Historical Carbon Emissions From Dragons In Middle Earth 69
An anonymous reader writes "The climate of Middle Earth has recently been under the spotlight, with the current and future climate of Middle Earth simulated using the HadCM3L General Circulation Model. However, to the best of our knowledge, there has been little work investigating the historical carbon emissions of Middle Earth. Specifically, what impact has the demise of dragons had on carbon emissions? To shed some light on this question, we start by considering the carbon footprint of the antagonist, Smaug."
Smaug is surprisingly environmentally friendly.
Stating the Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
Of course the dying off of dragons will result in a reduction of Smaug.
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that might have been just shire of a good pun
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So we can really just choose between smog and smug?
We're doomed.
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That was a Glaurng-ly awesome pun.
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Re:seriously?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Even nerds and geeks need a little laugh now an then. Don't worry your little head - we'll all be back to the task of designing the next quantum computer as soon as we've had a chuckle, and another Mountain Dew.
Carbon footprints (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, the eruption of Mount Doom should offset most or all of the reduced carbon emissions from dragons.
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There's also that thing about massive deforestation, and the amount of methane coming of giant beasts, both alive and decomposing.
What's the carbon footprint of that massive wedding anyway? Kings are really a climate nuisance!
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Don't dragons turn to stone when they die, or is that only trolls? If so, they shouldn't yield much methane when they die. And the internal temperature makes the emission of methane while they are alive unlikely. They are, of course, responsible for massive deforestation.
As from a massive wedding, that is really minor. All the animals (including people) that were contributing to it's carbon footprint would have been alive anyway. Of course there's the travel mileage on horseback, but that's less than a
Methane (Score:4, Funny)
I'm far more concerned about the emission of methane gas by dragons
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl... [bbc.co.uk]
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I don't believe that meat eaters are as flatulent as herbivores. Not to mention that the saurians spend a lot of time sleeping, conserving energy, instead of running frantically about 365 days out of each year, searching for another meal.
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No, I don't remember any such episode, and apparently neither do you. A check of Memory Alpha [memory-alpha.org] reveals no such episode.
Surprisingly environmentally friendly (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course. He keeps the dwarf population in check, whose excessive mining wreaks havoc on the environment.
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Nevertheless the smithies used to manufacture and maintain the mining equipment (not to mention all other other goods produced with the mined ore) burn lots of carbon, probably coal. That's as big an oversight as the fact that so much diesel is burned in the production of ethanol that it's still worse than just putting gasoline in your commuter car.
Your statement therefore is: myopic
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We'll survive, whatever happens.
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For most of the time, Earth was a very hot humid place with an atmosphere you wouldn't want to breathe.
Dragons might like that.
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Ok, well, don't believe everything you see on TV. The dinosaurs roamed when the earth was hospitable. I've never heard of proof that the period of which you speak was caused by liberated carbon dioxide...if I'm wrong, cite your source.
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The problem is not that we, animals and plants take part in the global carbon cycle.
The problem is we are freeing carbon deposits (burning hydrocarbons) which were not part of this cycle for 60 million years or more. And no one knows the outcome of this experiment with our biosphere.
The really funny part is we have to get of oil/gas/coal anyway.
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Oh, and you're so afraid of pollution, why aren't you railing against the 4 -very- unclean (due to no regulation) power plants being built in China/Inda every week [thegwpf.org]? No, -WE- have to make our lives turn upside down (bullshit cars, bullshit products, bullshit taxes, bullshit prices) to have a very minimal
Re:I wish people would just stop... (Score:4, Informative)
The problem isn't all CO2. Of course, if we somehow magically removed all CO2 from our atmosphere we'd have horrible consequences. The problem is that there are vast stores of carbon that have been sequestered out of the atmosphere in the form of coal and oil. We're taking that carbon and putting it back into the atmosphere (as CO2) in massive amounts. The plants can't consume the CO2 as quickly as we burn it and even if they did, that's not taking the CO2 out of the system. You don't introduce a massive amount of something into the climate without having repercussions.
