Guest post by Steve Goreham, Climate Science Coalition of America
In an address to Green Mountain College on May 15, Carol Browner, Director of Energy and Climate Change Policy, stated “The sooner the U.S. puts a cap on our dangerous carbon pollution, the sooner we can create a new generation of clean energy jobs here in America…” In July, 2009, President Obama lauded the “Cash for Clunkers” program, stating that the initiative “gives consumers a break, reduces dangerous carbon pollution, and our dependence on foreign oil…”
Unfortunately, our President is misinformed about carbon pollution.
The phrase “dangerous carbon pollution” has become standard propaganda from environmental groups.
An example is a May, 2010 press release from the World Wildlife Fund that called for “a science-based limit on dangerous carbon pollution that will send a strong signal to the private sector.” Environmentalists have successfully painted a picture of black particle emissions into the atmosphere. This misconception is being used to drive efforts for Cap & Trade legislation, renewable energy, and every sort of restriction on our light bulbs, vehicles, and houses—all in the misguided attempt to stop climate change.
Carbon is integral to our skin, our muscles, our bones, and throughout the body of each person. Carbon forms more than 20% of the human body by weight. We are full of this “dangerous carbon pollution” by natural metabolic processes.
It’s true that incomplete combustion emits carbon particles that can cause smoke and smog. But this particulate carbon pollution is well controlled by the Clean Air Act of 1970 and many other federal and state statutes.
According to Environmental Protection Agency data, U.S. air quality today is significantly better than it was in 1980. Since 1980, airborne concentration of carbon monoxide is down 79%, lead is down 92%, nitrogen dioxide is down 46%, ozone is down 25%, and sulfur dioxide is down 71%. Carbon particulates have been tracked for fewer years, but PM10 particulates are down 31% since 1990 and PM2.5 particulates are down 19% since 2000. Over the same period, electricity consumption from coal-fired power plants rose 72% and vehicle miles driven are up 91%. We do not need Cap & Trade, Renewable Portfolio Standards, or the California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32), to reduce carbon particulates.
Climatism! Science, Common Sense, and the 21st Century’s Hottest Topic, Figure 78, data from EPA, 2006
The target of “dirty carbon pollution” propaganda is carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is an invisible, odorless, harmless gas. It does not cause smog or smoke. Humans breathe out 100 times the CO2 we breathe in, created as our body uses sugars. But since it’s tough to call an invisible gas “dirty,” Climatists use “carbon” instead. It’s as wrong as calling water “hydrogen” or salt “chlorine.” Compounds have totally different properties than their composing elements.
Not only is carbon dioxide not a pollutant, it’s essential for life. As pointed out by geologist Leighton Steward, carbon dioxide is green! Carbon dioxide is plant food. Increased atmospheric CO2 causes plants and trees to grow faster and larger, increase their root systems, and improve their resistance to drought, as documented by hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific papers. Carbon dioxide is the best compound that mankind could put into the atmosphere to grow the biosphere.
This “carbon pollution” nonsense is driven by Climatism, the belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth’s climate. In a debate at the Global Warming Forum at Purdue University on September 27, Dr. Susan Avery, President of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, was asked “What is the strongest empirical evidence that global warming is caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions rather than natural causes?” Neither Dr. Avery nor Dr. Robert Socolow of Princeton, who also presented, could provide an answer, except the ambiguous “There is lots of evidence.” In fact, Climatism is based largely on computer model projections. There is no empirical evidence that man-made greenhouse gases are the primary cause of global warming. According to Dr. Frederick Seitz, past President of the National Academy of Sciences, “Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful.”
As Joanne Nova, Australian author, points out: “Everything on your dinner table—the meat, cheese, salad, bread, and soft drink—requires carbon dioxide to be there. For those of you who believe carbon dioxide is a pollutant, we have a special diet: water and salt.” So the next time you drink a beer or eat a meal, beware of that “dangerous carbon pollution.”
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of Climatism! Science, Common Sense, and the 21st Century’s Hottest Topic.
