Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by AprilArcus 1342 days ago
The limit on earth's habitability is determined by permanent sequestration of atmospheric CO₂ through the carbonate-silicate cycle, not insolation. Once CO₂ drops below a certain level, photosynthesis will no longer be possible and all remaining ecosystems will collapse.

(Don't mistake that as an endorsement of burning fossil fuels — climate change is operating at a rate measured in decades, CO₂ drawdown via the carbonate-silicate cycle operates at a rate measured in hundreds of millions of years)

1 comments

True, I had forgotten that. But I assume we can fix that over this kind of timescale.