Global warming continues to be a hot topic (no pun intended). Certain people in high places are convinced the world is warming and this will spell hard times ahead for human kind, if not the downright end of humanity. The causes of this climate change are well known, greenhouse gases. If I understand the theory correctly, greenhouse gases are created every time you crank your car and drive around (I know this is simplistic, but it should work for my question, which is . . .)
If burning oil, (all oil related products) produces greenhouse gases and these gases were trapped millions or billions of years ago, aren't we simply returning the earth to a condition it has experienced before? The "carbon loop" is well known when you burn wood in your fireplace. The tree grew for 30 or 40 years, you cut it down, chopped it up, threw it in your fireplace and all the carbon the tree has contained while it grew is suddenly released in the fire. The very same thing happens if the tree falls down in the forest and is left to rot, as it decays, it slowly releases the carbon it has contained, (commonly called "the slow burn").
By using oil products, we're not introducing anything new to our world, but merely releasing something that was there a long time ago which, over time and in whatever way, has been trapped. Life obviously existed on our planet during this "pre-oil" period so I'm thinking it will continue to exist in a "post-oil" period. The world will change to be sure, but is that really such a bad thing? Yes, if all the oceans rise, there will be a mass migration inland and to higher ground, but my thinking is that then, northern areas will become warmer and have longer growing seasons, etc., (when the Vikings settled Greenland, it was a warm period that lasted for about 500 years. It was the earth getting colder that spelled the end of their Greenland settlement).
I'm sure there's people out there who are smarter than I am and can help me understand the rightness or wrongness of this thinking, but what say you guys? Don't you think that even if Global warming is true based on carbon emissions, we're merely re-introducing something that was here before and not adding anything new?
Thoughts, opinions, observations?
If burning oil, (all oil related products) produces greenhouse gases and these gases were trapped millions or billions of years ago, aren't we simply returning the earth to a condition it has experienced before? The "carbon loop" is well known when you burn wood in your fireplace. The tree grew for 30 or 40 years, you cut it down, chopped it up, threw it in your fireplace and all the carbon the tree has contained while it grew is suddenly released in the fire. The very same thing happens if the tree falls down in the forest and is left to rot, as it decays, it slowly releases the carbon it has contained, (commonly called "the slow burn").
By using oil products, we're not introducing anything new to our world, but merely releasing something that was there a long time ago which, over time and in whatever way, has been trapped. Life obviously existed on our planet during this "pre-oil" period so I'm thinking it will continue to exist in a "post-oil" period. The world will change to be sure, but is that really such a bad thing? Yes, if all the oceans rise, there will be a mass migration inland and to higher ground, but my thinking is that then, northern areas will become warmer and have longer growing seasons, etc., (when the Vikings settled Greenland, it was a warm period that lasted for about 500 years. It was the earth getting colder that spelled the end of their Greenland settlement).
I'm sure there's people out there who are smarter than I am and can help me understand the rightness or wrongness of this thinking, but what say you guys? Don't you think that even if Global warming is true based on carbon emissions, we're merely re-introducing something that was here before and not adding anything new?
Thoughts, opinions, observations?
