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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] CO2 was: Earth charity
  • Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 18:41:52 EST

In a message dated 1/31/2008 12:55:37 PM Eastern Standard Time,
don.bowen AT earthlink.net writes:


> That would be true is plant growth were restricted by CO2 availability. I
> have looked for information on that but have found little. One quick
> thought is that if it were true, plant growth near busy highways would be
> significantly greater. It makes sense at a certain level but no
> observations support it.
>

The CO2 near highways is not a concentration. Auto exhaust contains water
too, but we don't look on proximity to highways as being a concentration of
water. Atmospheric gases difuse very quickly and completely. That's why you
can't suffocate at night sleeping in a tiny bedroom. No matter how small the
cracks and fissures in the room, they are enough for the gases to exchange
enough
to keep the oxygen in your personal atmosphere the same level.

It is not availability that is the question, it's concentration. A plant can
take in and use C02 only so fast *partially* due to concentration levels.
The very same thing is true of humans and 02. We don't absorb all the O2 out
of
the atmosphere but depend on a certain concentration (20% or the like isn't
it?) to give a certain parts per million dissolved in the blood. If we
enrich
the oxygen in the air we breathe, we absorb more (much to our harm). Just
like that, plants aren't using all the C02 in their vicinity, only dissolving
it
at a certain rate which is proportional to atmospheric concentration.

Higher rates of C02 means the plants absorb it differently and yield more
growth. It's slight, but in time it would sequester the carbon back into the
biosphere. </HTML>



  • Re: [Homestead] CO2 was: Earth charity, Clansgian, 01/31/2008

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