Foxfyre
Travel in Manhattan where all of the taxis operate and than tell me it's not an air quality and health problem.
Foxfyre
AS for Bloomberg he is the best mayor since LaGuardia. And that is only because {La Guardia} read the sunday funnies over the radio when there was a newspaper strike. He is head and shoulders better than Rudy.
I didn't say auto emissions were not a health problem. I said CO2 emissions except in huge concentrations in confined places were not a health problem.
Foxfyre wrote:I didn't say auto emissions were not a health problem. I said CO2 emissions except in huge concentrations in confined places were not a health problem.
In a crowed classroom after 4 hours, CO2 concentration may reach 4,000 ppm. CO2 daily mean level in the heart of Paris is around 1000 ppm, more than twice the global atmospheric level (380 ppm). Is there a health problem because of such levels ? Absolutely not.
As an anecdote, lichens have reappeared on the trees along the Champs Elysées. They are usually not found when the air is polluted.
Foxfyre wrote:I didn't say auto emissions were not a health problem. I said CO2 emissions except in huge concentrations in confined places were not a health problem.
The earth is a confined space, in space.
Steve 41oo wrote:Foxfyre wrote:I didn't say auto emissions were not a health problem. I said CO2 emissions except in huge concentrations in confined places were not a health problem.
The earth is a confined space, in space.
And as yet, human generated CO2 emissions have not been convincingly been shown to be a health problem in anything other than certain confined spaces as previously described. And the issue of it being any problem controllable by humankind at all is certainly not settled, at least in my opinion. And while I have no problem with anybody agreeing with you and doing whatever they please to reduce CO2 emissions for whatever reason, I do have a problem with the government ordering me to personally conform as a condition of employment or residency or ability to make a living.
For those substances KNOWN to be a problem such as lead and carbon monoxide, we have made great strides to reduce these to acceptable levels. Because we can know, even see, the benefit from controlling these, I have no problem with me being required to do whatever is necessary so that I don't poison myself or my neighbor.
Foxfyre wrote
Quote:I do have a problem with the government ordering me to personally conform as a condition of employment or residency or ability to make a living
.
Does that mean if you made tyour living by being a second story man the government has no right to stop and arrest you.??
You are being naive. the government is in your pocket, or you are in theirs presently in every way possible.
Steve 41oo wrote:Foxfyre wrote:I didn't say auto emissions were not a health problem. I said CO2 emissions except in huge concentrations in confined places were not a health problem.
The earth is a confined space, in space.
CO2 added to the atmosphere through the natural aerobic decay of organic matter and the (much smaller) additions resulting from human activity does not stay and accumulate there. It is continuously taken up by living plants and absorbed by the oceans (from which it percipitates out through the formation of calcium carbonate and other like molecules). It is a continuous and cyclic process. The equilibrium level in the atmosphere is indeed weakly affected by the increased net addition rate, however this is not a closed dead end system as you imply.
au1929 wrote:Foxfyre wrote
Quote:I do have a problem with the government ordering me to personally conform as a condition of employment or residency or ability to make a living
.
Does that mean if you made tyour living by being a second story man the government has no right to stop and arrest you.??
You are being naive. the government is in your pocket, or you are in theirs presently in every way possible.
Come on Au. Stay in the context and don't start throwing a lot of ridiculous red herrings into the mix. I really hate to have to reinvent the wheel in every post to avoid being misunderstood.
The comment was clearly made re government mandated CO2 reductions and not allowing people to work etc. if they didn't conform.
it is interesting to note that there are also still a fair number of people disputing any ill effects from secondary tabacco smoke inhalation .
while most people seem to have accepred the restrictions on smoking now , and the benefits are beginning to show up , i wonder how many lives could have been saved or at least prolonged (possibly many people would not have had to suffer from lung diseases) had the restrictions on smoking been instituted earlier - but the human animal is usually slow to learn - and even slower to accept change .
hbg
hamburger wrote:it is interesting to note that there are also still a fair number of people disputing any ill effects from secondary tabacco smoke inhalation .
while most people seem to have accepred the restrictions on smoking now , and the benefits are beginning to show up , i wonder how many lives could have been saved or at least prolonged (possibly many people would not have had to suffer from lung diseases) had the restrictions on smoking been instituted earlier - but the human animal is usually slow to learn - and even slower to accept change .
hbg
But we KNOW tobacco smoke is harmful both first hand and second hand. I don't mind rules that prohibit people from forcing me to breathe their smoke. I DO mind rules that prohibit people from breathing tobacco smoke voluntarily in their own space or where others don't mind it.
But breathing CO2 in any concentration that will exist in any large or small city is not harmful to anybody.
