🚀 go-pugleaf

John McCarthy wrote:
: Many years ago, Wallace Broecker calculated that if all the
: fossil fuel reserves in the world were burned, it would only use
: up 3 percent of the oxygen. 20 percent of the atmosphere is
: oxygen (where as CO2 is only .03 percent) I wonder where this bit
: of nonsense about using up the oxygen comes from.  Is there a
: particular environmentalist book that has it.  It's too strange
: even for Greenpeace.

I remember reading a shortstory/essay many years ago, and 
I think the author was indeed someone who could have been be the 
strange grand-grand-father of any environmentalist. No, I can't 
remember the name of that author, John. Maybe someone else does.
Was it Edgar Allan Poe? 

In my memory, that essay appeared quite freaky in a collection,
and to me, unexpected from that particular author. 

Anyhow, the plot or idea was simple: 

>From the premises: 
- there is only oxygen in the atmosphere because life extracts 
it from carbondioxide;
- the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere must correspond directly 
to an amount of carbon in life or (mainly) fossilized life remnants in deep 
sea, or buried under rocks, 

the author explained and concluded: 
When/if man has found and dug up all fossil fuel 
and burnt it, there will be very little free oxygen 
left in the atmosphere. 

Best regards,

Torsten Brinch