Well, there's a nice scientific explanation. If you want to do this at the schoolkid level, I'm happy to take it to that level.

But you still haven't answered some important questions.

1) What garbage is being thrown in the air? Last time I threw a used soda can in the air, it had absolutely no effect whatsoever on the atmosphere. What garbage are you talking about? (Until you define the cause of the problem, you can't define the problem.)

2) What BAD does it do? As I said, last time I threw that empty soda can in the air, it didn't do anything bad. If someone had been standing under it, they might have gotten bonked on the head. But I was careful, and nobody got hurt. Throwing my garbage in the air didn't do anything bad at all. Made a loud noise when it hit the ground, but that's about it. It didn't cause a problem with the air I was breathing. (Until you define the mechanism of the problem, you can't figure out how to solve it.)

3) Atmoshpere is finite... true. But with all the Billions of people constantly breathing, and all the BILLIONS who have breathed our atmosphere before through millions of years of history, not to mention all the animals that breath atmosphere too, shouldn't the atmosphere have been used up by now? Or at least it should be running short by now, shouldn't it? (Until you can identify the parameters of the problem or even if there is a problem, you can't solve the problem.)

These are important questions. I would like you to answer them for homework. We can review your answers tomorrow and continue with the lesson then.

You see, the explanation you have given doesn't make even a little bit of sense. That's because you don't understand it yourself. If it made a little bit of sense, there would be something to talk about. But it doesn't. So we'll take it from the beginning, and see if you can't learn something about your own belief system in the process.

Elliot

If Gore, Waxman and the others who voted for the cap and trade bill were really serious about ridding us of that awful CO2 they could do their part by ceasing to EXHALE.

That seems reasonable, dontcha think??

Or maybe they want to buy some credits from the rest of us?

Hello again, El:

You're not living on the same planet as me, are you?

excon

Ex, Ex, Ex.

When your're in a hole the smart thing to do is QUIT diggin'.

After all this time, the scientific community is moving away from the idea of man-made global warming.

Some of them must have actually done some research, unlike Al Gore.

But there are still some who would foolishly destroy our economy on the basis of junk science.

You're not really one of them are you?

Hello again, El:

There are none so blind as they who will not see. When I look at the horizon, I see a brown haze. That is the garbage. I can see it. You can't. Your indoctrination won't let you. Ain't nothing I can do about that.

excon

I can't see it, the air is quite clean here.

Hello Steve:

I don't see the sunshine when I go into a closet either... Your point??

You wouldn't be saying, like your rightwinged brother, that there's no air pollution?? You MIGHT be saying that, although I think you said one time that throwing your trash into the air WASN'T a good thing. You even said it makes it hard to breathe.

How could that be when your skies are so clean?

excon

We have already addressed the speciousness of equating the opposition to unproven CO2 linkage to climate change with an approval of polluting the atmosphere with known harmful substances.

They are unrelated and have no correlation .I can be both in favor of reducing the emissions of true pollutants and be opposed to this rush to economic ruin by combatting a problem that no one has proven exists.

Easy, air pollution is bad and it does have an adverse affect on breathing. I didn't say we had such air pollution here on the high plains of Texas, with our clear skies, sunshiny days and an average wind speed that blows whatever air pollution we might have to Kansas. We don't have a brown haze, we have clear, blue skies. I guess I could worry about all those chemtrails though, lol.

That haze is light reflecting off SOMETHING. At this point you don't know what that something is or whether it is deleterious or beneficial. All you know is that you see something when the sun sets. We must research it and find out what it is.

Furthermore, once we have figured out what that haze is made of and whether it is actually bad for us, we need to further look at the cap & trade bill and determine whether it addresses those ingredients in a meaningful way.

THIS is how scientific research works. You look for the provable facts, not the assumptions.

So... back to lesson 1:

What garbage are you talking about?

You have answered "that brown stuff you see when you look at the horizon." "Smog" is the term most often used.

But what is smog? What is it made of? Is it bad for us?

That is the object of lesson #2.

You're moving along quite nicely, excon. Keep it up.

Elliot

Lesson #2

Smog, more scientifically known as Photochemical Smog, is made up of lots of different chemicals often known as Volatile Organic Compunds or VOCs. The most common VOC in the air is methane, which is actually beneficial to us. Furthermore, most methane is produced naturally from swamplands, rice patties, and cow flatulance. It is also caused by landfills and by burning wood. Short of killing off the natural environment, the world cow population and getting rid of landfills, you aren't going to make any dent in methane levels worldwide.

