THE CARBON PARADOX:
Why are we here?
Why are we alone?
And how long have we got to live?

Explanatory notes and references for the YouTube video ‘Carbon Paradox’:

The Fermi Paradox:

In 1950 Italian physicist Enrico Fermi asked several of his colleagues at Los Alamos: “Where is everybody”? There are various accounts of the question possibly indicating the conversation with Emil Konopinski, Edward Teller and Herbert York – compiled by Eric M. Jones – occurred separately to a conversation with Leo Szilard wherein Szilard quipped that aliens were already here, and they were called Hungarians. (There were a number of Hungarians working at Los Alamos, joking nicknamed the ‘Martians’.)

“… he went on to conclude that the reason that we hadn’t been visited might be that interstellar flight is impossible, or, if it is possible, always judged to be not worth the effort, or technological civilization doesn’t last long enough for it to happen.” – E. M. Jones (1985) “Where is everybody?” An account of Fermi’s question, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Read more: ‘The Fermi Paradox Is Not Fermi’s, and It Is Not a Paradox’ – Scientific American

The (Modified) Drake Equation:

Around this time several scientists – many with links to Los Alamos, like professor of physics at MIT Phillip Morrison – published theories regarding the search for extraterrestrial life. In 1961 astronomer Frank Drake helped convene a meeting at the Green Bank Observatory, where he created the ‘Drake Equation’ as a form of agenda for the meeting, to estimate the number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy. Original estimates by Drake and his colleagues deduced that somewhere between a billion and 100 million extraterrestrial civilizations should exist in the Milky Way alone.

In 2016, Dr. Adam Frank from the University of Rochester and Dr. Woodruff “Woody” Sullivan from the University of Washington modified Drake’s Equation to consider the number of alien civilizations ‘ever’. They concluded the probability that humans are alone in the Milky Way to be 1-in-60 billion.

Read more: ‘The Odds That We’re the Only Advanced Species in the Galaxy Are One in 60 Billion’ – Air&Space Magazine

Drake, Frank and Sullivan all added more weight to Fermi’s original question, “Where is everybody”?

Bracewell-von Neumann Probes:

Mathematician John von Neumann was one of the Hungarian ‘Martians’ at Los Alamos joked about by Leo Szilard (above). Von Neumann worked on the concept of self-replicating ‘automata’ throughout the 40s and 50s. Oddly, he did not comment specifically on their use in space exploration. Rather, it was in 1960 that professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, Ronald N. Bracewell, proposed the use on von Neumann’s automata in space exploration. Later again, it was mathematical physicist and cosmologist Frank Tipler who calculated (in his 1981 paper titled ‘Extraterrestrial Beings Do Not Exist’ in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, volume 21, pages 267-281) that it would take these drones a period of 4 million years to explore the entire known universe. In this, Bracewell and Tipler added exponentially to the Drake-Frank-Sullivan estimates of the probability of encountering alien civilisation since estimates were no longer confined to the Milky Way.

Further, Tipler was rebutted by Carl Sagan and William Newman 2 years later. Published in the same journal, Sagan and Newman showed Bracewell-von Neumann Probes would replicate exponentially and therefore universal exploration could occur in half the time estimated by Tipler. (See ‘The Solipsist Approach to Extraterrestrial Intelligence’, volume 24, page 113). In other words, the Universe could have been explored 7000 times over since the Big Bang.

When Frank and Sullivan ran their modified Drake calculation for the entire Universe, the result was a 1-in-10-billion-trillion probability that human’s are the first technological life form.

If you multiply the calculations by Sagan and Frank/Sullivan it is possible to demonstrate that we should have encountered evidence of many trillions of other life forms, with additional Bracewell-von Neumann Probes being encountered in constant waves of interstellar activity.

Again, much more so, “Where is everybody”?

The Gaian Bottleneck Hypothesis:

Astrobiologists Aditya Chopra and Charley Lineweaver at the Australian National University proposed the ‘Gaian Bottleneck Hypothesis’ in their January 2016 paper ‘The Case for a Gaian Bottleneck: The Biology of Habitability’ published in volume 16, issue 1 of Astrobiology, pages 7-22.

Chopra and Lineweaver specifically state that: ‘If life emerges on a planet, it only rarely evolves quickly enough to regulate greenhouse gases and albedo, thereby maintaining surface temperatures compatible with liquid water and habitability.’

