Posted by
Rich from Paso on Sunday, March 11, 2007 4:41:59 PM
I have been listening with passing interest in the global warming debate. On one hand, you have "95%" of the world's scientists and Liberal activists saying that Global Climate Change is proven science and a fact. then you have 95% of the talk show hosts and Conservatives saying that all of the GCC is junk science and bunk. What is lacking on both sides is context and perspective when they present their facts. Here are some facts about our Earth's atmosphere:
- The entire volume of the Earth's atmosphere is 5,000 trillion metric tons (that's 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 metric tons)
- Carbon Dioxide represents 0.04% of the total composition of the atmosphere, or 200 trillion metric tons. (That is 200,000,000,000,000,000 metric tons) The rest is oxygen, nitrogen, water vapor and trace elements .
- Last year, 25 billion tons of Carbon Dioxide was released into the atmosphere through the use of fossil fuels, the "man-made" component of Greenhouse Gas emissions. That quantity of emission represents 0.0000005% of the total atmosphere and 0.0000125% of all the CO2 in the atmosphere.
- At this rate, it will take 8 million years at present rates of burning fossil fuels to double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. That is, to go from 0.04% of the atmosphere to .08% of the atmosphere.
These look like really small numbers to me. I know the GCC acolytes out there will say, "But Rich, what about that "hockey stick" graph that shows the CO2 levels skyrocketing starting in 1945? I use the analogy of a swimming pool. If I were to try and fill the pool a pitcher at a time, it would barely register on a graph. If I then use a garden hose, the amount of water will shoot up real quick. The graph would look just like the "hockey stick" graph. What I haven't told you is the size of the pool. If it was a backyard pool, the pool would fill quickly. If it was a pool the size of the Mediterranean Sea, however, then I would be at it forever. To me, the CO2 issue looks like trying to fill the Med with a garden hose.
The other question is just how delicate is our atmosphere to where we can bring about the global calamity that Al Gore and his disciples talk about. Keep in mind that a meteor the size of Rhode Island struck the earth near the Yucatan Peninsula and destroyed all of the dinosaurs. Life on earth survived and we exist today because of that calamity. I happen to think that the earth is more resilient than the Global Warming fearmongers want us to believe.
Of course, when I bring up these points, I always seem to get "But Rich, what about our children? Sure, it may not be a problem now, but in forty or fifty years, our children and our children's children will have to deal with our neglect." I just love the fallacious "Appeal to Emotion" tactic that people who can't win on the facts use to try to win an argument. I have heard the "What about our children?" argument on every Democrat issue. Universal healthcare, nuclear war, the national debt, poverty, the Iraq War, on and on and on. I take great pleasure in slamming anyone with the guts to use that tactic and I tell them that they don't have anything to support their agenda other than it might cause problems for our children or grandchildren, so we need to act now.
Look, I'll be the first to say that I don't know if these are good or bad facts, but these numbers look really, really small to me. The question I want answered: Is our ecosystem so fragile that these really small numbers can actually change our climate enough to melt the ice caps and whatnot? I honestly don't know, but to me, these numbers look almost insignificant. Maybe that's why the mainstream media does not tell the public just how big and massive our atmosphere is in order for their anti-American economy agenda not to become just a whisper in the wind.