Other smog ingredients include nitrogen oxides such as nitrous oxide (laughing gas) which is also naturally occurring and beneficial, water vapor, carbon dioxide, troposheric ozone, all of which are beneficial. Smog also includes carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, which are harmful chemicals. However, most of them are also naturally occurring as well, with relatively amounts actually being produced by industry. Nevertheless, we should strive as hard as possible to limit industrial emmissions of these harmful chemicals.

So... now we know what smog is. It is mostly made up of a bunch of benign or beneficial chemicals and compounds, with a few dangerous ones thrown in.

Now, here's the kicker: Does the Cap & Trade bill address the dangerous chemicals in any meaningful manner?

That's lesson #3.

Elliot

Lesson 3:

Does the new Cap & Trade bill address smog?

HR 2454, known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, specifically mentions which chemicals and compounds it intends to place limits on. Section 711, paragraph a of the bill (page 699-700) lists the following items:

(1) Carbon dioxide.
(2) Methane.
(3) Nitrous oxide.
(4) Sulfur hexafluoride.
(5) Hydrofluorocarbons emitted from a chemical manufacturing process at an industrial stationary source.
(6) Any perfluorocarbon.
(7) Nitrogen trifluoride.
(8) Any other anthropogenic gas designated as a greenhouse gas by the Administrator under this section.

The first three of these, as we previously discussed, are beneficial chemicals necessary to life on Earth. And short of killing off any animal, fish, insect, and human that breaths, you can't get rid of carbon dioxide, and doing so would in turn kill every plant, fungus, and mold in existence. Ditto for methane and nitrous oxide.

Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is an inorganic, colorless, odorless, non-toxic and non-flammable gas. It's harmless. Like helium gas, it can be breathed in and used to alter your voice. It makes the voice deeper, the opposite effect of helium on the vocal chords. It is also not one of the chemicals in smog. It's regulation accomplishes nothing to fix your smog problem.

Hydroflourocarbons (HFCs) are a group of chemicals made up of hydrogen, fluorine and carbon. They cause absolutely no harm to the ozone layer. Only chemicals containing bromine and chlorine are known to cause environmental problems with the ozone layer. HFCs are also not part of smog. Regulating them accomplishes nothing to fix your smog problem, and doesn't do anything to protect the environment.

Perfluorocarbons (PFCs) are HFCs in which the hydrogen has been replaced with fluorine. There are many medical and industrial uses for the stuff, and it has been found non harmful to humans. It is used in retinal re-attachment surgery to fill the eye with a liquid to give the eye proper shape. It is used in decompression sickness cases to help flush the body of nitrogen and eliminate the bends. There is experimentation to use oxygenated PFC as a medium for liquid breathing for underwater use (like in the movie The Abyss). It is used as a contrasting medium in diagnostic ultrasound imaging. It is under scrutiny as a possible medium for artificial blood. It is commonly used in cosmetics with the claim that the oxygen molecules dissolved in the PFCs have an anti-aging effect on the skin. It is being used as a replacement for chlorofluorocarbons in refrigeration units and in "clean: fire extinguishers . It is a good electrical insulator and is used in electrical applications. It is used in ski wax to it's ability to shed moisture and reduce friction in wet conditions. In other words, it's safe and environmentally friendly. It is also not included in smog, and it's reduction doesn't do anything to fix your smog problem.

Nitrogen trifluoride happens to be toxic when in gasseous form. However, according to the Journal of Hazardous Materials, Volume 159, Issues 2-3, 30 November 2008, it's effect on the atmoshperic environment is very small because of how little is actually produced and how little is actually emitted into the air as a gas. It is also not an ingredient in smog, and so it's regulation doesn't fix your smog problem.

Here's the final item in that list: "Any other anthropogenic gas designated as a greenhouse gas by the Administrator under this section." That's a catchall phrase meaning "we don't know yet what we want to regulate, but when we do, we have the right to do it, no matter what." It is a blanket license for the government to regulate anything they wish under envirinmental authority. But it doesn't say anything specific. And thus again doesn't solve your smog problem.

Here's what the bill doesn't regulate: carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide are never mentioned. Yet those are key ingredients in smog, and they are the only ones that are truly harmful. But they are completely ignored.

So... now we know what smog is. We know what the regulation says. And we know that the regulation doesn't fix smog and spends its time mostly regulating stuff that isn't harmful and ignores the stuff that is.

THIS BILL DOESN'T FIX THE ENVIRONMENT.

Whether you believe in global warming or not, this bill doesn't truly address global warming, environmental issues or making cleaner air. What it does is regulate what humans produce, whether it is actually harmful or not.

And that is it's true purpose... to regulate human activity.

