Posted on 07/29/2002 8:40:14 AM PDT by farmfriend
Edited on 04/12/2004 5:41:09 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
We draw carbon dioxide into our bodies and release it with every breath. Plants need it to survive. How did a gas essential to life become a demonized pollutant that could alter the world's environment as we know it?
Carbon dioxide is one of the Earth's so-called greenhouse gases, which in increasing amounts can heat up the atmosphere. Increased heat may lead to wholesale changes in climate, disrupting the way plants, wildlife and people live all over the planet.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
He is very outspoken, although he has been less vehemnt while Republicans have had some voice in Congress, but he smells blood this fall and he is letting it all hang out.
Today he said that there is global warming and that carbon dioxide is responsible. Also that if there is the slightest chance we can reduce the problem through regulating carbon dioxide production we have to do it.
Point is they haven't gone away, and they think they are coming back, soon.
Most of these fires can be traced back to the Green Jihadist Agenda of no tree harvesting including dead trees, no roads and no clearing of the brush. I sure that billions of pounds of dangerous CO2 has been released by these Green Agenda fires just this year.
Fuel cells produce water vapor. If the RICOnuts went after water vapor the money from BP and Exxon would dry up because they are heavily invested in fuel cells and the rare earth and precious metals necessary to make them. The tax exempt foundations of the owners of oil companies are the biggest donors to the environmental movemint.
Got it?
This latest NOAA image shows a whole lot of CO2 up there in all that smoke.
Once we did that, we'd need to firmly establish that the greenies caused the fires through reckless mismanagement and then have them purchase carbon credits from Russia, China or India to cover their wanton carbon consumption. I'm serious, Greenpeace et al want Kyoto so bad, they ought to have to abide by it and pay for the excess carbon they made. This fact ought to at least be made public.
I found this, I don't know how applicable it is:
|
Grass and Woodland |
Timber and Brush |
|||
| Pollutant |
lb/ton |
lb/acre* |
lb/ton |
lb/acre** |
| CO |
101 |
202 |
260 |
3,900 |
| NOx |
0 |
0 |
4 |
60 |
| OG |
19 |
38 |
25 |
375 |
| TSP |
16 |
23 |
42 |
630 |
There's a lot more interesting info on that page if anyone cares- it's pretty long.
It says 19.5 pounds of carbon dioxide. The carbon in gasoline is probably 75-80% of the gasoline by weight. The rest of the mass of carbon dixoide comes from the oxygen in the air used to get the gasoline to burn.
The Greening Of The North: Real, And Caused By Climate Change
the 19 pounds of carbon however is NOT resident in the gasoline... it is taken IN from the atmosphere and hence is nothing more than the reuse of carbon that is already there.. gasoline does NOT create 19 lbs of carbon dioxide, per gallon ex nihlo, it uses EXISTING carbon already in the air to make the lbs, if it makes any at all.
The increase in weight is from the addition of oxygen to the carbon to form carbon dioxide. The carbon comes from the hydrocarbons that make up gasoline, not from the air. The oxygen comes from the air. When the 5.3 lbs of carbon are burned in an engine, 14.1 pounds of oxygen are required and 19.4 pounds of carbon dioxide are released. The carbon in the gasoline is an entirely different chemical form (e.g. typically branched chains having 4 to 12 carbon atoms per molecule and in liquid form) whereas carbon dioxide is CO2 and is a highly oxidized form of carbon. Neither material is pure carbon.
One other point is that the amount of carbon dioxide in air is a relatively easy measurement to make, so when the quantity of carbon dioxide is quoted, the numbers are fairly accurate. The uncertainty lies in the methodology used to extrapolate from localized measurements to average global concentrations. The greater uncertainty concerns the origin of the differences observed over time. Detecting an increase is NOT the same as discerning the origin of increase. It is even worse to say such an increase in CO2 leads to an increase in global temperature. The opposite may be true - more heating increase CO2 levels. This is the biggest problem I have with the relationships that form the current description of global warming.
Also, would we count arson as part of the average or not? I'm not overly concerned about the carbon myself- I'm just looking for a way to twist it around on the Greens so they have egg on their face. Could we not argue that we possess the technology now to properly manage these forests so that these types of out of control fires do not have to occur and we could have easily prevented them had the Greens not obstructed us from doing so?
It would seem to me that if that much could be established, it would be relatively easy for someone to calculate the amount of carbon credits the greens owe our society based on the amount of carbon released in these unnecessary fires. At the very least it might cause them to spend money on PR campaigns to unexplain the charges and win back some "respectability" with the American people. If we can even make them spend money that's good- because their money comes from donations. I'd heap rather money from people like Alec Baldwin get used to pay lawyers to defend the Green Groups than to put fuel in the Rainbow Warrior for a voyage or to fund a tree-sit etc. Make them waste their funds in other words.
It was hard to come to a conclusion because the numbers were not consistent. There were a couple of salient points: one was that forest fires probably do contribute to the seasonal CO2 signal that is apparent in the Keeling Mauna Loa CO2 curve, which is the record of CO2 concentrations showing the increasing amount of atmospheric CO2. The curve (easily findable by Web search) shows an increasing trend on which the seasonal cycle creates a jagged-tooth pattern. This pattern is primarily due to the amount of CO2 taken out of the atmosphere every spring by deciduous forest regrowth (i.e., leaves) and phytoplankton blooms in the northern oceans, notably the Atlantic.
Burning forests add CO2 to the atmosphere, in two ways. Some CO2 is released by burning; the remainder is released by bacterial respiration. That's the other side of the cycle; when seasonal growth in spring ends, respiration and CO2 release take over. That's why the curve goes back up again. My off-the-cuff analysis indicated that the number showing that CO2 released by forest burning amounts to 6% of the amount of CO2 released by bacterial respiration is fairly reasonable. (Note that this is global.)
So, if one was going to attempt to levy a green tax on CO2, the fires are insignificant. What is far MORE significant is the amount of bacterial respiration that takes place on deadfall. So one would have to show that green conservation policies are creating an inordinate amount of more deadfall. My second off-the-cuff guess is that the amount of deadfall resulting from green conservation actions is a lot less than natural deadfall in areas like northern Canada and Russia. The rate of bacterial respiration is going to be highest in the wettest areas where organic matter is broken down fastest.
Hope that helps a bit.
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