[paraclete]

Carbon Ain't Really Pollution. It's an interesting slogan and there are a number of adherents to this point of view from those who think it has something to do with the sun spot cycle or Earth's orbit or those who just aren't convinced it is possible for us to have such a large impact from such a small (relatively) growth in Carbon Dioxide.

So the question is; is our science diffinative enough to be able to have the answers? There are many things scientists have been certain about previously than are now disgarded theories. A couple of years ago the large hurricanes that devistated the US were hailed as a sample of what to expect and yet those events haven't repeated any more often than they have been observed in the past. In the scientific world if you cannot repeat the expirement then your theory fails. Do you think that this is all a little paraniod force fed by political interests? Do you think that we have gone too far and are destroying the planet at an increasing rate? As I sit here in the low temperatures of winter I wonder where is that global warming that promised I would have milder winters? I begin to think not in my lifetime

What I think is that we are finding it all too hard to come to grips with the possibility of climate change. If it isn't going to happen tomorrow literally we soon loose interest because the struggles of daily living are what we must focus on. Let's not be influenced by some catchy statistics that may or may not show a link between atmospheric carbon and mean average temperature when there are more important reasons we might want to get away from the carbon cycle as a source of energy.

[speechlesstx]

Clete, wouldn't Carbon Ain't Really Pollution be CARP, not crap? That's not to say that all this climate change fear mongering isn't crap because it is. It's not about losing interest because of the daily struggles for me. I think the consensus - when they aren't busy being outright dishonest - is being very narrow minded in proclaiming a disaster over only 150 years of quite variable recorded data and placing such faith in computer models. Garbage in, garbage out as they say...

Steve

P.S. By the way, we've had many discussions before on Answerway and elsewhere, nice to see you on AMHD

[paraclete]

Whether it is all carp or all crap is what I'm really trying to answer. Try Carbon Really Ain't Pollution if it makes you feel better. Down my way we know carp as an introduced species that muddies the waters and destroys the habitat.

I think this is what our present concerns and actions about climate change may actually be doing. Last week (Obama, L'Aquila) it became fairly obvious we are back in the rhetoric stage with a target for 2050 and little being done in the short term. I think but you may have missed it, Obama actually said, not on my watch. Now I understand that to do something meaningful in the short term is very painful for a politician because you are condemned if you do and you are condemned if you don't.

The longer this debate goes on the less certain the evidence actually becomes. I'm not denying there is evidence that climate is changing (melting glaciers) but is carbon actually the cause or a symptom of the change. We are very good at identifying and treating the symptoms and not the disease, why should this be any different. The reality is we have about 100 years of evidence that something is happening and everything else is extrapolation of statistics, in other words, unproven theory. I have seen statistics indicating that a part of Antartica is warming and the part right next to it is cooling, very inconsistent, and no responsible scientist would base projections on such data but they do. We have destroyed massive amounts of forest and continue to do so, perhaps this is the problem, but no one is doing anything about it, they think coal is the problem. The forest has a purpose; to absorb and sequestrate the carbon. If I'm right the whole problem could be fixed by replanting the forest, destroying as they go the soya industry, the sugar industry, the cattle industry, the softwoods and paper industries and all these other monocultures that have replaced the forests and make lots of lovely money for those nice investors you know where.

[andrewc24301]

"Carbon Really Ain't Pollution"

Or otherwise known as "CRAP"

Just thought I'd mention, all you need to do is reverse "really" and "ain't" to make it work.

[excon]

The longer this debate goes on the less certain the evidence actually becomes. I'm not denying there is evidence that climate is changing (melting glaciers) but is carbon actually the cause or a symptom of the change.

Hello clete:

Carbon, CO2... These are nice words for the trash we're throwing into the air. Why don't you talk about THAT? Is throwing garbage into the air a cool thing to do? Even if it doesn't cause climate change, it sure does make the air dirty, and it CAN'T be doing us any good. No? Why don't we STOP doing that, and I'll bet the carbon, or the CO2, AND the brown sky will disappear? Then everybody will be happy.

excon

[simoneaugie]

One volcanic eruption can produce as much crap in the air as many, many years of humans burning carbon type fuels. Right? Sun spot cycles are documented by science as affecting the heating and cooling trends of the Earth. Right? So how did the last ice age come about? We weren't even here.

