Powerless in Seattle

[Fairlight]

When asked his whereabouts on Thu, Dec 21, 2006 at 11:28:22AM -0500,
Jay Ashworth took the fifth, drank it, and then slurred:
> 
> I do wish people would at least be clear, though, that they're talking
> about "anthropogenic global warming" -- something we have control over.
> 
> Cow farts are another matter, entirely.  And we *can* plant trees.  Or
> not cut them down...

The mass media and SIGs see no need to be clear...

As for trees...  Turns out water vapour is a bigger problem than CO(2).  I
quote James P. hogan:

"
The first thing to be said is that the "greenhouse effect" isn't something
new, brought about by human activities. It's a natural phenomenon that has
existed for as long as the Earth has had an atmosphere. All objects above
zero degrees Kelvin radiate heat. As an object gets hotter, the peak of the
frequency band that it radiates (where most of the radiated energy is
emitted) shifts toward shorter wavelengths. Thus, a warm hotplate on a
stove radiates mainly in the infrared band, which while invisible can still
be felt as heat. As the hotplate is heated more, its radiation peak moves
up into the visible region to red and then orange. The Sun radiates a lot
of energy at ultraviolet wavelengths, shorter than the visible. The
atmosphere is transparent to certain bands of this, which reach the Earth's
surface and are absorbed. But since the Earth is a lot cooler than the Sun,
this energy is reradiated not at ultraviolet wavelengths but at the much
longer infrared, to which the atmosphere is not as transparent. Atmospheric
gas molecules that consist of three or more atoms typically absorb energy
at characteristic wavelengths within the infrared band, which heats them
up, and consequently the atmosphere. Note that this excludes the diatomic
gases N2 and O2 that form the bulk of the atmosphere (78 and 20 percent
respectively), and also the monatomic traces, argon and neon.

This, then, defines the notorious "greenhouse gases" that are going to
stifle the planet. The one that gets all the publicity is carbon dioxide,
which human activities generate in five main ways: making cement (CO2 being
driven out of the limestone used in the process); breathing; rearing
animals; using wood (which once harvested, eventually decomposes one way or
another); and burning fossil fuels. This translates into the release of
about 3 million liters on average of CO2 per human per year, for a grand
yearly total of 1.6 x 1016 liters, or 30 billion tonnes. 144 (1 tonne = a
"metric ton" = 1,000 kilograms = 0.984 ton.) The other gases, while present
in smaller amounts, have a greater relative absorptive capacity that ranges
from fifty-eight times that of CO2 in the case of methane to several
thousand for CFCs, and the amounts of them have been increasing.

This all sounds like something that should indeed be a cause for concern,
until it's realized that the atmosphere contains something like 1,800
billion tonnes of carbon dioxide already from such sources as volcanoes,
the outgassing of oceans, and the natural functioning of the biosphere. In
other words, all of human activity adds less than two percent to the gases
that nature puts out anyway. And then it turns out that all of these gases
put together add up to a minor player, for the greatest contributor by far
is water vapor. Although the exact figure varies from place to place and
season to season, water vapor is typically present at ten times the
concentration of carbon dioxide; further, it is active across the whole
infrared range, whereas heat absorption by CO2 is confined to two narrow
bands. Without this natural greenhouse mechanism, the Earth would be about
33oC cooler than it is, which would mean permanent ice at the equator.
Estimates of the contribution of water vapor vary from 95 to 99 percent,
thereby accounting for somewhere around 32oC of this. The remaining one
degree is due to other gases. The effects of all of human activity are in
the order of two percent of this latter figure. But, of course, you can't
put a tax on water vapor or lambaste your favorite industrial villains for
producing it, and so water vapor never gets mentioned in the polemics. Even
professionals uncritically buy the publicized line. An astronomer reports
that in an impromptu survey, six out of ten of her fellow astronomers
replied "carbon dioxide" when asked what was the major greenhouse gas. 145
"

How, exactly, do you eliminate water and survive? :) Still, the numbers and
facts underscore that the anthropogenic GW is negligible in the overall
system.  Trees acting on that minor percentage is not really doing much of
anything, since the premise is apparently wrong.  There's much more in the
book.

m->
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