Nobody's saying that we should remove ALL CO2 from the atmosphere. Just that we shouldn't be pushing so much of it into the atmosphere from underground (*not* in the atmosphere for millions of years) sources. Just because it's natural for some to be there doesn't mean a ton more will have no consequences.
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Ok, so 'they' said that an increase in CO2 would equal an increase in global temperature, called global warming (Al Gore's famous and patently false hockey stick diagram). Now that we haven't observed an increase in global temperature (we've seen a cooling), 'they' can't now call it 'global cooling' because that would be painfully obvious that they are a bunch of ass-hats. Instead, they call it climate change. So which is it, does CO2 warm or cool? It's agendized propaganda, plain and simple. How about before the coal and oil was coal and oil? Where was the carbon then? And how about just before then? Keep in mind, there's no proof that oil is dinosaurs. Liberated CO2 is not a pollutant, or detrimental to our planet. The god damned SUN is the driver of weather on this planet, not CO2.
If assholes like you weren't ruining science [slashdot.org], your comment would be laughable.
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Good catch, that figure is actually the _gross_ deforestation per year.
Net deforestation is actually 34,000 acres per day, accounting for afforestation and natural expansion. [fao.org]
Of course that figure comes from a fly by night Liberal mouthpiece called the Food and Agriculture Of the United Nations [fao.org], and I'm sure that they're backed by some sort of militant panda bear extremists so you shouldn't trust anything they say.
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It's hard for me to take statistics seriously when one side of the equation is a dollar sign.
Smaug is environmentally wonderful (Score:4, Insightful)
Replace the denizens of an entire city with a single creature - check. Single creature spends most of it's time lounging about and doing nothing - check. Single creature reuses the work product of others instead of making their own emissions - check. Single creature eats far less than an entire city - check.
It's a no brainier - Smaug is good for the environment.
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Single creature eats far less than an entire city - check.
I thought that the whole problem with dragons is that they do tend to eat an entire city...
Depends on the dragon (Score:1)
Some dragons are herbivores, so they eat lower parts of the food chain.
It's really the dragon burps from those that we should be worried about.
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How do you think dragons breathe fire? They light their belches on fire.
We just have to hope that there aren't any herbivorous dragons that eat beans.
Excuse me but (Score:4, Informative)
Middle Earth runs by Magic not science
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Magic is science we don't understand yet.
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Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science!
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--Agatha Heterodyne [girlgeniusonline.com]
I don't know if she was the first source for this, but it's a fun series to follow, for those who don't know :-)
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I think it was Arthur C. Clark who first said "Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic"
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I think it was Arthur C Clarke who was first credited to that saying.
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In a world with magic, magic just becomes another thing to be studied by science.
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Middle Earth runs by Magic not science
Magic has a carbon footprint. Why do you think Gandalf, Bilbo, Frodo, and later Sam had to leave on the elven ships bound for the undying lands?
If not for Magic's carbon footprint, the eruption of the Supervolcano at mount doom, should have brought nuclear winter upon the shire and all of middle earth, for sure.
Volcanic Winter (Score:2)
Volcanic Winter [wikipedia.org]
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There are volcanoes on earth that erupt continuously.
Those aren't actually much of a problem.
It's mostly the volcanoes that erupt explosively that cause volcanic winter.
That's because when a volcano explodes, rather than just bubbling out lava day after day, large amounts of rock and ash are distributed into the atmosphere.
Only 3 proper dragons (Score:5, Informative)
Glaurung
Anacalgon
Smaug
It's interesting that all were slain by Men, while the only ones who killed Balrogs were Elves or Maiar. In the original Gondolin myth the dragons were actually mechanical and basically giant troop transports, again highlighting the pastoral and anti-industrial themes in a lot of JRRTs work. Dragons were noisy, mechanical, destructive things, part of the mortal world of Men, while Balrogs were basically demons, part of the immortal world (Heaven/Hell).
slashdotted of course. two cases (Score:2)
if dragons only eat other creatures and plants, they are carbon neutral
if dragons insult Santa Claus to obtain and eat coal, like the ones in Johnny Hart's Wizard of ID, then yes they are a carbon source