What is wrong with us? Like when you go to the grocery store and let them bag your stuff with plastic, plastic is made from fossils. Isn't it way easier to regrow trees than fossils? When you clean up your house by throwing things into the trash, think about it, or not...

Green thinking gives us something to do with our idle minds. We aren't too busy with our lives to take care of our environment. We are too dependent on the excitement provided by those who catastrophize environmental concerns; too busy getting excited and up in arms to do much at all.

Humans are lazy more so these days, as we emjoy our new "wealth." We really don't care until we can't see the horizon for the brown haze. Then we sit back, watch the excitement of the news, and wait for someone else to make it better. I don't think that pollution will be solved by humans except by our extinction.

That is really sad. What if I'm right! Are you entertained now?

[tomder55]

But is carbon actually the cause or a symptom of the change.

My favorite slogan for this topic is "Climate Change Happens" . There is an extensive recorded history of radical climate change in global history that happened long before the internal combustion engine.

I do not believe humans have the capacity short of global thermal nuclear war to radically change the environment .

Now ,I also agree with Excon that all practical measures should be taken to reduce levels of harmful emissions,and indeed great strides have been made in that regard . The technology still needs further improvement and a market for exporting the technology has to be created in the emerging industrial nations so their emissions can be controlled.

I also think we should be moving away from carbon based energy sources. But that doesn't happen overnight and there is a need to bridge the time between now and when it becomes viable. The climate change chicken littles do not want to address that reality.

As an example ;if I were in a position of leadership I would plan an initial immediate construction of 100 breeder reactors in the United States. I would use the blue prints of the French reactors .As you know ;breeder reactors produce more fuel than they consume;and the nuclear waste is almost non-existant as everything eventually gets reused . What is left is a small amt . Of waste with a half life of thirty to forty years .By comparison ;the existing American reactor is a dinosaur which produces waste with a half life of 25,000 years.

This would give America that bridge to generating clean reliable electricity . But what to do about the automobile ? My solution to bridge that gap to viable electric cars ;fuel cells ,or the emergence of some flux capacitor for DeLoreans in the future is the creation of flex fuel autos than can run on a variety of alternatives and creating the infrastructure to run natural gas automobiles . Natural gas vehicle (NGV's ) runs cleaner than petroleum and the United States has an abundance of supply. Currently what we do with natural gas is stupid. We use it to generate electricity because of our paranoia about nukes.
These I think would help us bridge that gap while at the same time addressing people environmental concerns.

Now if you ask me why the hysteria ? I think it is clearly being manufactured by people like the Goracle (Al Gore) who has invested heavily in the "comodity " of carbon trading and has a financial stake in getting his agenda implemented. They know when all the ducks are in a row and all the major nations are on board that they will have created ,and will be in on the ground floor of the ultimate speculative market . Imagine ;there is no hard product or mineral or even vegetable to base this market on . It will totally be controlled by how many credits their cronies inside the governments allow . This will be the dervitive market on steroids . But they will control the inflating and deflating of the bubble by having their buddies control the supply of credits. It will be an international cartel that will make OPEC look like small potatoes.

I also agree with you that reforestation should be a goal . Efficiencies in farming techniques ;the use of GM seed for better crops and everyone needs to get over their paranoia about food irradiation would mean that more food could be grown more efficiently on less land. In the US we are already reclaiming much of the former agriculture lands .We are a net carbon sink and we need to remain so.

[paraclete]

excon
Carbon dioxide doesn't make the air dirty, if it did there would be brown fog in a forest but I agree that particulate pollution, the stuff the brown haze is made of, needs to be dealt with. I am certainly with you on cleaning up and preventing that type of pollution as I am in stopping dumping of industrial waste in the rivers. However this thing with CO2 seems to have a cult mentality about it. No one is worrying about much more polluting gasses like methane because they represent a much smaller part of the emissions.