So in answer to the third question, does this bill fix the problem, the answer is an emphatic NO!!

So why would you support it?

Lesson's over, excon. School's out.

Elliot

Hello El:

I don't. Never said I did. All I'm saying is there's a problem. Apparently, in your lessons to educate ME, YOU got educated. Indeed, you've ACKNOWLEDGED a problem. That's certainly better than calling it a hoax. So, what's YOUR solution?

excon

PS> I'm not a Democrat. I don't think Democrats are any more capable of passing good legislation than the Republicans were. I think they ALL suck. I'm a strong supporter of term limits. As noted in my recent postings, I don't think the Democratic health care plan will work, and I don't know enough about Cap & Trade to say one way or another, but I have my doubts.

At least Democrats attempt to fix real problems, instead of calling them a HOAX, which is exactly what tom's hero, Republican NY Congressman Peter King did.

Actually, if you will look at what I wrote, nothing there seems to identify a global warming problem. It DOES talk about an air pollution problem which I have never denied in any post EVER. But air pollution and global warming are NOT the same, and never have been. Air pollution exists. Global warming doesn't.

In summary:

1) There IS NO GLOBAL WARMING.
2) There is air pollution, which is a problem that I have never denied. (There is also less air pollution than there used to be. But that's a discussion for another day.)
3) The Cr@p on Trade bill doesn't address either the causes of air pollution or the supposed causes of global warming, and is therefore a waste of time and money and a deterrant to free markets designed to deliberately attack capitalism.

End of class.

Elliot

What's my solution? My solution is a free market solution.

If people want cleaner air, let them start businesses who's job it is to develop methods to clean the air. Create an air-scrubbing industry.

Let them develop companies that sell cleaner production technologies to manufacturers. New technologies for production are developed all the time, and people get rich selling these new technologies to mega-corporations looking for a new edge.

Let people come up with efficient clean-air fuels and sell them. If there's enough demand, someone will find a way to fill the demand with some new development.

Let the FREE MARKET fix the problem. You'd be surprised by how well private citizens come up with solutions to problems of pollution. Let them try, and you'll see how well the problem gets fixed in the free markets.

My solution is to leave government out of it, because as you have now seen in the Cap & Trade bill, the government doesn't even begin to address the issue properly. It regulates all the wrong things and ignores the things that REALLY need to be addressed. And the more the government tries, the more they screw it up.

As for global warming, since it doesn't exist, it doesn't need to be solved.

Elliot

You'll love this Elliot. Glenn Nye, freshman Democratic representative from Virginia, has sent two letters to the same constituent taking different positions on Cap and Trade.

As Jim Geraghty put it on NRO, "Look, whatever your position is, you can be reassured that Nye agrees with you."

Maybe he's just trying to be true to his campaign slogan, "An independent voice, for a change." Maybe he's just following in Lurch's footsteps, "I actually did vote for Cap and Trade before I voted against it."

Someone brought up this point about cap & trade.

You are in business and someone in govt. gives you an allocation for carbon emissions. Now suppose you want to expand your business. Where will you get the extra carbon credits you need?

Will some larger business sell you some of theirs? Not likely! They may want to expand in the future.

What is to keep large companies from buying up credits in order to stifle competition?

How high will speculators drive the price for available credits? All will be passed on to consumers, of course.

I don't know the answers to these questions.

Do you?

Do those representatives who voted for the bill know? I'll bet they don't!

They didn't even read the thing before they voted for it!

Now doesn't that make you breathe easier?

FYI, to date 31,478 American scientists, including 9,029 with PhDs, have signed a petition saying they disagree that man-made global warming is threatening the planet.

Also (as I've reported before), "Eight hundred and fifty-four (854) of the 1221 official climate monitoring stations across the country were surveyed and nearly 90% are not properly sited.

Some are located next to buildings and heat-generating electrical equipment. This alone taints the climate record and leads to erroneous warming."

The rest of the column discusses the incomplete reporting on arctic ice, CO2, natural cycles and computer models. I know, all 32,000 signers are probably IDers and not really interested in an honest, open debate of the evidence.

Global Warming Petition Project

There is no validation at all of signers. Little 14 year old Joey can sign and send in a form.

Hello again, steve:

You say that as if we should believe that only a FEW of them might be IDers. For those who don't know, IDers are scientists who have an agenda, and make their science fit it. You have LOTS of them running around righty circles. Why should I believe that only a very few, if any, of the 32,000 signers are NOT IDers??

As long as you have IDers in your ranks, and as long as you've held up ID as REAL science, you're just not going to be taken seriously on science issues... At least not by ME.

excon