[mortifiedpenguin]

There's a little problem we're all forgetting. When we stop using as much oil and start converting to nonrenewables, the amount of CO2 we produce will go down. That's good, you might say. Actually, it's not. It causes a big problem:

Oil peak (What I'm talking about is at the bottom of the article.)

By the way, I highly recommend this site. It tells about all the numerous ways our world could end, and it explains it in a simple and entertaining way.

So basically the idea is that when we stop producing huge amounts of CO2 like we've been doing for decades, all those plants and algae that have lived off our CO2 will suck all the remaining CO2 out of the atmosphere. Trouble is, the heat from the sun will no longer be trapped inside. Our CO2 blanket has been eaten up. So since there's nothing keeping heat in, it will get cold. Very cold. Ice Age Part 2 cold.

[Wildwell]

Suck the remaining Co2 out of the atmos? Hmn, I don't think so. There's plenty of coal and wood to burn anyway! Breathing creates CO2 as well!

[kambei]

Hmm, to say the least.

Do you have any links with evidence for this? What's the evidence that increased CO2 has increased the amount of plants/alage? If so, wouldnt it be offset by deforestation, overgrazing etc? Oil consumption will be a slow and gradual decline and CO2 stays in the atmosphere for a long time, so what sort of timescale are we talking about? Severity?

Sounds a bit silly to me.

[ohanian]

Sure the next ICE AGE may come in the next 50-60 years but by then I shall be dead and it is NOT MY PROBLEM.

PEAK OIL is MY PROBLEM.

[Egon_1]

I think mortifiedpenguin has a point.

Most systems in nature tend equalize themselves. If there is more CO2, then CO2 consumers would probably tend increase as well. The flip side would be a decrease in CO2 consumers with a decrease in CO2.

I guess the net effect would depend on how fast the CO2 levels dropped. I'm thinking they wouldn't drop very fast, even if humans stopped producing CO2 instantly. And as they did drop, there should be a corresponding drop in CO2 consumers, as well, eventually reaching equilibrium again.

Does that sound reasonable?

[mortifiedpenguin]

^^ Yeah. Something like that.

I don't have any other links at the moment, but I would easily bet my money that this web page is right. I can't think of a single time that it's been wrong. Read it for yourself.

[savethehumans]

I'm with Wildwell. Lots of coal, methane, tar shale & sands out there. I don't think a lack of CO2 in the atmosphere is gonna be a problem anytime soon....

[DriveElectric]

The rate of change for C02 in the atmosphere is slow and the trends do not reverse themselves on a dime.

280 ppm in 1860
340 ppm in 1981
379 ppm in 2004

The average increase per year in the past decade is 1.8 ppm each year. The most recent year had an increase of about 3.0 ppm.

This trend is not likely to reverse anytime soon. We still have 1/2 of the oil to burn. At best, the rate of growth might decelerate.

The goal of the planet is to stabalize CO2 at 500 ppm (in 2100) because if we go above that level the computer models show us frying.

There is a theory that Peak Oil and Global Warming are not completely compatible concepts. For example, if we are peaking now and 83-84 million bpd is the max for oil and the downslope begins, that means the worst case scenarios for Global Warming are not possible.

Many Global Warming models are based on 120 million bpd of oil being consumed in 2030.

[Sys1]

Something else about fast growth of CO2 in atmosphere. Some scientists believe that a lot of methane hydrate prisonner of permafrost is liberated in while global warming.
It's a kind of trigger hypothesis where global warning start to aliment itself in an exponential way. Even if we would stop any producing of CO2, it wouldn't stop. But well, that's just an hypothesis, we not sure of anything regarding climate.

[EnviroEngr]

The IPCC folks call this a "positive feedback loop".

[SpasticDancer]

I don't have any other links at the moment, but I would easily bet my money that this web page is right. I can't think of a single time that it's been wrong. Read it for yourself.

So true. Until I read this web page, I hadn't even heard about the coming zombie apocolypse!

[mortifiedpenguin]

Uh, there's not going to be a zombie apocalypse. Did you even read that one?

[Keith_McClary]

There's a little problem we're all forgetting. When we stop using as much oil and start converting to nonrenewables, the amount of CO2 we produce will go down. That's good, you might say. Actually, it's not. It causes a big problem:
...
So basically the idea is that when we stop producing huge amounts of CO2 like we've been doing for decades, all those plants and algae that have lived off our CO2 will suck all the remaining CO2 out of the atmosphere. Trouble is, the heat from the sun will no longer be trapped inside. Our CO2 blanket has been eaten up. So since there's nothing keeping heat in, it will get cold. Very cold. Ice Age Part 2 cold.

We will not stop producing CO2 at peak, oil use will decline slowly over the coming decades. And we will not convert to renewables ("nonrenewables" was a typo?), we will mostly convert to heavy oil, tar sands and coal which are more CO2 intensive.