Enter, ‘The Great Filter.’

The Great Filter:

The ‘Great Filter’ put simply, is Fermi’s original hypothesis that “technological civilization doesn’t last long enough for [interstellar flight] to happen.” While humans have already passed one of more ‘Gaian Bottlenecks’ – mass extinction events in our biological lineage – it is less likely we have already survived the ‘Great Filter.’ As such, geophysicist James Kasting – among those cited by Chopra and Lineweaver in their paper – when interviewed on the question of ‘Gaian Bottlenecks’ by online magazine www.inverse.com, stated: “I think climate change could be a Great Filter for us.”

Read more: ‘Failure to Find Aliens Means We’re in Safe Space’ – Inverse Science

Herein lies the foundation for answering our original three questions:

Why are we here?
Why are we alone?
And how long have we got to live?

Chemistry and Carbon:

The periodic table maps the structures and properties of all 118 known elements. Carbon in particular is special in that its existence answers our biggest questions.

We use carbon a thousand different ways every day. It’s in rubber, asphalt, diamonds, sugar, wax, oil, plastic, coal, limestone, carbohydrates, household gas in your cooktop, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, charcoal, methane, marble, graphite, chlorofluorocarbons hydrochlorofluorocarbons used in cosmetics, packing foam, aerosols, glue, paint, air conditioners, as well as all the plants and animals we use to build homes, and make clothing and food. Even the radioactive dating of fossils is based on measuring carbon in organic matter. Our entire civilisation, life as we know it, is based on the properties of carbon.

There are more than ten million different organic compounds known by chemists. Carbon is the only element that can form so many compounds – because each atom can form four bonds to other atoms, and because the carbon atom is small enough to fit into very large molecules. It’s also the fourth most common element in the universe and has the highest melting point – meaning it is least likely to change properties based on different temperatures as planets cool, oceans liquefy and atmospheres form.
If we think about these properties, carbon is a stand-out among all elements.

Let’s rank all elements in the Universe by:

• – Availability of multiple electrons to form bonds, being their valency,
• – Ability to bond with other elements using the ‘Pauling Scale’ of electronegativity (you can also use bond length but the results are the same),
• – Atomic radius, as the ability to fit into compact, complex molecules,
• – Thermal stability, being melting point (an element must not frequently transition states to support life), and
• – Abundance in the Universe

Carbon is:

• – 33rd on valency
• – 10th on radius
• – 12th on electronegativity
• – 1st on melting point
• – 4th on abundance

If you combine all these properties, no other element comes close.

