banjar, no doubt about it, carbon continuously cycles through Earth's oceans and atmosphere. What we are doing now though is taking coal that took millions of years to form and putting it back into the atmosphere over a very short timespan. As a consequence, there is no longer a balance between the sequestering of carbon dioxide by plants and the oxidation of carbonaceous material. It takes up to 4500 years for a swamp to accumulate enough carbon to form a metre thick seam of coal. How long do we take to dig up that coal and burn it? I submit that we are burning coal at a rate thousand of times faster than it can form.
High levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide do enhance plant growth but the increased rate will still be far too low to offset our burning and in only a small proportion of plant communities will carbon dioxide be the limiting factor. Right now for example, the grass in my side paddock has stopped growing totally. The ground is dry and the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide makes no difference.
Again I have no doubt that there were times in the geologic past when worldwide climate has been warm. However, I see the current warming trend as ominous. I see retreating glaciers, rising sea levels, disappearing sea ice, shrinking ices caps.....
You believe what you like. I believe it is past time we started limiting carbon dioxide emissions.
I see a nuclear future for Australia funded in part by a tax on carbon.