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I copied the comment from Mark October 9, 2010 at 10:58 am and posted it to my blog. It might be the best articulation of how skeptics are beginning to see “science” (or maybe it’s just me) that I have read. Science has become so tainted by the politics of whatever administration or bureaucracy is providing funding that is is rapidly becoming meaningless.
“500 ppm is bad for planet”
Bad for the planet ? … LOL
The planet is just a chunk of wet rock, nothing can be bad or good for a chunk of rock.
What about Venus ? … is 960,000 ppm CO2 good or bad for Venus ?
You think that 500ppm is bad. But the planet doesn’t care about what you think. The planet it will follow its ‘destiny’, to be burned by the Sun, with or without 500ppm.
The planet already had 500ppm for MILLIONS of years in the past. In that ‘bad’ scenario evolved the living forms what our actual … bad ? … biochemistry is based on.
As for the “Danger, Carbon Dioxide” sign, I recall a sign in our electrical engineering lab, no doubt posted by a creative student: “Danger – 50,000 Ohms.”
3,……2,………1,……….. Cue crickets chirping in place of Flavio’s response, ………. Sad what tunnel vision will do to a person.
can someone tell me how the heck co2 gets high into the atmosphere, & then acts as a greenhouse gas, when its fundamentally heavier than air?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide
polyester (density 1.4) sinks in water (density 1.0) so how the hell does CO2 rise?
mike says:
October 9, 2010 at 3:31 pm
can someone tell me how the heck co2 gets high into the atmosphere, & then acts as a greenhouse gas, when its fundamentally heavier than air?
Up to a point, CO2 dissolves in air (yes, “dissolve” is the right word).
Is CO2 a pollutant?
CO2 is Abundant Life.
http://pathstoknowledge.net/2010/10/09/carbon-dioxide-co2-is-abundant-life
Feel free to share the image:
http://pathstoknowledge.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/carbon-dioxide-is-life1.jpg
Flavio says on October 9, 2010 at 10:16 am:
“Just look at the carbon dioxide levels measured in Taylor Dome, Law Dome and Mauna Loa. This measured (not modeled) increase in CO2 is unprecedented.”
These data only apply to dry air and not to everday real air whose temperature, pressure, humidity, and presence of clouds vary considerably from day to day as shown by weather maps from the various regions of the earth.
In fact the mass of CO2 in the atmosphere is much less than is indicated by these data. In particular clouds will contain CO2. H0w much CO2 is in clouds at any given moment is presently unknown. Rain removes CO2 and the fixed gases from the atmosphere and deposits these into the oceans , lakes , rivers and onto the land. If the land is porous the gases will stay temporarly in the soil.
“can someone tell me how the heck co2 gets high into the atmosphere, & then acts as a greenhouse gas, when its fundamentally heavier than air?” – Mike
“Up to a point, CO2 dissolves in air (yes, “dissolve” is the right word).” – Beale
If you would, references or links please.
The sign you show at the top is of the sort used where workers sometimes have to enter confined spaces. Facilities for the production of wine have such signs. I sincerely hope everyone knows the difference between “dangerous carbon pollution” and CO2 produced by yeast in the fermentation of grape sugar. It seems fitting to make fun of the former. The CO2 generated in confined spaces is a serious issue.
mike says: October 9, 2010 at 3:31 pm
can someone tell me how the heck co2 gets high into the atmosphere, & then acts as a greenhouse gas, when its fundamentally heavier than air? …
polyester (density 1.4) sinks in water (density 1.0) so how the hell does CO2 rise?
Oxygen is also heavier than air. It, like CO2, is just part of the mix.
“How does CO2 get high into the atmosphere?”
Holy cow? Come on, folks! One of the trace gases of the atmosphere is CO2. The atmosphere is in motion. Take the time to do this – use a search engine such as Google; use the two words ‘weather’ and ‘convection’ ; use the “images” tab. I just got 126,000 results doing this. The first one is a photo of a massive cloud. Follow the links to a few of these images and investigate how the atmosphere keeps rearranging itself. All the gases of the atmosphere are involved, not just selected ones.
