Quote:
|
Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce
Pat Bednard is an ex-Chrysler engineer, that has been a columnist and now editor, at Car & Driver magazine for 20 years. These credentials would qualify him as bias, to my mind. But, that said, he makes an interesting case against Al Gores position. |
Mr. Bednard starts off by summarizing the problem pretty well, but then goes on to ignore what he first summarizes.
The problem with global warming and carbon dioxide is the
increase in CO2 in the biosphere, mainly the atmosphere. He states "all CO2 is the same, whether it blows out of a Porsche tailpipe or is exhaled from Al Gore’s lungs or wafts off my compost pile or the rotting of dead plants in the Atchafalaya swamp." That is false. All CO2 is not the same. The CO2 coming out of Al Gore's lungs and out of rotting plants was
already there in the biosphere. It was extracted from the air, and then cycled through living organisms before returning to the air. It has a cycle just like water's evaporative cycle. The CO2 that comes out of the tailpipe of a Porsche was released from deep within the earth's crust. That CO2 is
new CO2, and it was never part of the biosphere.
He goes on to mention water vapor as being the best warmer. That may be true, but water was
already there in the biosphere - in the clouds and in the oceans. As water goes through its cycle of evaporation, no additional water is being created. It remains constant. So it won't be
adding to the global warming.
As far as I know, there are only two things that are increasing the level of CO2 in the air and contributing to global warming. The first is the burning of fossil fuels by man. The second is volcanos. Beestie is absolutely right on that point. And they put out a lot of
new CO2. Much more than humans do. It comes from deep within the Earth's crust, just like the fossil fuels, and it is clearly warming the Earth.
The Earth is warming. It will cause climate change, messing with our weather and causing problems for us. What do we do about it? Do we contribute to the problem caused by the volcanos, or do we just throw our hands in the air and say it's God's will?