PROPERTIES									RANKS
No.	Sym	Name	v	r	e(X)	mp	a		v	r	e(X)	mp	a	SUM
6	C	carbon	4	67	2.55	3500	0.005		33	10	12	1	4	60
16	S	sulfur	6	88	2.58	113	0.0005		6	15	11	83	10	125
14	Si	silicon	4	111	1.9	1410	0.0007		33	22	38	33	8	134
44	Ru	ruthenium	6	178	2.2	2250	4E-09		6	63	19	10	37	135
76	Os	osmium	6	185	2.2	3045	3E-09		6	67	19	4	39	135
78	Pt	platinum	6	177	2.28	1772	5E-09		6	61	17	17	34	135
34	Se	selenium	6	103	2.55	217	0.00000003		6	20	12	79	20	137
77	Ir	iridium	6	180	2.2	2410	2E-09		6	64	19	8	40	137
42	Mo	molybdenum	6	190	2.16	2617	5E-09		6	69	27	6	34	142
35	Br	bromine	7	94	2.96	-7	7E-09		1	18	8	90	31	148
45	Rh	rhodium	6	173	2.28	1966	6E-10		6	58	17	13	57	151
54	Xe	xenon	6	108	2.6	-112	0.00000001		6	21	10	94	22	153
74	W	tungsten	6	193	2.36	3410	5E-10		6	71	15	2	60	154
5	B	boron	3	87	2.04	2300	1E-09		52	14	30	9	51	156
52	Te	tellurium	6	123	2.1	449	9E-09		6	29	28	69	29	161
33	As	arsenic	5	114	2.18	816.8	8E-09		23	24	26	60	30	163
53	I	iodine	7	115	2.66	114	1E-09		1	25	9	82	51	168
46	Pd	palladium	4	169	2.2	1552	2E-09		33	55	19	22	40	169
7	N	nitrogen	3	56	3.04	-210	0.001		52	8	6	97	7	170
26	Fe	iron	3	156	1.83	1535	0.0011		52	44	43	25	6	170
75	Re	rhenium	7	188	1.9	3180	2E-10		1	68	38	3	68	178
82	Pb	lead	4	154	2.33	327	0.00000001		33	43	16	71	22	185
13	Al	aluminium	3	118	1.61	1050	0.00005		52	26	51	45	14	188
43	Tc	technetium	7	183	1.9	2200	0		1	65	38	11	73	188
8	O	oxygen	2	48	3.44	-218	0.01		79	6	3	98	3	189
24	Cr	chromium	6	166	1.66	1857	0		6	53	47	15	73	194
41	Nb	niobium	5	198	1.6	2468	2E-09		23	75	52	7	40	197
79	Au	gold	5	174	2.54	1064	6E-10		23	59	14	44	57	197
85	At	astatine	7	127	2.2	302	0		1	31	19	75	73	199
28	Ni	nickel	2	149	1.91	1453	0.00006		79	41	37	31	13	201
93	Np	neptunium	6	38	1.36	640	0		6	2	59	65	73	205
17	Cl	chlorine	5	79	3.16	-101	0		23	13	5	93	73	207
10	Ne	neon	0	38	3.98	-249	0.0013		100	2	1	100	5	208
40	Zr	zirconium	4	206	1.33	1852	0.00000005		33	81	61	16	17	208
58	Ce	cerium	4	67	1.12	795	0.00000001		33	10	84	61	22	210
29	Cu	copper	2	145	1.9	1083	0.00000006		79	37	38	42	16	212
36	Kr	krypton	2	88	3	-157	0.00000004		79	15	7	95	18	214
23	V	vanadium	5	171	1.63	1890	0		23	56	49	14	73	215
51	Sb	antimony	5	133	2.05	630	4E-10		23	32	29	68	65	217
27	Co	cobalt	4	152	1.88	1495	0		33	42	42	29	73	219
32	Ge	germanium	4	125	2.01	937	0		33	30	32	51	73	219
50	Sn	tin	4	145	1.96	232	4E-09		33	37	35	78	37	220
21	Sc	scandium	3	184	1.36	1539	0.00000003		52	66	59	24	20	221
83	Bi	bismuth	5	143	2.02	271	7E-10		23	36	31	76	55	221
1	H	hydrogen	1	53	2.2	-259	0.75		94	7	19	101	1	222
84	Po	polonium	6	135	2	254	0		6	33	33	77	73	222
18	Ar	argon	0	71	3.19	-189	0.0002		100	12	4	96	11	223
90	Th	thorium	4	156	1.3	1750	4E-10		33	44	63	18	65	223
15	P	phosphorus	5	98	2.19	44	0		23	19	25	86	73	226
73	Ta	tantalum	5	200	1.5	2996	8E-11		23	76	56	5	72	232