Steve Gorham writes:
“In fact, Climatism is based largely on computer model projections. There is no empirical evidence that man-made greenhouse gases are the primary cause of global warming. According to Dr. Frederick Seitz, past President of the National Academy of Sciences, “Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful.”
This is true beyond the shadow of a doubt. We must constantly challenge Climatists with this truth. Let us add another. Climatists have produced no hypotheses that are reasonably well-confirmed and can be used to explain the various phenomena that they call “global warming/climate disruption.” In other words, they have contributed nothing to the scientific understanding of climate. All they have are computer models and hunches. They have hunches that are no doubt brilliant, but no number of hunches add up to one scientific hypothesis. There is no science of AGW-AGCD and this truth is what critics of Climatists must drive home in all debates. The public knows this and sceptics should lead them.
John F. Hultquist writes:
“The sign you show at the top is of the sort used where workers sometimes have to enter confined spaces. Facilities for the production of wine have such signs. I sincerely hope everyone knows the difference between “dangerous carbon pollution” and CO2 produced by yeast in the fermentation of grape sugar. It seems fitting to make fun of the former. The CO2 generated in confined spaces is a serious issue.”
I am one who has confined space training.
It is true that the sign in question is indeed designed to warn about confined spaces.Where CO2 can accumulate to dangerous levels to prevent sufficient oxygen intake.
To enter such places FIRST requires the use of a air sampling device designed to read out several gases and learn what the concentration of suspected gases are.Depending on the read out of the device determines whether bottled oxygen and masks are needed.
Sometimes simply pumping oxygen down into the confines space is sufficient to make the area at least temporarily safe to enter.I have done this numerous times,while continually using a gas sampling device while I worked underground on Irrigation equipment.
But I think it was used here as part of mocking the overblown dangers of atmosphere CO2 gas levels we walk around in everyday.There is a group who idiotically think 350 ppmv is the maximum safe level to live in for humans.A level that was passed way back in … he he… 1988.
Many existing plants that grow today evolved originally in much higher levels of atmospheric CO2 levels.Sycamore,Ginkgo are two that have been around for more than 100 million years,yet they survived far larger CO2 level range changes.
I wish the absurd idea that a naturally occurring gas is a pollution danger,despite being lower in concentration NOW,as compared to the last 500+ million years.Go away and get back to rational science thinking.
>> can someone tell me how the heck co2 gets high into the atmosphere, & then acts as a greenhouse gas, when its fundamentally heavier than air?
>> Up to a point, CO2 dissolves in air (yes, “dissolve” is the right wor
CO2 is a greenhouse gas because it is able to absorb certain bandwidths of IR radiation and converts that energy into heat.
The sun releases high frequency light radiation, which goes to the earth’s surface and then the group reflects it back as a lower radiation… infrared.
The CO2 near the group absorbs the IR reflecting from the ground converts it to heat. This, is my understanding, is _FACT_. It’s simply a very proven mechanics behind how CO2 contributes to ‘global warming’.
So the more CO2 you have the more radiation it absorbs. The more human activity that generates CO2 the more CO2 is in the atmosphere. So it’s very simply: _A_FACT_ that human activity increases the density of CO2 so humans have increased the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere.
This is indisputable. Nobody in this blog or anybody can argue against these facts and retain any shred of creditability. (If I am right, which I believe I am)
HOWEVER….
What your not told by the ‘AGW’ crowd is that the effect of CO2 is logarithmic. That is: The more CO2 you have in the atmosphere the less effect adding more CO2 has. Since it heats up the atmosphere by absorbing very certain bands of IR you can think of CO2 like a filter. It’s a similar mechanic as to why the sky is blue and it changes colors towards dusk.
Imagine a tinted window:
Going from 0% tinting to 50% tinting you get a very big difference. Doubling the amount of tinting in the glass only gets you 75% darkness which is still a big difference, but not a huge one. Doubling it again gets you 87.5% darkness. Doubling it again gets you 93.75%, and so on and so forth. So eventually you get to the point were doubling or quadrupling the amount of tint only nets you tiny, almost imperceptible differences.
