Carbon Emissions Are Good

National Review Online ^ | April 3, 2012 4:00 A.M. | Robert Zubrin

[Delacon]

Hi Guys and Gals!

[Delacon]

Ping

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for posting this.

[JRandomFreeper]

How good are methane emissions?

A friend wanted to know. Really.

/johnny

[knarf]

It burns green.

So let's see now;

invent globull warming,
invent CO2 cause,
Destroy the coal industry,
to bolster the invented CO2,
because of the invented globull warming.

right ?

[re_nortex]

I grew up in Pittsburgh in the 40's and 50's when the moniker "Smokey City" was applied to the region. I know for a 100% certainty that the smoggy haze was a symbol of prosperity for everyone and nearly full employment for all.

The efforts led by liberal David Lawrence and his DemonRAT toadies were a precursor to the business-crippling EPA. Sure, they cleaned up the air a tad but they utterly killed the vitality of the once-thriving steel industry and sent the Western Pennsylvania economy into the ditch for decade upon decade. The exodus from the region still continues because of the misguided actions of these early environmental extremists.

[Delacon]

You are welcome. I think though that Zubrin should have devoted, at least, a chapter on liberal/greenie hubris. The mindset that we disgusting capitalist consumerist are somehow a blight on the world and must be destroyed as we cause change in the environment. We are part of the environment and effect change on the environment just like those grasses did. What we do isn’t negative, its normal. And if we push too hard in one direction, well ole mother nature don’t need no carbon trading scam. She’ll find a way to push back on her own. Being the constantly adaptable creatures we are, I am sure we will be just fine. Besides I live in Delaware which has the lowest mean elevation in the country. I live on some of its highest ground far back from the shore. I want beach front property without having to move. Come on ocean! Rise!

[Delacon]

Methane is 20 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than c02. The thing about methane is that its naturally occurring. In other words, we humans don’t cause it much. Except when we fart. No, the libs will whine that if we just wiped out all those gassy cows we raise for meat and dairy, the earth would be better off. But their contribution is negligible. Thats why libs don’t take that angle very hard. They sound ridiculous. Fact is we actually are helping in that area. We go around trapping methane(natural gas) and turn it into CO2 as we combust it. If you read Zubrin’s book “The Methanol economy” we should be trapping methane more and turning it into methanol and running our cars on the stuff. Search methanol and look for my username. I posted one of Zubrins articles on the subject a few years ago.

[allmost]

Warmth is were we live, oetzi’s don’t just fall out of mountains.

[Delacon]

I totally agree just so long as we don’t confuse smog with CO2 which is an odorless, invisible gas. I am not opposed to reasonable efforts to reduce smog. I lived outside Denver for a time. The brown cloud(2nd only to LA’s) there didn’t help people keep their jobs(denver not being a big manufacturing city). It puts a dent Denvers tourist industry.

[JRandomFreeper]

And the #1 greenhouse vapor?

Of course, they can't gritch about dihydrogen monoxide. They fell for that a few years ago....

Water vapor is the most predominant greenhouse gas.

Get a greenie to admit that.

/johnny

[allmost]

Never. :)

[Delacon]

Its also the least understood in its effects and makes all those scientists’ computer models not worth the code of an android market app. Isn’t dihydrous monoxide? ;)

[TigersEye]

Now let us consider the question of warming: If it is occurring — and I believe it is, based not on disputable temperature measurements but on sea levels, which have risen two inches in two decades —...

I hate to rain on this guy's parade but that's baloney.

Claim That Sea Level Is Rising Is a Total Fraud

Sea levels began to rise 18k years ago at the end of the last glacial period. They have risen about 135 meters since then which is an average of 7.5 millimeters per year. That is an average of 750 mm per century (29.5 inches) which is far more than the average over the last century.

From 1880 to 2000 sea level rose about 20 cm or just under 8 inches. Far far less than the nearly 30 inches per century average over the last 18,000 years.

That is less than 3/4" per decade over the last century. More importantly that is a significantly slower rate of rise than the average for the last 18 millennium.

[Delacon]

TE I really like it when people more knowlegeable than I contribute to threads I start. Pretty much everyone. So let us assume that we aren’t getting warmer. That means, excluding Zubrins “earth is warming” opinion, we still enjoy the benefits of more CO2. I don’t get my beachfront property though dammit.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

The exodus from [western Pennsylvania] still continues

I know couple from Pittsburgh who are very proud of the improvements in air quality in their home town. They've lived in Massachusetts for the last 50 years, of course. (BTW, my late father-in-law grew up in Johnstown, his wife in Marion, OH. They spent the last 55 years of their lives in Massachusetts as well.)

[Moltke]

bmfl

[StACase]

Great post!

Let me add a factoid. Often the other side will tell you
that sea level is accelerating, you know, it's rising faster
and faster every year. And then they run the home page for
Colorado University's Sea Level Research Group as proof
with this graph:



And if you follow the link CU gives you for the data, you
can plot it out for yourself in Excel, but if you use a
polynomial trend line instead of the linear trend supplied
it looks like this:



As you can see, sea level is not accelerating. In fact
there's a little bit of deceleration going on. The other
side doesn't want to talk about that very much.

[painter]

Bump

[TigersEye]

TE I really like it when people more knowlegeable than I contribute to threads I start.

Well, that isn't me but I have been following this glowbull warming scam for a while and have collected a little info that contradicts the Warmers. IMO if we are warming human activity has absolutely nothing to do with it. I will agree that more CO2 is a good thing. When flowering plants first evolved CO2 levels were way higher than they are now. That tells me that higher CO2 is ideal for plants and abundant vibrant plant life can't be anything but good for animal life.

I didn't mean to imply that I was contradicting the author's entire thesis but the statement about rising sea levels needed to be put into perspective. The actual rate over the last century was about 1 1/2"s per decade but even 2"s per decade is rather slow compared to the average over the last 18,000 years.