Comments on: Climate change and CO2

By: Paul A

Paul A — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:24:37 +0000

I’m shocked. You have a reputation as an intelligent man, but your post displays an ignorance of some basic scientific concepts (e.g. the carbon cycle and photosynthesis). As someone else pointed out, the natural world absorbs CO2. You should have asked the government about NET CO2 emissions. Net emissions from natural sources are actually negative figure – the natural world absorb a proportion of man-made CO2 emissions. If it were true that the natural world is responsible for 97% of net carbon emissions then we should have starved to death a long time ago (more vegetation was dying off than photosynthesising and re-growing), and then we would have choked to death through lack of oxygen (when carbon, C, is released it binds with oxygen, O2). The analysis of isotopes of carbon confirms that the source of the 30%+ increase in CO2 emissions we have experienced in modern times is largely from humans burning fossil fuels. The isotope Carbon14, for example, has a radio-active half-life of around 6000 years and so is not present in fossil fuels. The amount of C14 in the atmosphere has declined in relative terms. There is other evidence from the analysis of isotopes of carbon which I suggest you obtain from reputable scientific websites.

One last point for your other respondents – the carbon humans exhale comes from the food we eat. As that food is grown it has to absorb carbon from the atmosphere in order to grow. Breathing is therefore carbon neutral.

Apologies for coming to this topic about 2 years late, but I feel it is critical to correct your extraordinarily misleading comment.

By: John Passey

John Passey — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:07:01 +0000

Thanks Duncan. This is useful information but the next question is whether there is any quantitative information of the 'blanket' effect of CO2. What for instance would be the effect of an increase of 100 parts per million in the atmsophere?

In determining the mass balance between the release of CO2 and the absorbtion of CO2 there is the considerable influence of the amount disolved in rain water. The bulk of CO2 absorbed must end up in the sea as carbonic acid. One would expect the amount left in the atmosphere to be temperature sensitive so that remaining concentrations would vary from predominantly cold areas to tropical areas. Are there any readings that would confirm this?

By: Duncan

Duncan — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:24:05 +0000

I saw an estimate for the amount of CO2 a human exhales in one day is 1kg. Each breath we exhale is about 3% CO2.
Also 1kg of CO2 is about 555 litres at standard temperature and pressure.
Which is irrelevant anyway because almost all this CO2 is derived from plants which absorbed the CO2 fairly recently so it is just recycling in the atmosphere, not in addition to what was already there.

Though agriculture is a major contributor to pollution and CO2 production in other ways.

By: Duncan

Duncan — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:14:46 +0000

I think you must misunderstand me.
CO2 has risen by 30% and plants are absorbing more CO2. As the CO2 is rising the plants must not be able to absorb all this extra CO2.

The 3% extra CO2 Richard mentioned has accumulated in the atmosphere to give a 30% increase which we have now. Therefore any increase in the absorption of CO2 by plants and other CO2 sinks is obviously much less the this extra CO2 created. 3% of trillions of tonnes is no small matter.

By: Neil Craig

Neil Craig — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:59:37 +0000

As I mentioned tree ring growth is accelerating. That wood comes from atmospheric CO2. There is little point in claiming something cannot happen when their is concrete scientific evidence that it is happening. Next you will be saying that there cannot be more snow this winter because 20 years ago the alarmists said that global temperature would have gone up another degree by now.

By: Duncan

Duncan — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:33:14 +0000

If that is so why has the Earth's CO2 risen by 30% in the last 200 years. Shouldn't the plants be absorbing it all?

Obviously they can't.

