Friday, January 27, 2006

Oxygen or bust

If libraries didn't exist, I'd have to make all this stuff up.

Scientists have enough information now to show that the amount of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere has profound effects on the ups and downs of species.

Way back, 255 million or so years, oxygen levels were about 30%, life was good.
Then over millions of years they plummeted way down under 20%, and 70% of terrestrial species and 90% of aquatic species died out.

Then as time went on, the oxygen levels increased again. Getting over 22% was enough to start the big dinosaur and big animal boom, AND tiny fast animals too like bats. These animals require lots of oxygen to operate: big for obvious reasons, and small like bats because they are so active and flying is high aerobic activity.

Eventually there was another less dramatic decrease, and it sure didn't help keep the big animals alive. Then back to today where it's a comfortable 23% or so.

So, sure meteors may have struck, or volcanoes may have pooted a lot which also caused massive die offs, but we must be aware of how oxygen plays a major role and that small shifts can have huge consequences.

What can you do?
Eat animals that consume way more oxygen per body mass than we do.
In upcoming blogs I'll have recipes for Bat Kiev, Bat poppers,
keep eating chickens, rock cornish game hens, moles, voles, rats,
gerbils, anything small and overly active are oxygen suckers.

Do not eat insects, elephants, worms, slugs, snails, toads or spiders.

1 comment:

Dwelf the senior raincoat said...

The recipes are coming. The recipes are coming. But first I have to make a few typos.