Letters to the Editor
Carbon dioxide levels were higher in Jurassic times
Years ago, I took a sabbatical from work and volunteered at the Houston Museum giving student tours. Students were interested in the dinosaur exhibit that included the skeleton of a diplodocus, a plant eating dinosaur. The diplodocus lived 157 to 152 million years ago during the Jurassic Period, was 82 feet long and weighed 35,274 pounds. Why did plant eating dinosaurs like the diplodocus grow so huge during the Jurassic Period?
Per a google search, the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide during the Jurassic Period was 4.7 times as high as current levels. As a result of high carbon dioxide levels plant growth exploded and the plant eating dinosaurs had an abundant food supply.
Our schools are causing students excessive fear that high carbon dioxide levels will cause a runaway global warming. If the information being fed to students was correct, the dinosaurs could not exist since carbon dioxide levels 4.7 times as high as current levels would have the earth burning up and dinosaurs would have been incinerated.
Instead the real problem we should consider is plants deplete our atmosphere of carbon dioxide since much of the carbon goes into the ground when living things die. How do we get the carbon locked in the ground, that has resulted in much lower atmospheric carbon dioxide levels today than virtually all of earth’s history, back into the atmosphere to sustain life?
Gary Woodburn, Zanesville
This article originally appeared on Zanesville Times Recorder: Carbon dioxide levels were higher in Jurassic times
