So what is it that makes us...well...human...

[SteveT]

21% oxygen too DJKQ I hope.

[katie1997]

DJKillaQueen Wrote:

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> No those greenhouse gasses are what have allowed

> the earth to have the range of temperatures

> necessary for life. Without them too cold, too

> much of them too hot. It's called the 'Goldilocks

> Principle' and is why we are the only planet on

> our solar system with life. The main gases are

> water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous

> oxide and they trap sufficent solar energy to

> create the right temperature ranges.

Sorry have I missed something? If that response above is to my post, it doesn't answer any of the questions I asked and seems quite unrelated.

I am struggling to see where anyone (ok, me) said that gases did not contribute towards life on the planet either. Your response does not seem to follow, perhaps I am being dim.

PS. Its also a bit too late for a science lesson for me I'm afraid.

[Ladymuck]

waynetta Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Maybe you should pose your question about life to

> your dinner party guests so that they could then

> get your full attention

Good Lord no...they were waaaaaay too pissed! They've all left now...think they had a good time.

[DJKillaQueen]

Oxygen is not a greenhouse gas. It's two atoms are too tightly bound together to vibrate and therefore don't absord heat. Nitrogen is the same. Greenhouse gases are only those gasses with molecules composed of more than two atoms that are loose enough to vibrate with the absorbtion of heat :)

[katie1997]

PS. I can recommend a good read on the *iconic* global warming graph if you like. You know, the old hockey stick. Distorted science and misrepresentation of data. All gripping stuff.

PPS. yes, the Great Oxidation Event was very fortunate for us...

*wonders if there's any cider left?*

[Ladymuck]

katie1997 Wrote:

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> *wonders if there's any cider left?*

...it's in all probability in the process of being converted into methane at the mo! :))

[katie1997]

Ladymuck Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> katie1997 Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > *wonders if there's any cider left?*

>

> ...it's in all probability in the process of being

> converted into methane at the mo! :))

Yeah....there seems to be a lot of it about ;-)

*save the moles*

[DJKillaQueen]

LOL...the thought of LM and methane............mmmmmm

*tries not to inhale*

You are not dim katie lol. In answer to your question, greenhouse gases and their emission have been part of planet earth's composition since the early days of it's formation (the required icy elements thought to have arrived in metors and comets from outer solar systems). So in that respect is has always had a greehouse effect going on. When the planet was extremely hot (and forming it's tectonic plates), volcanic activity would have emitted massive amounts of carbon dioxide for example (but too much for the right temperature for life). Only when the planet struck a balance with it's gasses did life become possible (along with water). The earth is unique in it's atmosphere and there are other factors obviously that allows those gasses to work they way they do, but they've always been there.

So in that respect the planet has always had a greenhouse atmosphere. But the balance of that greenhouse effect needed for life has only been around in the more recent evolution of the planet.

[katie1997]

katie1997 Wrote:

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> I'd like to know what you consider to be the

> 'modern lifespan of the planet'. The trouble

> is.....this often varies from person to person.

> Makes it very difficult to accurately demonstrate

> scientific facts. So your earlier comment about

> the Earth's atmosphere having always being a

> greenhouse environment is completely inaccurate,

> to put it politely.

>

> When do you think the 'greenhouse atmosphere that

> gave us the ecosystems we have' came into

> existence?

Those were my two questions. When I came on and said that your earlier comment about the Earth's atmosphere ALWAYS having a greenhouse atmosphere was wrong, you later acknowledged "thats true....".

I have honestly got no idea what question you seem to think I was asking when you posted your response above either.

Again, I think you are incorrect about greenhouse environments during early planetary accretion.

Plate tectonics is a constant process btw so its still happening...its not something that formed many millions of years ago and stayed the same.

Yes, volcanoes and volcanic activity does indeed produce many gases, including CO2.

PS. how much is LM paying you to keep me up? ;-)

[DJKillaQueen]

lol..not guilty for LM.

I stand by that view greenhouse gases (which after all are just a gases whose molocules can absord heat) have always been part of the earth's atmophere..but the point you made is that the level of individual gases has been different at times during the planet's formation and evolution...that is what I agree is true. It doesn't change that the process by which the earth's atmospheric temperature rises and falls is a greenhouse one (made possible by the presence of greenhouse gases).

Also in my original point to LM, I don't say that the earth has always had it's atmosphere either, just that since it formed it has always been a greenhouse one. The theory is that the atmosphere is approx half the planet's current age at 4.5 billion years.

[Ladymuck]

Chimpanzees share almost 99% of their DNA with us humans. So how come they aren't more like us? Or put another way, how come we aren't more like chimps?

[DJKillaQueen]

Probably because we only know the function of approx 2% of DNA. The other 98% has been referred to as 'junk' DNA. Probably all the differences are in there as it is now thought that the 98% so called non-coding DNA has an important impact on the coding DNA.

[Ladymuck]

*pea brain goes into melt-down good and proper*

[DJKillaQueen]

:))......has it sobered you up though?

[Ladymuck]

Getting there...

...envisage a hangover tomorrow...hope I won't cringe too much on viewing the drivel I've posted on here...gawd...

[DJKillaQueen]

well to err is human after all :)

[expat]

>*dashes back to guests pretending has been for yet another pee*

I think LM should host an episode of 'Come Dine with me'

[HonaloochieB]

Ladymuck Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> waynetta Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Maybe you should pose your question about life

> to

> > your dinner party guests so that they could

> then

> > get your full attention

>

> Good Lord no...they were waaaaaay too pissed!

> They've all left now...think they had a good time.

Edited because expats post makes it irrelevant.

[katie1997]

DJKillaQueen Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> well to err is human after all :)

Hurrah. At last I can agree with something you've said on here. Happy Days.

Perhaps I am human after all.....

[DJKillaQueen]

:))(tu)

[katie1997]

DJKillaQueen Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> :))(tu)

*posts hockey stick book to DJKQ* ;-)

[Ladymuck]

>:D<

Feel like being silly.

Can frogs be silly? Or does sillyness only apply to humans?

[DJKillaQueen]

Why? Do you have a frog you suspect of being silly in your garden tonight?

[Ladymuck]

I have many a frog in my garden...but I was being silly and actually referring to my French roots.

[DJKillaQueen]

lol..so what you are actually saying is that the French are not human? lol