Right now, if my understanding is correct, then just about 100% of the energy converted into IR and reflected back into space that can be adsorbed by CO2 is absorbed at about 10 feet from the ground.
Even if we went into total freak-out mode and did everything we could to generate as much CO2 as possible and doubled the amount of CO2 all that would change is that instead of converting all the possible IR to heat by 10 feet it would convert it by 5 feet.
The debate between AGW should be between human activity making a almost imperceptible difference versus a imperceptible difference.
Not “nothing is happening at all” versus “OMG WE ARE GOING TO DIE FROM SUV POISONING!!!!”
It would be nice for this blog to go through the mechanics of how CO2 is really a greenhouse gas. How it works, how it absorbs the radiation, and what effect it really has.
Then it would be much easier to show why people flipping out over CO2 concentrations are nutzos.
pwl says:
October 9, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Begin quote:
“can someone tell me how the heck co2 gets high into the atmosphere, & then acts as a greenhouse gas, when its fundamentally heavier than air?” – Mike
“Up to a point, CO2 dissolves in air (yes, “dissolve” is the right word).” – Beale
If you would, references or links please.
End quote.
Proponents of AGW-AGCD assume that CO2 is randomly distributed throughout the atmosphere all the way up into the stratosphere. They have performed no experiments to evaluate this assumption. There is a CO2 measurement station at Mauna Loa on Hawaii and others at a few other locations. No one working on climate has been willing to ask how the CO2 gets to Mauna Loa. After all, most of the manmade CO2 is created in the United States. I guess the CO2 flies to Mauna Loa on American Airlines. Otherwise, there would be some detectable phenomenon such as a flow of CO2 from the USA to the vast open spaces that do not manufacture it but suffer from it. Does it flow up? Does it flow to oceans? After all, everyone agrees that oceans store most of it. But ask this question of any climate scientist and you will be treated as a member of the great unwashed, as someone who should be exploded with a red button. Climate Science, such as it is, is more averse to experimentation and all forms of empirical research than the old Soviet Kommissars who planned production quotas for factories. Climate scientists have not added one reasonably confirmed hypothesis to our understanding of the behavior of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Flavio says:
October 9, 2010 at 10:16 am
“Just look at the carbon dioxide levels measured in Taylor Dome, Law Dome and Mauna Loa. This measured (not modeled) increase in CO2 is unprecedented.”
Flavio, do you know how the manmade CO2 gets from its main locations of manufacture, the USA and the Shanghai region of China, to Mauna Loa? Would you please tell us? If you do not know, then why do you believe that Mauna Loa measures manmade CO2?
can someone tell me how the heck co2 gets high into the atmosphere, & then acts as a greenhouse gas, when its fundamentally heavier than air? …
The troposphere is like a series of side-by-side conveyor belts. That which is at the surface gets circulated to the upper troposphere and vice-versa. Round and round and round.
Theo Goodwin says:
October 9, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Theo, you can do this experiment at home. Pour yourself a nice drink first and turn on the Chemical Brothers doing “Where Do I Begin?” to add to the fun.
1. Get some dry ice from a quality caterer or fish market;
2. Get an empty Coca Cola bottle, the 32 ouncer is best, about a foot of string, and a party balloon;
3. Fill the bottle full with warm water;
4. Plonk in particles of the dry ice (frozen CO2);
5. Pull the flattened balloon over the bottle mouth so that it fills with CO2;
6. Tie it off when inflated with CO2 with the string;
7. Separate the balloon from the Coca Cola bottle;
8. Release the balloon and then tell me which direction the balloon goes: up or down.
CO2 doesn’t go anywhere. It falls flat to the earth. There would be no need for stacks on power plants if it went straight up like helium or hydrogen.
You can also consult with your utility local power plant through their PR division and ask them for a thermographic Schlieren type photo or digital simulation which you need to show your friends on line to illustrate just how combustion emissions migrate from stacks. They will be happy to oblige. Utilities know all about stack plumes and emissions migration, as they havfe to file this type data empirically derived from field measurements to get their air permits renewed with EPA and the state air pollution control boards. They’ve been filing them FOR OVER 70 YEARS.