No one denies that we have to find better solutions to power transport and to generate power because what we have now isn't sustainable. We will see use of solar and wind but they aren't a 100% solution so back to the drawing board

[excon]

Carbon dioxide doesn't make the air dirty, if it did there would be brown fog in a forest

Hello again, clete:

It does warm up the atmosphere, though. The debate is whether man is responsible for the rise in CO2. I'm suggest that it doesn't really matter what causes the rise. Because, if cleaning up our emissions, (which is something we SHOULD do in any case), happens to also reduce CO2, then we're ahead of the game.

excon

[paraclete]

Humans are lazy more so these days, as we emjoy our new "wealth." We really don't care until we can't see the horizon for the brown haze. Then we sit back, watch the excitement of the news, and wait for someone else to make it better. I don't think that pollution will be solved by humans except by our extinction.

That is really sad. What if I'm right! Are you entertained now?

Simon, extinction isn't the answer either because we will take a lot of species with us, the problem is consumerism as you have identified and we know that is fueled by capitalism the underlying assumptions of our western society.

Pollution can be solved by human action, there are examples where action has brought change, the smogs of London have gone but those of Beijing remain. The air in China would clear overnight if they stopped burning garbage in the streets. What it takes is political will to address the problem. It requires behavioural modification, and that starts with telling industry, all industry, that pollution is not on and enforcing it with taxes and shut down orders. If we were to set a price (tax) of say $100 a tonne on carbon emissions the problem would vanish quickly, we would suddenly discover how innovative we can be, but what good is it for the industrialised countries to do this if China and India, etc are allowed business as usual, we will soon be back where we started as the polluting industries migrate

[KISS]

CO, CO2, CH3; Carbon Monoxide, Carbon Dioxide and Methane.

Cows are major contributors of methane. Feed them better and they won't pass gas as much. More trees, and less CO2 since trees use CO2. Less people also mean less CO2. Burn less Fossil fuels and less CO.

[tomder55]

If we were to set a price (tax) of say $100 a tonne on carbon emissions the problem would vanish quickly, we would suddenly discover how innovative we can be,

But that isn't how the schemers envison it at all. They would trade the right to pollute like it was a barrel of oil with them making a killing as both trader, broker ,and the regulator of the market.

[paraclete]

But that isn't how the schemers envison it at all. They would trade the right to pollute like it was a barrel of oil with them making a killing as both trader, broker ,and the regulator of the market.

There is no incentive at $100 a tonne, it costs too much to keep on polluting and the higher the price gets the greater the incentive to do something else. Yes, there may be an EXXON in there somewhere, but we have been there and we should have enough sense to keep the hedge funds out of the market and keep the real interests in the market. It's time to grow up, take the Wall Street wise guys by the balls and say beat it chum

[tomder55]

but what good is it for the industrialised countries to do this if China and India, etc are allowed business as usual, we will soon be back where we started as the polluting industries migrate

At the Senate Hearings on the cap and tax legislation an EPA chart confirmed what you are saying ;that no effort by us would make any difference if the emerging industrial nations aren't on board. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson made the case ;but unbelievably ,the idiot that the President appointed as Energy Sec .Steven Chu simply said he did not believe the chart without giving any other justification for his opinion.


Both India and China refused to budge when the issue was brought up at the G-8 meetings. And why should they ? They see this as the West ;which has already gotten theirs trying to deny them the right to grow their economies.

The Goracle spilled the beans about another aspect of the secret agenda of the climate change chicken littles when he addressed this . He said that the US passing cap and tax laws would be a boost to "global governance" .

[tomder55]

Yes, there may be an EXXON in there somewhere

I know for a fact there is . GE ,T. Boone Pickens,Goldman Sachs are all getting into the act. Heck ,the whole cap and trade scheme was an invention of Enron.

[ETWolverine]

Paraclete,

Can you please explain to me how something that you NEED in order to breath can be a pollutant?

Not only do we exhale CO2, but CO2 levels in our blood regulate our rate of resperation. We need CO2 to prevent us from either breathing too much or too little.

Then there's the fact that plants, which exhale the oxygen we need to breath and are the largest source of oxygen on Earth, need CO2 to survive. If plants need CO2 in order to produce oxygen, how can it be a pollutant?

