron Collider. Seen, then gone.
And yet we make so much seriousness of our politics,,,, As if they are going to change the universe,,,,
They won’t, at best they make our brief spark existence a little uncomfortable, but in the grand scheme,,, NADAFUGGENTHING.
Stop sweating the petty shit,,,, (and don’t pet the sweaty shit)(thanks B ;-P ). Keep on livin’!!!!
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