Re: Even the tiniest amount of pollution is too much, a column by Evan Bedford in the Red Deer Advocate on Jan. 25.
CO2 is pollution? It’s an essential for nearly all life — how can it be pollution?
Sure if the atmosphere was 100 per cent CO2, we couldn’t survive; just like we couldn’t survive if we were held under 100 per cent H2O. Does that make water “pollution?” Of course not.]
CO2 is a colourless, tasteless, odourless gas. When people inhale normal air they breath in about 390 ppm (parts per million) CO2 and then exhale it with about 6,000ppm CO2. So then if CO2 is pollution, every living person and animal is spewing pollution; spewing out a gas that is essential to the biosphere. In fact, plants grow much better with increased CO2, so much so that many greenhouses have CO2 pumped into them to increase the proportion by three or four times. People can work in this enriched environment without harm. CO2 is pollution?
By the way, I watched that YouTube video you suggested (“CO2 Experiment”) but all it shows is that an unregulated amount of CO2 will absorb infrared. No argument.
For that experiment to be relevant to a study of the role of CO2 in global warming, it needs considerable revamping. The bell jar needs to be full of air with CO2 at 378ppm (ie. air with naturally occurring CO2); a steady infrared light source must be used (not a varying candle) and a base line established for the amount of infrared captured by the air in the jar. Then a miniscule amount of CO2 equal to man’s (anthropogenic) contribution to CO2 needs to be added (l2 ppm). Take another measurement of infrared capture and compare this to the first reading. Then we would have a true greenhouse representation of man’s contribution to atmospheric CO2 warming. I suggest the difference would be so miniscule it could hardly be measured.
CO2 currently is about 390 ppm in the atmosphere; 378 are from natural sources (volcanoes, plant decay, oceans, etc.). The remainder (12 ppm) are man made (fossil fuels, cement manufacturing, breathing, and incandescent light bulbs, etc.). All of the CO2 greenhouse effects claimed by climate scientists are caused 97 per cent by natural occurring CO2 and only three per cent by man made sources.
So even if all the temperature increase (.6 C) since 1880 is attributed to CO2, only three per cent would be caused by man — that’s less than .018 (2/100s) of a degree. That’s not even measurable outside of a lab.
And to make the scenario even more ridiculous, water vapour and methane are the primary greenhouse gasses and they haven’t even been factored into this picture yet.
And now we are being pushed, prodded and cajoled by the UN, environmental groups and governments to spend $100 billion a year to get rid of the infinitesimal man made CO2 “pollution.”
Despite all the money spent on CO2 mitigation already (100s of billions) CO2 continues to increase, BUT oddly enough, temperatures have levelled off for 15 years now. The British Meteorological Office and the University of East Anglia (prime promoters of global warming) now admit that warming hasn’t increased since 1997.
Murray Snyder
Rocky Mountain House