Karl P. Platt on tue 1 jul 97
This is to point out how small humans are in the global context.
Quick! How much living matter is there per square centimeter of the
earth s surface??????
Try 0.1g --- not much.
The US is about 9 million square miles how much space is there per
inhabitant??????
About 1 million square feet.
What is the weight of the earth s atmosphere????
2,334,545,454,545,454,545 Lbs.
How much of this is CO2??????
23,345,454,545,454,545 Lbs
How much atmosphere is there for each inhabitant of the planet????
466909090.9 Lbs or 233,454 tons
If there are 100,000 fuel fired ceramic kilns fired by natural gas to
cone 10 in 18 hours, how much CO2 do they put into the atmosphere as a
percentage of weight of the entire atmosphere?
Assuming that these kilns use 500,000 BTU/Hr, each kiln will use 21.2
Lbs of natural gas per hour. Thus, for each kiln CO2 will be produced as
a byproduct of combustion at a rate of 58.3 Lbs/Hr. Together the kilns
will produce 5,830,000 Lbs of CO2 which is:
..0000005159657320872 Wt% of the atmosphere
Of course this likely will all be consumed by photosynthesis in pretty
short order.
Any amounts of particulate similarly produced will be similarly
microscopic in the real context of the planet electron microscopic.
Someone mentioned lawnmowers. This is a good one. How much particulate
matter could all lawnmowers in the US let s say there are 50 million
of them put into the atmosphere if they all ran for 1 hour and issued
10 grams of particulate (a high estimate) in that hour?
0.00000000009735202492212 Wt% of the atmosphere.
Volcanoes ---
Here s part what NASA had to say about the stuff Mount Pinatubo put into
the air:
"After some six centuries of dormancy, Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines
(15 deg N, 121 deg E) erupted violently in mid-June 1991, resulting in
perhaps the largest volcanic perturbation of the Earth's atmosphere
since the 1883 eruption of Krakatau. The Pinatubo eruption produced a
large quantity of micrometer-sized sulfuric acid aerosol particles in
the stratosphere, particles which eventually dispersed over the globe.
These particles had a significant impact on the global radiation budget
and on stratospheric chemical cycles. For example, tropical
stratospheric temperatures soon after the eruption were more than *3
standard deviations warmer than the 30-year mean, and global average
surface temperatures decreased by about 1 K during the 18-month period
after the eruption.* Heterogeneous chemical reactions that were
catalyzed by these volcanic aerosols have also been cited as the cause
of unusually low ozone levels and high active chlorine levels that were
recorded over Antarctica
during 1991 and 1992."
Of course you ll find the panic fanatics at the EPA claiming it was
Barbeques, lawnmowers, potter s kilns, and leaky refrigerator
compressors causing all of this. How much would "pollution tax credits"
at a scale of 30 Megatons be worth????? God oughtta pay up or be forced
to endure an eternity in the company of Al Gore.
Here is a link for the interested:
http://larcpubs.larc.nasa.gov/randt/1993/RandT/SectionI/I15.html
Read this, too
http://larcpubs.larc.nasa.gov/randt/1993/RandT/SectionI/I12.html
The folks at the Jet Propulsion Lab note:
"The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines is well known
for its near-global effects on the atmosphere and climate due to the
large amount of sulfur dioxide that was injected into the upper
atmosphere."
This is more on the same subject:
http://www-ep.es.llnl.gov/www-ep/atm/ASD/aerosols.html
These folks are dealing with computer modelling which is like trying
to model chocolate on a 110 degree day. But it looks like they re having
fun.
Do a search on Anthropogenic Aerosols and read a few of the things that
pop-up. What you ll find is a raft of conflicting perspectives which
depend on the funding sources represented, a lot of arrogance and
overheated vocabulary. In short, no one knows anything, but based on the
last 150 years of (very porous) data (0.0015 % of the Earth s history
is being considered here) you ll hear all sorts of grand conjecture
this is sort of like going to buy a car when the test drive consists of
merely unlatching the door not even opening it, sitting in the seat or
starting it all while blindfolded, of course.
NOAA says:
Greenhouse gas concentrations have continued to increase
Anthropogenic aerosols tend to produce negative radiative forcings
Climate has changed over the past century
The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on
global climate
Climate is expected to continue to change in the future
There are still many uncertainties
Yet despite the "many certainties" (like volcanoes), they say "the
balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global
climate." Why not simply say "we don t know anything to be factual".
Easy. It doesn't pay -- literally.
Mind you, these are the people who are coming-up with the data founding
the extremely radical proposals being put forward by the EPA which
A. Intend to put a lot of you out of business
B. Do nothing meaningful to mitigate pollution
C. Do a lot to enhance the value of electric utility stock.
Etc.....
This is all intended to urge folks to get off the sofa Nd pitch a bitch
in DC. The proposals by the EPA are *extremely* expensive to implement,
are premised on dubious information, Nd have no demonstrable benefit to
the public.
KPP Amazed by Enviroignorance
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