22	Ti	titanium	4	176	1.54	1660	0		33	60	55	19	73	240
31	Ga	gallium	3	136	1.81	30	0.00000001		52	34	44	88	22	240
96	Cm	curium	4	145	1.3	1340	0		33	37	63	35	73	241
4	Be	beryllium	2	112	1.57	1278	1E-09		79	23	53	37	51	243
92	U	uranium	6	193	1.38	1132	2E-10		6	71	58	40	68	243
95	Am	americium	4	118	1.3	994	0		33	26	63	48	73	243
57	La	lanthanum	3	88	1.1	920	2E-09		52	15	85	53	40	245
25	Mn	manganese	4	161	1.55	1245	0		33	48	54	38	73	246
72	Hf	hafnium	4	208	1.3	2150	7E-10		33	83	63	12	55	246
91	Pa	protactinium	5	205	1.5	1568	0		23	78	56	21	73	251
102	No	nobelium	3	56	1.3	827	0		52	8	63	57	73	253
12	Mg	magnesium	2	145	1.31	639	0.0006		79	37	62	67	9	254
9	F	fluorine	1	42	3.98	-220	0		94	4	1	99	73	271
39	Y	yttrium	3	212	1.22	1523	7E-09		52	84	78	27	31	272
47	Ag	silver	2	165	1.93	962	6E-10		79	52	36	50	57	274
101	Md	mendelevium	3	161	1.3	1245	0		52	48	63	38	73	274
94	Pu	plutonium	6	177	1.28	640	0		6	61	73	65	73	278
81	Tl	thallium	3	156	1.62	303	5E-10		52	44	50	74	60	280
60	Nd	neodymium	3	206	1.14	1010	0.00000001		52	81	82	47	22	284
48	Cd	cadmium	2	161	1.69	321	2E-09		79	48	46	72	40	285
68	Er	erbium	3	226	1.24	1522	2E-09		52	90	76	28	40	286
49	In	indium	3	156	1.78	157	3E-10		52	44	45	81	67	289
66	Dy	dysprosium	3	228	1.22	1412	2E-09		52	92	78	32	40	294
86	Rn	radon	6	120	0	-71	0		6	28	96	92	73	295
98	Cf	californium	4	194	1.3	900	0		33	73	63	54	73	296
2	He	helium	0	31	0	-272	0.23		100	1	96	102	2	301
71	Lu	lutetium	3	217	1.27	1656	1E-10		52	85	74	20	70	301
64	Gd	gadolinium	3	233	1.2	1311	2E-09		52	96	80	36	40	304
30	Zn	zinc	2	142	1.65	420	0		79	35	48	70	73	305
20	Ca	calcium	2	194	1	839	0.00007		79	73	87	56	12	307
59	Pr	praseodymium	4	247	1.13	935	2E-09		33	99	83	52	40	307
62	Sm	samarium	3	238	1.17	1072	5E-09		52	97	81	43	34	307
69	Tm	thulium	3	222	1.25	1545	1E-10		52	87	75	23	70	307
100	Fm	fermium	3	231	1.3	1527	0		52	94	63	26	73	308
67	Ho	holmium	3	226	1.23	1470	5E-10		52	90	77	30	60	309
80	Hg	mercury	2	171	2	-39	1E-09		79	56	33	91	51	310
87	Fr	francium	3	42	0	27	0		52	4	96	89	73	314
99	Es	einsteinium	4	228	1.3	860	0		33	92	63	55	73	316
97	Bk	berkelium	4	253	1.3	986	0		33	100	63	49	73	318
65	Tb	terbium	3	225	0	1360	5E-10		52	89	96	34	60	331
89	Ac	actinium	3	200	1.1	1050	0		52	76	85	45	73	331
70	Yb	ytterbium	3	222	0	824	2E-09		52	87	96	58	40	333
38	Sr	strontium	2	219	0.95	769	0.00000004		79	86	89	62	18	334
55	Cs	caesium	2	161	0.79	321	2E-09		79	48	95	72	40	334
61	Pm	promethium	3	205	0	1100	0		52	78	96	41	73	340
3	Li	lithium	1	167	0.98	180	6E-09		94	54	88	80	33	349
11	Na	sodium	1	190	0.93	98	0.00002		94	69	90	84	15	352
56	Ba	barium	2	253	0.89	725	0.00000001		79	100	92	63	22	356
63	Eu	europium	3	231	0	822	5E-10		52	94	96	59	60	361
88	Ra	radium	2	205	0.9	700	0		79	78	91	64	73	385
37	Rb	rubidium	1	265	0.82	39	0.00000001		94	102	93	87	22	398
19	K	potassium	1	243	0.82	64	0		94	98	93	85	73	443