Even if we stopped producing CO2 today, the CO2 in the atmosphere will remain for decades and cause warming and sea level rises.

By then, those plants and algae will be back to their pre-industrialiation populations so we will not have to worry about them sucking up all our precious CO2.

[Ebyss]

But wait, what about global dimming? As I understand it (and please correct me if I'm wrong) Global dimming from pollution, particularly aviation pollution, keeps the world slightly cool as the suns rays can't fully get in. Now, after peak oil hits, and pollution drops (as there's less oil being burnt and less aircraft flying), won't global dimming reduce, and thus the earth will heat up?

This is what happened when the airplanes were grounded during 9/11, a significant rise in temperature was noted across America. Is it possible that a large reduction in pollution would speed up global warming?

(I'm not sure if I understood all this correctly, so excuse me if I got it completely wrong )

[kerosene]

I think the global dimming is more mental than physical

(sorry couldn't resist)

I have really big difficulties believing this claim. In Philippines you see nice green hills full of palm trees and banana and you think what a nice tropical environment. Then you see a tree (that hasn't been cut for some reason) from the original tropical forest that used to exist there - The old tree stands 10 times higher than the current green mass. The current state is way closer to the Sahara desert than to the original tropical pre-homo-sapiens forest.

I totally can not believe that the fauna can tie in carbon at any amazing rate. The changes humans have done are enourmous and faster than any natural change in state. + many places that used to be forest (Ethiopia in 19th century 80-90% forest ) are now totally incapable of growing it back (Ethiopia again - nowadays les than 3% forest and very dry, huge erosion).

Nature's own changes don't take place in 60 year or even 100 year periods - unlike human caused.

Why on earth wouldn't the fauna seek the pre human era balance? Why it suddenly would suck all carbon? Ok more temperature might make it nicer for plants but if the situation started to change that would balance out.

Heikki

[Doly]

There are two problems with this scenario:

1) Assuming that PO will cause less CO2. Many believe that everybody is going to turn to coal, and keep producing too much CO2.

2) Assuming that reducing gradually CO2 would cause an ice age. Pre-industrial levels of CO2 are most likely to cause pre-industrial climate. True, there is the issue of global dimming (pollutants that reflect sunlight). But I wouldn't expect any climate change to happen all of a sudden. There will be time to prepare, and even (hopefully), to find a solution.

[Licho]

If we stop industrial production, pollutants that decrease visibility will fall down to earth much faster, than we can get rid of CO2...

[sjn]

If we stop industrial production, pollutants that decrease visibility will fall down to earth much faster, than we can get rid of CO2...

They'll fall down to earth next time it rains!

[marko]

Two hypotheses are under discusion here: 1) a sudden end to particle emission stops global dimming while warming persists, leading to a positive feedback loop of overheating; and 2) a sudden end to CO2 emissions causes phytoplankton and other flora to quickly suck CO2 out of the atmosphere, leading to a severe ice age.

Both hypotheses involve an assumption that the end of particle or CO2 emission will be sudden, whereas it almost certainly will not. Both will end gradually.

While it is true that the effects of CO2 warming last longer than those of particles in the atmosphere (which precipitate more quickly), over the rest of this century, the proportion of particles to CO2 emissions will rise, offsetting the lasting effect of earlier CO2 emissions. This is because we will shift from burning petroleum, with relatively little particle emission, to burning coal, and increasingly, wood, both of which produce much more ash and soot per unit of CO2. This will keep the dimming process going, probably enough to keep the arctic methane frozen as CO2 levels start to drop.

It may well be that the decline in CO2 levels are accelerated by uptake in the oceans and on land by plants and microbes accustomed to higher levels. However, people will still be burning wood. Also, as these organisms die, the carbon that they have sequestered will mostly return to the atmosphere as CO2 through decomposition. So the drop in CO2 is unlikely to go into a positive feedback loop either.

[pea-jay]

I have posted time and time again that I cannot buy the arguement that coal will step into fill the oil gap. Modern coal mining is only possible by huge expenditures of petroleum to power the equipment. The easy EROEI coal has long been consumed. Gone are the days of pick-axe or even longwall mining. Today's coal in Appalachia comes from mountain-top removal. If you have to remove an entire mountain to get access to a seam, you are investing an incredible amount of energy.


What's the real EROEI here?

To expect that this process will pick up the slack ignores the fact that many of these producers are near capacity and that any increases would require additional expenditures of oil to accomplish. Even if oil (diesel) was directed towards this usage, the coal prices would rise to reflect the increased cost and as a result may price coal's usage out of range of some potential users reach.


The demand will go up for coal I agree, I just do not think that will translate into more supply. I have not been convinced.

And if the true EROEI for coal dips below 1 you can pretty much forget about its usage for energy purposes.