Here’s the simple lesson in geology that all politicians need
Planet Earth is a warm wet greenhouse volcanic planet. The planet is dynamic, change is normal.
For less than 20% of its history Earth has had ice, five of the six major ice ages occurred when the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) content was up to 1,000 times higher than at present, and for half of Earth history CO2 has been sequestered naturally into algal reefs, coral reefs, sediments, altered rocks, bacteria, plants, soils and oceans.
The Earth’s atmospheric CO2 initially derived from volcanic degassing. Much of it still does and the rest is recycled CO2 from the oceans, rocks and life.
At present we enjoy a period of volcanic quiescence, but one big volcanic eruption can add as much CO2 to the atmosphere in a day as humans do in a year. Submarine supervolcanoes constantly pump out heat and CO2 into ocean waters, the effects of which are commonly not seen for thousands of years.
Significant oxygenation of the atmosphere took place when the planet was in middle age, after which the evolution of plants and the process of photosynthesis resulted in the recycling carbon out of the atmosphere and its sequestration into plants, soils and sedimentary rocks.
AN Adelaide professor says climate change is unavoidable - but that humans are not the cause of it.
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