By: Duncan

Duncan — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:31:17 +0000

Molecules absorb certain wavelengths of radiation depending on their distribution of electrons and the vibrational modes of the chemical bonds. It so happens that CO2 has a strong absorption in the infra-red component of light.
Now when things are heated they radiate energy back as light with the wavelength depending on how hot the material is. The hotter the object, the shorter the wavelength. For the ambient temperature of the Earth the largest chunk of this radiation is infra-red.
Therefore what happens is high frequencies of light from the sun is mostly transparent with respect to the atmosphere so the sun's light heats the land and sea. The Earth's surface radiates back most of the heat back as infra-red radiation and much of it escapes into space. As CO2 absorbs energy in this region less escapes back to space and the Earth warms. As the absorption is quite strong and the sun lights the Earth with 1.740×10^17 W of energy this quickly adds up.
Or more simply put water vapour, CO2, methane plus some other effects are like a blanket!

By: Peter Duffy

Peter Duffy — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:36:19 +0000

CO2 is essential and not a pollutant. CO2 is required to prevent our blood becoming too alkaline. Also if there is lots of carbon dioxide in your blood, your blood vessels will expand to allow more oxygen to get to your organs, and contrarily, if there is very little, they'll constrict.

Trees and plant life need CO2 from the atmosphere and in turn release Oxygen for humans and animal life.

The Sun is causing changes to global temperature not human activity. We are indeed destroying the biosphere with chemical pollution however.

The is particularly sad when you realise that Nicola Tesla discovered clean energy in the form of Zero Point Energy over 100 years ago. This clean and largely free of cost energy has been deliberately withheld from us by the people behind globalism for reasons that are too many to mention.

Cannabis can be used to make plastics, paper, oil, highly nutritious food, clothing and bags so why is it banned?

Isn’t it funny that the way the government always tries to solve a problem involves raising TAX? CO2 tax anyone? A tax on BREATHING! Wake up!

Go to my link page for important info.

By: Joey

Joey — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 05:37:15 +0000

Moderation???? Is this a controlled forum?

By: Joey

Joey — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 05:36:26 +0000

So, there are 6.5 BILLION people on our planet. They all breathe in oxygen and breathe out CARBON DIOXIDE (C02).

So how much C02 do we the people emit into the atmosphere. Well, lets try to compute it. Scientists can correct me as to the real amount since my estimates will be ballpark. But theirs seem way low.

Most humans breathe about 12-15times a minute. So weâ€™ll take the average of 13 breathes a minute.

Take out a small one pint brown paper bag and breathe into it. See how many breathes it takes to fill that bag with C02 (as if you were hyperventilating). I estimate six exhales will fill that one pint bag. Since we all exhale an average of 13 times a minute that means we exhale â€“ each of us â€“ 2.3 pints of C02 a minute which is 2 lbs. of C02 per minute by each human and each animal on the planet.

There are 6.5 billion people on the planet. Each one is emitting this 2 lbs. per minute so thatâ€™s 6,500,000,000 X 2 = 13,000,000,000 (Billion) pounds of C02 per minute. Divide that by 2000 for metric tons and you get 6,500,000 (Million) metric tons per minute by humans with another 6.5 million by the other animals on the planet. So for the daily total, multiply 13 million tons per minute by 1,440 minutes in a day and you get approximately 18.6 billion metric tons each and every day plus an adjustment for the .3 which would make the new total: about 21 billion tons a day.

I make that over 7 TRILLION TONS a year.

It has been estimated that industry around the globe produces some 750 billion metric tons of C02 a year.
From my calculations, animals (including us) produce over 7 TRILLION metric tons of C02 each year all by ourselves..

If someone wants to dispute the 13 breaths a minute or the 6 exhales to fill the 1 pint bag, do so. I admit I am estimating as best I can but the rest of the extrapolation is right.

If every plant in the world shut down tomorrow, we would still produce a lot of C02. Much more than ever before in history because in the last 500 years alone â€“ the worldâ€™s population has risen 1100%. The animals which feed them have also multiplied. And the C02 withboth of us.

So if you think C02 is a problem â€“ which I do not â€“ you all better stop breathing. That will cure two problems: the amount of C02 being emitted and the excessive number of people now on the planet.

But of course, that won't be necessary because C02 is not a problem and there is no man-made global warming. Itâ€™s just a myth.

Joey http://www.journals.aol.com/chonors686/joeypage1/