Carbon loves to bond with other elements, is capable of forming complex proteins, is abundant, and thermally stable.

Also:
(a) Heavier elements than those in the periodic table may exist (i.e.: having more than 118 protons) in the core of some stars, however they are highly unstable outside of stars.
(b) Carbon is marginally too heavy to have formed immediately during the Big Bang. Rather, carbon atoms are formed inside stars in a process called ‘stellar nucleosynthesis.’ More precisely, the rules that govern matter – the arrangement of electrons in shells around similar numbers of protons and neutrons – were defined during the Big Bang. Carbon is a product of this structure.
(c) Another reason carbon is able to form so many organic compounds is ‘catenation’ – its ability to bond with itself in long chains. Owing to its valency of +/- 4 carbon – being a ‘Group 14’ element – will give or take electrons with other atoms and form multiple strong covalent bonds. It could be argued that this ‘tetravalence’ is even more important than total valency here. This would seem to be the case based on structures in terrestrial organic chemistry and greenhouse gases. However, replacing valence with tetravalence only serves to further exaggerate carbon’s uniqueness, while excluding sulfur. The existence of sulfur bacteria on earth is the best evidence of an alternative biochemistry. Also, including electronegativity in the ranking compensates somewhat for the use of total valence.
(d) The overall ranking of sulfur and silicon does not confirm their existence as alternative biochemistries given the large delta below carbon. However, it is interesting to note that sulfur bacteria already exist on earth, although still reliant on the presence of carbon. Silicon is also often proposed as a theoretical alternative chemistry due to catenation (above). Other alternatives to these are cosmically rare or exist at narrow temperature ranges. As such, the results of this ranking seem to be supported by other evidence. Ruthenium is also used in anti-cancer medication owing to it’s ability to bond with DNA and in photovoltaic cells to improve sensitivity to solar radiation.
(e) Even in these alternative biochemistries the central principle of the Carbon Paradox may also be upheld as sulfur also forms potent greenhouse gases and silane has similar properties to methane.
(f) The ‘overall rank’ of elements is based on the sum of rankings of individual properties. Experimenting with products and means only serves to further exaggerate carbon’s uniqueness, and using Tuples and Euclidean vectors to derive overall rank – given we are ranking a uniform number of properties in a uniform list of elements – proves redundant.
(g) In the graph shown in the video the sum of rankings of the elements is inverted to create a point system, scoring carbon relative to other elements – where a higher score indicates suitability for the formation of life.

Self-Replication:

Two years ago Jeremy England, a 31-year-old assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, derived a mathematical formula that shows that if you take carbon – in the presence of other key elements, and shine sunlight on it, it will inevitably form complex proteins to dissipate heat, based on the second law of thermodynamics:

These proteins eventually form cells which eventually evolve the behaviours we know as ‘life.’ In other words, life is an inevitable arrangement of carbon in concert with other light elements.

That’s why we are here.

But there’s a twist.

WHY ARE WE ALONE?

Something has stopped intelligent life from propagating throughout the universe, even though – statistically – it as good as certainly should have happened long ago. So why – if life is inevitable – isn’t it? This brings us back to the ‘Great Filter.’ Something stops life from getting past a certain point. The answer is surprisingly simple.

Carbon, for the same reasons it is the only source of life, is also deadly. We don’t have to look very far for an example.

Our twin planet Venus – right next door – has similar properties as Earth, is roughly the same size, shares a similar chemical composition and orbits the same sun. By any logic, life should have evolved there as well. But the atmosphere on Venus is 96.5% carbon dioxide.

As shown in the above table, all of Venus’ surface carbon is trapped in the atmosphere rather than in organic matter, oceans, rocks or soils. The greenhouse effect of so much CO2 in the atmosphere gives Venus an average atmospheric temperature of 462 degrees Celsius (864 degrees Fahrenheit) not only making it inhospitable to life but also evaporating its oceans and streams.

Graphing Life vs CO2:

Several near-miss mass extinction events have occurred in earth’s history. One event in particular very nearly ended life on earth. To map the inverse correlation between the number of surface organisms and atmospheric carbon, total genera was used from ‘Cycles in fossil diversity’ by Robert A. Rohde and Richard A. Muller of the Department of Physics and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, University of California – published in March 2005 in ‘Nature’ issue 434 (7030), pages 208–210. This chart shows fluctuations in diversity of marine fossil by genera for the past 542 million years, and has a high correlation with ‘A Kinetic Model of Phanerozoic Taxonomic Diversity. III. Post-Paleozoic Families and Mass Extinctions’ by J. John Sepkoski, Jr. first published in ‘Paleobiology’ Vol. 10, No. 2 (Spring, 1984), pp. 246-267