All stacks for coal, natural gas or biomass are either forced draft or induced draft. Both types involve huge fans to force the products of combustion up the stack, or exploit the temporary advantage of thermal convection to draw the products of combustion skyward to the stack’s rim and out into the air. From there it disperses, generally downward or at best upward slightly at an angle.
As the gases cool, they go downward but you can’t see that part, usually. You shouldn’t be able to see any of the CO2 at all with the naked eye; that’s why you need the Schlieren thermograph. It arcs down.
Steam rises, however. The white billowing clouds you see going off into space from cooling towers is ambient air moisture temporarily partially condensing then rising to disperse back whence it came. The white “smoke” out of stacks is excess air (15%-20% of optimally tuned stacks) which also contains water, which therefore produces a visible steam plume and about which bloody morons complain at all hours. They think it is toxic smoke LOL!
It is so annoying to utilities to get all these calls and having to explain the above in detail that a firm called Croll-Reynolds who have made pollution control equipment for decades sells a gizmo called a plume diffuser, which acts to prevent this harmless steam from becoming visible. Here it is described as it is used at a waste-to-energy plant on Long Island to please the tonier element of the tourist industry who when their kids see steam, they scream “Look, Mommy! Pollution!”
http://www.poweronline.com/article.mvc/Steam-Ejector-Reduces-Exhaust-plume-at-a-Wast-0003?VNETCOOKIE=NO
And, yes, I am a “shill” for the big utilities and power plant contracting companies who knows WTF I am talking about because I have kept working between 40 and 50 men and women welders, fitters, riggers, boilermakers and millwrights and their families fed with my power plant construction and retrofit cost estimates and bids for over 30 years. The day a CO2 filled Hindenburg docks at the Empire State Building will be the day the earth stands still and jelly gumdrops rain from the sky.
Roun and round and round the troposphere. Right. More like round and round an dround the dope-osphere. Someone needs to change their bhong liquid.
Mike says:
October 9, 2010 at 12:55 pm
You’ve never heard that there can be too much of a good thing?
Water is good, but drowning is bad. 280 ppm CO2 is good, but 500 ppm is bad for planet.
And climate change is about more than temperature. Droughts have pushed down global plant growth despite CO2 being plant food. Turns out plants gota’ drink too!
http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/plant-growth-decline-drought-0459/
One dimensional thinking is always a bad for the planet.
Mike, reciting Kindergarten-lite CO2CAGW “tenets” and mantras is always bad for your brain. Climate Science is provenly not real science, and therefore its unbalanced disasterizing of “Global Warming” has not proven that GW of an extent its “tenets” envision as their worst will even bring about a net “Environmental” disease or afflict a net disease upon Humanity.
But if you can’t stop reciting Climate Science’s quasi -Religious CO2CAGW Mantras, it might be you who brings about such an affliction.
“280 ppm CO2 is good, but 500 ppm is bad for planet.” – JPeden
Please site references that provide evidence, hard evidence, for your claims that (1) “280 ppm CO2 is good” and (2) “500 ppm is bad”.
We know that you “believe” that but belief is not good enough anymore and never was in science. Prove with hard evidence, preferably an experiment, to make your case. Also please be specific about what you mean by your assessments “good” and “bad”.
While you’re at it JPeden check out this hard evidence that proves your claims (well certainly claim 2) false:
http://pathstoknowledge.wordpress.com/2010/10/09/carbon-dioxide-co2-is-abundant-life
I want the safety sign as a t-shirt.
899 10/9 11:50 AM
Cash For Clunkers certainly didn’t reduce dependence on foreign oil, but your argument is misguided. You suppose that the purpose of reducing dependence on foreign oil is to lower the price. That’s not true, except to the degree that increasing the world supply by drilling American oil might lower the price. So there is no “lie” that the price would decline.
I know people who think it would decline, based on the idea that American oil would be cheaper for being ours, but they dreamed this up or heard it from friends or acquaintances who dreamed it up. It’s a natural idea for someone who knows nothing about economics.
Besides, Obama certainly isn’t recommending more drilling in the United States, but your argument assumes that he is.