Then there's the fact that farmers often add CO2 to the soil in order to increase crop yields. CO2 is a fertalizer, and is used to grow food staples. In fact, ORGANIC farmers use more CO2 in their growing process than "traditional" industrial farmers do. Food crops, being mostly plant-life, need CO2 in order to grow. How can something necessary to food production and used in ORGANIC food production be a pollutant?

Answer: It can't.

For now I'm leaving aside the fact that the science of chemistry doesn't support the theory that CO2 depletes the Ozone Layer. I'm just looking at the logic, not the science. I can discuss the science with you somne other time.

But I'd like to hear your comments on the question of how something necessary to human, animal and plant survival on Earth can be a pollutant. Can you defend this position? Does it make sense to you?

Elliot

[speechlesstx]

What's ironic here is the Obama administration is doing exactly as the left accused Bush of doing in silencing dissent and ignoring science. Sen. John Thune is one of those who have taken the administration to task over this.

June 30th, 2009 - Washington, D.C. - Senator John Thune today sent a letter to Bill Roderick, Acting Inspector General at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), asking him to investigate the apparent suppression of scientific views dissenting from the EPA's April 17, 2009 Endangerment Finding for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses, including methane. Recently discovered emails indicate Dr. Al McGartland, Director of the National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE), kept Dr. Alan Carlin, an economist at NCEE, from presenting his view that the EPA was incorrect in determining that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses should be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The EPA's Endangerment Finding is the regulatory measure which has generated concerns about not only regulating greenhouse gasses but also a potential tax on livestock emissions.

"The emails made public by the House Energy and Commerce Committee show a high ranking EPA official apparently suppressing scientific views that run counter to the Obama Administration's determination to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses," said Thune. "As Congress considers costly climate change legislation that has the potential to reshape our entire economy, a robust debate on the issue is necessary. I am concerned about the credibility of the Obama Administration's arguments in favor of increased environmental activism and government regulation now that it is clear that legitimate differences of opinion are not tolerated within the EPA."

One of the emails from Carlin's boss reads, "The time for such discussion of fundamental issues as passed for this round. The administrator and administration has decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office."

That is why the rush to pass cap and tax, the science clearly shows a cooling trend but the agenda and image trump everything else.

[excon]

How can something necessary to food production and used in ORGANIC food production be a pollutant?

Answer: It can't.

Hello again, El:

I don't know. Water seems to fit your description above too. It's pretty benign, until you're in it and can't make it to shore... At that point, I wouldn't call it a pollutant. I'd call it a killer.

Too much CO2 in our atmosphere will kill us too, and I don't care what you fruitcakes want to call it.

excon

[ETWolverine]

Hello again, El:

I dunno. Water seems to fit your description above too. It's pretty benign, until you're in it and can't make it to shore... At that point, I wouldn't call it a pollutant. I'd call it a killer.

Too much CO2 in our atmosphere will kill us too, and I don't care what you fruitcakes want to call it.

excon

Ahhhh, now we are changing definitions. There is no logical way to defend the position that CO2 is a pollutant. So we change the premise and redefine CO2.

CO2 is not a pollutant, but an overdose of it will kill you.

I agree with that statement. But with that statement comes a whole bunch of questions.

How much is too much? Is the amount that we currently have in the air too much? Is it too little? Is it just right? Do we have the ability to control the amount that is in our air? Is the amount produced by industry significant compared to the total amount in the air? Does the eco-system self-regulate the amount of CO2 in the air (the answer to that one is "yes"). What would be the net effect of regulation on CO2 levels in the air? Is the cost of doing so justified by the outcome?

Simply saying that too much CO2 is bad for you is too simplistic, and doesn't result in a real answer to the questions at hand. Yes, too much is no good. True statement. But it doesn't actually talk to our state of affairs. The statements intimates that we are getting too much. But are we really getting too much? We don't know the answer to that.

It's sort of like saying that a particular pitcher would be awful if he walked all the batters he faced. IF he really were walking all the hitters, the statement would be true. But is that pitcher actually walking all the hitters, or is that just supposition.

Elliot

[tomder55]

how much is too much ? During the Cretaceous period carbon dioxide ranged as high as 2,000 parts per million( ppm) ;more than five times today's values . Life on the earth ;both plant and animal thrived. That's just an inconvenient scientific fact.