To illustrate the inverse correlation, and combining multiple references, I plotted the 30 million year filtered average of:
– Peter Ward’s ‘Atmospheric CO2 550 million years ago to the present’ from ‘Under a Green Sky’ published by Harper Collins in 2007,
– data from GEOCARB III by Robert A. Berner And Zavareth Kothavala, published in the American Journal of Science, Vol. 301, February, 2001, P. 182–204,
– ‘COPSE: A new model of biogeochemical cycling over Phanerozoic time’ by Noam M. Bergman, Timothy M. Lenton and Andrew J. Watson published in the American Journal of Science in May 2004, vol. 304 no. 5, pages 397-437,
– 2001 data from Daniel H. Rothman in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA vol. 98 no. 8, pages 4305–4310, and
– ‘CO2 as a primary driver of Phanerozoic climate’ by Dana L. Royer, Robert A. Berner, Isabel P. Montañez, Neil J. Tabor and David J. Beerling published in GSA Today, volume 14 no. 3, p. 4-10.

Carbon not only inevitably forms life, but it also forms the most common greenhouse gases – CO2 and Methane – heating planets to the point where life is inevitably destroyed. This same correlation also demonstrates the feedback loop between extinction and the creation of fossil fuels. For intelligent life to form, it must evolve over hundreds of millions of years. Periodic ‘Gaian Bottlenecks’ ensure fuel exists for an advanced species to inevitably set about it’s own destruction.

As I described in my article ‘Elon Mustn’t: Why We Shouldn’t Go To Mars‘, you can trace the origins of humans back to cynodonts that survived the End Permian Mass Extinction 235 million years ago. In this same mass extinction the oil was formed by which we now fuel our own demise.

All of those millions of generations of billions of species, when they died, became coal, natural gas, and oil. For human civilisation to have developed to the point we are able to change our atmosphere, we had to harness primitive carbon stores. We first discovered and mastered fire 125,000 years ago and the moment we began burning wood, as that first whiff of greenhouse gas went skyward, we set a doomsday clock ticking.

With time, human’s advanced from wood to coal, coal to oil, and oil to natural gas – burning the same carbon that once formed life. Adequate stores of successive fuels tipped like dominoes. We can now trace the isotopes of carbon, namely carbon 13, in the atmosphere, to prove that the carbon we have burned is causing global warming.

Every life form that ever existed anywhere in the Universe would have faced exactly the same challenge. As surely as carbon forms life, it cascades into this inevitable pattern. Once CO2 levels in the atmosphere reach a tipping point – as we saw during the End Permian Mass Extinction 260 million years ago – rising ocean temperatures trigger the thaw of tundra, the death of jungles, and the release of deep ocean sediments called ‘Clathrates’. These kick the temperature up another 20 degrees as we also saw in the End Permian mass extinction. The only way the temperature declined is that enough algae survived in our oceans to slowly reabsorb that carbon, otherwise Earth would now look like Venus – hundreds of degrees hotter, and devoid of life.

That is why we are alone.

Just as inevitable as life, is it’s extinction – thanks to the very same properties of one critical element.

And that is the ‘Carbon Paradox.’ Carbon cause life, but is also the reason we haven’t encountered it elsewhere in the Universe.

Which brings us to the third question…

HOW LONG HAVE WE GOT TO LIVE?

In 1964, the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev developed what is now called the Kardashev scale, classifying humans as being at the very beginning of the scale – emerging ‘Type I’ – based on our energy sources. For any life form to survive long enough to travel the stars, it would have to achieve ‘Type 2’ – harnessing the energy of its sun. As such, our species is now at a pivotal turning point.

In the very same instant we have come to realise our predicament, it is almost too late. Our current rate of releasing carbon into the atmosphere is the fastest it has been in 66 million years, and faster than the period leading into the End-Permian mass extinction. Temperatures are predicted to rise in the next Century 20 times faster than at any other time in the past 2 million years.

Human civilisation is presented with a unique opportunity: will we learn to manage the atmosphere of our planet, and harness the Great Filter? Based on the work of Fermi, Drake, Frank, Sullivan, Bracewell, von Neumann, Tipler, Sagan, Newman and hundreds of other scientists, it is evident that no other species has successfully navigated this transition.

If we succeed, we may well be the species that explored the entire Universe in the next 4 million years.

If we do not, we will vanish without a trace taking all known life with us.

Meanwhile, across the Universe, the same inevitably opera plays out again and again, a trillion times over, and will until a species eventually thwarts the #carbonparadox.

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