Publisher's Synopsis
DON'T STOP THE CO2 EMISSIONS! Keep burning coal, oil and gas! The increase of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is considered a threat to the planet's future, but in fact it should be considered the opposite: the abundance of CO2 is preventing a looming catastrophe. This idea might be considered like heresy or blasphemy to the present scientific (and almost universal) belief that CO2 is rather a wicked gas that is unavoidably debasing our atmosphere year after year, leading to what is known as "global warming" or "climate change": a fearful threat to our life, health, and economy. But if we look beyond the short-term and give pause for thought, we have to admit that CO2 is not such harm: in fact, it is the GAS OF LIFE. THE BOOK IN A NUTSHELL: IF YOU UNDERSTAND AND BELIEVE THESE FOLLOWING TEN ISSUES YOU DON'T NEED TO READ THIS BOOK 1. There is only 0.04% CO2 in our atmosphere, quite a meager content 2. All life forms in our planet depend on plants and algae 3. Plants will not survive if the atmospheric CO2 falls to less than 0.02% 4. The Earth's atmosphere held 40% CO2 (1,000 times the current) when life started in the planet 3.5 billon years ago 5. At the dawn of the Cambrian, 550 million years ago, algae and bacteria had already gobbled most of the atmospheric CO2 which by then dropped to only 0.7% (almost 18 times the current) 6. In the last 550 million years marine and continental life gulped another 33,000 billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, dropping the air CO2 content to the present 0.04% (or if you like "pre-industrial level" 0.03%) 7. In the last 800,000 years we have been at the edge of a disaster: atmospheric CO2 dropped in several occasions to about 0.02%, very close to plants' minimum requirements for survival 8. It is quite possible that the disaster was avoided by the fire and burning activities of the early humans 9. There is no option but to keep burning the coal and fuel reserves buried in the Earth's crust sediments to avoid the next glacial cycles 10. If the vegetable biomass keeps gobbling the atmospheric CO2 at the same rate as for the last 550 million years, dragging down the atmospheric CO2 content below 0.02% (without human intervention), all life in the planet will be in jeopardy Was all this done on purpose? Is there a planned design in the Universe that set part of the life ingredients in a piggy bank for the future? Are we human beings the managers of the carbon thrift that would be used to keep a comfortable 400 ppm of atmospheric CO2 and save the Planet from annihilation and freeze? Is coal and oil burning by humans' part of an intelligent scheme? In the old days the sacred fire was kept in temples, maintained and cared by elite priests. In Imperial Rome the Vestal Virgins were entrusted to keep the Eternal Flame alight. TODAY, WE HUMANS ARE THE TRUSTEES, THE GUARDIANS OF THE EARTH'S FUTURE. OUR TASK ON THE PLANET IS TO KEEP THE FIRE BURNING, THE ONLY WAY TO AVOID THE FREEZING DISASTER THAT COULD WIPE ALL LIFE FROM EARTH.
