This is bullshit
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- TheBlueOne0
and honestly, have any environmentalists been caught paying scientists to further their agenda? Like how we found out exxon has paid scientific think tanks to push their agenda?
bitch, please.
mrdobolina
(Jan 9 07, 15:07)Well everyone knows that environmentalists are all godless communists and just plain anti-american. Come on Dobs, don't you watch the news?
- mrdobolina0
I hate amurica
- mpfree0
so you're referring to hominids. ok great.
I'm talking about endothermic creatures in general. Which you mentioned and which have been pouncing around since the lower Mesozoic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mes…
- material-10
howdy
- mpfree0
you asked for one academic reference. one right?
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Mid-Cretaceous pCO2 based on stomata of the extinct conifer Pseudofrenelopsis (Cheirolepidiaceae)
Matthew Haworth, University of Oxford, Earth Science, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX1 3PR, UK; et al. Pages 749-752.Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is a major factor that determines global climate, and in order to predict future climate change it is important to understand the role CO2 levels have played in climate systems in the past. One method for reconstructing CO2 concentration involves the relationship between the number of stomata on a leaf and the atmospheric CO2 concentration in which the plant grew. Stomata are the tiny pores through which plants take up CO2, but also lose water at the same time. This means that plants have to balance CO2 uptake against water loss, and can respond to variations in CO2 levels by altering the number of stomata. During periods of high atmospheric CO2, plants can have lower numbers of stomata, and so lose less water while maintaining the same rate of CO2 uptake. This inverse relationship between the number of stomata and atmospheric CO2 allows estimation of the ancient atmospheric CO2 concentration from the density of stomata on fossil leaves. Using the fossil conifer Pseudofrenelopsis, Haworth et al. have reconstructed CO2 levels for the mid-Cretaceous period. The Cretaceous is known to have been a time of relative global warmth, with high levels of atmospheric CO2 responsible for this global greenhouse climate. Their results suggest, however, that atmospheric CO2 levels were lower than previously thought and relatively stable throughout the mid-Cretaceous, rather than dramatically fluctuating, as has been suggested in other reconstructions. Mid-Cretaceous CO2 levels were still significantly higher (2 to 3 times) than current concentration.
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Maybe we will go beyond the level of the Cretaceous, however with that being said who's to say we can't co-exist with those levels. Life, "endothermic mammals", at that point did for how many millions of years!?
- ********0
interesting that you quote research from an extinct conifer. I realize I can't absolutely deduce that this species went extinct for any one reason, but its probably fair to assume this species couldn't exist in our current environs.
Evolutionary morphology is delicately balanced to a species environment. Meaning if our environment changes faster than we can evolve, chances are we become extinct, just like this conifer.
Enough of this banter, there is no argument here. The last 100 years has seen the largest increase in CO2 than at any other time in human history (give or take 1 million yrs), and human history is all we are evolutionarily equipped for.
Carry on.
- mpfree0
you're now assuming and that's never good. didn't you just say something about empirical evidence?
it's fossilized CO2 level proof in a species that existed at the time and has relatives still here on this planet, the conifer.
you refer to human history, according to scientists, a blink of an eye on the geologic time scale. the last 100 years is nothing and we cannot use that length and make heads or tales of it in terms of dangerous CO2 levels.
my argument, if you were paying attention, was that mammals coexisted with higher levels of CO2 than what we currently have during the Mesozoic.
capiche?
- ********0
far from fucking capiche. Tho, it's not you're opinion I care about.
Humans created the spike in CO2 levels during the last 100 yrs, levels higher than has been seen in the last 1 million+ years. This isn't gradual as you suggest, this is a huge spike in CO2.
Mammals did exist back then, but had millions of years to evolve to what they are today. You cant ask a species to evolve to cope with an environment that changes so radically in 100 years time.
- mpfree0
far from fucking capiche. Tho, it's not you're opinion I care about.
Humans created the spike in CO2 levels during the last 100 yrs, levels higher than has been seen in the last 1 million+ years. This isn't gradual as you suggest, this is a huge spike in CO2.
Mammals did exist back then, but had millions of years to evolve to what they are today. You cant ask a species to evolve to cope with an environment that changes so radically in 100 years time.
fortified
(Jan 9 07, 15:55)total assumption on your part. where is the emperical evidence you previously suggested? I highly doubt that every academic agrees with this either.
you think well, but you assume
- mpfree0
You cant ask a species to evolve to cope with an environment that changes so radically in 100 years time.
fortified
(Jan 9 07, 15:55)actually, that's a great point, that last part, however, that might push a little evidence towards the Creationist side of things. Maybe mammals did change in a short period of time, maybe the Mesozoic wasn't as long as what scientists think.
personally, I don't believe the earth to be that old. However, that's another story. Flawed dating mechanism. Equational constants fluctuated throughout geo-history.
- ********0
good night man, have you ever even taken a survey Anthropology or genetics course?
Species evolve for many reasons. One of those reasons is due to genetic mutation, the fastest type of evolution.
But even in this case, species need to be geographically isolated for the mutation have any success in the population.
You cant ask every species on earth to mutate to a more favorable genetic morphology in a hundred or even a thousand years.
You're right, I'm assuming every species on earth wont evolve within a few generations time to accommodate the spike in CO2 and temps.
- ********0
Just to be clear, I never suggested that humans would become extinct because of global warming.
What I do contend is that:
• storms are becoming more violent
• deforestation causes drought and soil erosion
• sea levels will rise
• wind and water currents will be affected, changing global weather patterns
• many, more delicate, species will perish as a result.
• new deadly pathogens will emerge
• less fresh waterwhew, I can't believe I feel compelled to argue what most in science know to be true. but as I said, your opinion is not what I hope to change, its the rest of the world.
And guess what? my side is winning the information war.
- mpfree0
But even in this case, species need to be geographically isolated for the mutation have any success in the population.
fortified
(Jan 9 07, 16:18)Actually, it was required, yes, but don't remember it worth a shit. You're talking mutation now, I'm talking fossilized evidence proving higher CO2 levels.
btw, ironic you should say isolated, during the Mesozoic Pangea started to disconnect, however you would think that it was together long enough for organisms not to be isolated.
Mind you, the 'Law of Uniformitarianism' has to hold true for both of our theories to tick, but I guess we both are assuming there. ;) ha!
_night :)
- mpfree0
And guess what? my side is winning the information war.
fortified
(Jan 9 07, 16:32)not so sure that's a good thing. keep drinking the mass kool-aid if you like. I tend to look at both sides and make my own judgements. Seems smarter to me.
btw, I used to have these conversations as an undergrad with Stephen Jay Gould (guest spoke 5 times in my paleo classes) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ste… and Harold "Bud" Rollins. Of course they were out of my league, however, they respected what I thought.
- mpfree0
what you contend might have also been just as high during many paleoenvironments. there isn't always a precise way to prove this however.
- ********0
you know what? I'm sorry. I do respect what you think (despite my saying I didn't care above) I just get a bit over zealous about it.
There is much we don't know yet, but we shouldn't ignore what we do know for it could one day reach a tipping point to where its too late.
night.
- mpfree0
I agree with you. We want answers, and we want those answers to support what we think is the right way, but they aren't always there. Both sides of the coin. Enjoyed the banter, touche.
:)
night