Foxfyre wrote:hamburger wrote:it is interesting to note that there are also still a fair number of people disputing any ill effects from secondary tabacco smoke inhalation .
while most people seem to have accepred the restrictions on smoking now , and the benefits are beginning to show up , i wonder how many lives could have been saved or at least prolonged (possibly many people would not have had to suffer from lung diseases) had the restrictions on smoking been instituted earlier - but the human animal is usually slow to learn - and even slower to accept change .
hbg
But we KNOW tobacco smoke is harmful both first hand and second hand. I don't mind rules that prohibit people from forcing me to breathe their smoke. I DO mind rules that prohibit people from breathing tobacco smoke voluntarily in their own space or where others don't mind it.
But breathing CO2 in any concentration that will exist in any large or small city is not harmful to anybody.
And we KNOW that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
maporsche wrote:
And we KNOW that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
And we KNOW that water vapor is an even more significant and abundant greenhouse gas than CO2. Indeed we also KNOW that methane ( from the anerobic decay of organic matter) is a much more effective greenhouse gas than CO2.
Correct. But one which can't be controlled by humans.
See:
Water vapour feedback
Posted may 19th
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Southern Ocean Loaded With Carbon Dioxide
By Deborah Zabarenko
Reuters
WASHINGTON (May 19) - The Southern Ocean around Antarctica is so loaded with carbon dioxide that it can barely absorb any more, so more of the gas will stay in the atmosphere to warm up the planet, scientists reported on Thursday.
Human activity is the main culprit, said researcher Corinne Le Quere, who called the finding very alarming.
The phenomenon wasn't expected to be apparent for decades, Le Quere said in a telephone interview from the University of East Anglia in Britain.
"We thought we would be able to detect these only the second half of this century, say 2050 or so," she said. But data from 1981 through 2004 show the sink is already full of carbon dioxide. "So I find this really quite alarming."
The Southern Ocean is one of the world's biggest reservoirs of carbon, known as a carbon sink. When carbon is in a sink -- whether it's an ocean or a forest, both of which can lock up carbon dioxide -- it stays out of the atmosphere and does not contribute to global warming .
The new research, published in the latest edition of the journal Science, indicates that the Southern Ocean has been saturated with carbon dioxide at least since the 1980s.
This is significant because the Southern Ocean accounts for 15 percent of the global carbon sink, Le Quere said.
Global Warming Spurs Winds
Increased winds over the last half-century are to blame for the change, Le Quere said. These winds blend the carbon dioxide throughout the Southern Ocean, mixing the naturally occurring carbon that usually stays deep down with the human-caused carbon.
When natural carbon is brought up to the surface by the winds, it is harder for the Southern Ocean to accommodate more human-generated carbon, which comes from factories, coal-fired power plants and petroleum-powered motor vehicle exhaust.
The winds themselves are caused by two separate human factors.
First, the human-spawned ozone depletion in the upper atmosphere over the Southern Ocean has created large changes in temperature throughout the atmosphere, Le Quere said.
Second, the uneven nature of global warming has produced higher temperatures in the northern parts of the world than in the south, which has also made the winds accelerate in the Southern Ocean.
"Since the beginning of the industrial revolution the world's oceans have absorbed about a quarter of the 500 gigatons (500 billion tons) of carbon emitted into the atmosphere by humans," Chris Rapley of the British Antarctic Survey said in a statement.
"The possibility that in a warmer world the Southern Ocean -- the strongest ocean sink -- is weakening is a cause for concern," Rapley said.
Another sign of warming in the Antarctic was reported on Tuesday by NASA , which found vast areas of snow melted on the southern continent in 2005 in a process that may accelerate invisible melting deep beneath the surface.
Going back to the issue of trees and other green plants, wouldn't a CO2 rich atmosphere facilitate more growth of these with resulting increase in output of oxygen? I wonder if anybody has done an analysis of that? Wouldn't it be a hoot if it turns out that increased manmade CO2 is actually slowing global warming by increasing oxygen production?
Foxfyre wrote:Going back to the issue of trees and other green plants, wouldn't a CO2 rich atmosphere facilitate more growth of these with resulting increase in output of oxygen? I wonder if anybody has done an analysis of that? Wouldn't it be a hoot if it turns out that increased manmade CO2 is actually slowing global warming by increasing oxygen production?
Can't happen when you deforest at a greater rate than you grow new trees.
And more importantly, rising sea temperatures kill off Plankton - which is more responsible for CO2-O2 cycle then trees by far. Much more.
But, I've always maintained, people who are for dropping CO2 levels should PLANT MORE TREES!!!!
Cycloptichorn
The operative word in the title of that article
Cycloptichorn
Cycloptichorn wrote:And more importantly, rising sea temperatures kill off Plankton - which is more responsible for CO2-O2 cycle then trees by far. Much more.
Rising temperature kills also little babies.
As to plankton, you shouldn't worry much. They have survived more than 3 billions years, several huge meteorites, times when CO2 was 10, 20x the current levels and temperatures where 10°C higher. So I suspect they'll even survive to doomers.
