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NSA Chief James Clapper: We Should Have Been Transparent About Metadata Collection

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goddamnedfrank2/18/2014 4:48:30 am PST

re: #123 Teukka

Actually, there is a theory which says that the Permian extinction event was caused massive lava flows in the Siberan traps which pumped out a lot of CO2 and other nasty gasses into the atmoshpere, which in turn caused global warming of about 5 C, which in turn caused a release of methane (CH4, a very potent GHG), which caused the global warming to increase by another 5 C for a total of 10 C temp increase.

The result? An 90% extinction pulse. For comparison, the K-T extinction pulse was in the ballpark of 60-70%. Granted it was spread over an appreciable amount of time, but who says a long, drawn-out demise will be easier than an immediate one.

And IIRC, the only CO2 increase event which is anywhere near what we are currently experience is the one around the time of the Permian extinction event.

To put this in perspective, the Siberian eruptions are thought to have taken at least 200K years to double atmospheric CO2. So there’s still nothing in the geologic record that even remotely approximates the rate of the current, human caused increase. Do all the math and we’re somehow changing the composition of the atmosphere at least two orders of magnitude faster than any known prior event.