Since respiration accounts for more CO2 emission than fossil fuels, should we eliminate breathing animals?

Question

http://www.mrp3.com/bobf/global_warming.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
http://animals.about.com/b/a/231518.htm

Fossil fuel emission: 28 billion metric tons
Respiration emission: (1 gm CO2 per day)*(365 days per year)*(5 billion individuals)*(10 million species)=18 trillion metric tons per day.

Humans exhale about 300 gm of CO2 per day, so I estimated 1 gm per day for all species. The calculation shows that respiration accounts for about 500 times the CO2 emission of fossil fuel use. Even if I'm off by a factor of 100, animals exhale 5 times as much CO2 annually as fossil fuel use.

Answer 1

It has been said that all animals are parasites on the plants. Animals (and people) are "burning" plants by eating and digesting them, or by eating other animals that ate planets. Since all the carbon in the food animals eat came from plants which took CO2 from the air, animals are merely recycling CO2, not increasing it. But burning coal or oil is taking carbon from underground and changing it into CO2 in the air. That is totally different from biological recycling of CO2. Mechanisms for recycling carbon back into the ground take hundreds of thousands of years to work.

Answer 2

Surprisingly, it actually matters a lot where the CO2 comes from.

There are a great many natural sources and sinks for carbon dioxide. But the present global warming is (mostly) the result of man made CO2 from burning fossil fuels.

There is a natural "carbon cycle" that recycles CO2. But it's a delicate balance and we're messing it up.

Look at this graph.

http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_gallery/mauna_loa_record/mlo_record.html

The little squiggles are nature doing its' thing. CO2 falls a bit during summer when plants are active, and rises during the winter. The huge increase is us, burning fossil fuels. The scientists can actually show that the increased CO2 in the air comes from burning fossil fuels by using "isotopic ratios" to identify that CO2. The natural carbon cycle buried carbon in fossil fuels over a very long time, little bit by little bit. We dig them up and burn them, real fast. That's a problem.

Man is upsetting the balance of nature. We need to fix that.

Answer 3

A better solution might be to add more oxygen to the air---in a very simple way! Plant more trees and green things that add oxygen to the air! Require developers to replace or leave trees and find green alternatives to concrete and asphalt!

Linda

Answer 4

No

We only need to eliminate the human race because we both breath and use fossil fuel. Also we would not have to worry about global warming any more.

Answer 5

Every action would link to a consequences, especially eliminating animals. Pls take a look at the big picture first

Answer 6

You eliminate yourself first, then I'll make up my mind.

Answer 7

Please provide some figures and links to back them up.