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Politics : The Exxon Free Environmental Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (8291)	8/11/2011 7:00:49 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 49019

Volcanic vs. Anthropogenic CO2 Filed under: — group @ 4 August 2011 Guest Commentary by Terry Gerlach* TV screen images of erupting and exploding volcanoes spewing forth emissions are typically spectacular, awesome, and vividly suggestive of huge additions of gas to the atmosphere. By comparison, the smokestack and exhaust pipe venting of anthropogenic emissions is comparatively unexciting, unimpressive, and commonplace. Consequently, it easy to get traction with the general public for claims that volcanic CO2 emissions are far greater than those of human activities, or that the CO2 released in some recent or ongoing eruption exceeds anthropogenic releases in all of human history, or that the threat of a future super-eruption makes concerns about our carbon footprint laughable. The evidence from volcanology, however, does not support these claims. V My article “Volcanic Versus Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide” appeared in the June 14 issue of the American Geophysical Union’s publication Eos and addresses the widespread mis-perception in the media, the blogosphere, and much of the climate skeptic literature that volcanic CO2 emissions greatly exceed anthropogenic CO2 emissions. I wrote the article to provide a comprehensive overview of the topic using only published peer-reviewed data with a minimum of technical jargon for a broad spectrum of Earth science researchers and educators, students, policy makers, the media, and the general public. AGU has made the article public; anyone can download a copy. There is also an Eos online supplement, although I have a better formatted pdf version that is available upon request. The bottom line? Annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions exceed annual volcanic CO2 by two orders of magnitude, and probably exceed the CO2 output of one or more super-eruptions**. Thus there is no scientific basis for using volcanic CO2 emissions as an excuse for failing to manage humanity’s carbon footprint. Terry Gerlach is retired from the U.S. Geological Survey where he was a volcanic gas geochemist.The views expressed are his own. Yes we are aware that CO2 is colorless and that the plumes in the figures are mostly steam. – Eds. *Super-eruptions are extremely rare, with recurrence intervals of 100,000–200,000 years; none have occurred historically, the most recent examples being Indonesia’s Toba volcano, which erupted 74,000 years ago, and the United States’ Yellowstone caldera, which erupted 2 million years ago. realclimate.org

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (8291)	8/11/2011 10:47:24 AM
From: Maurice Winn	2 Recommendations Respond to of 49019

If you are right and the scientists haven't made a mistake in calculating the 15 billion tons a year which is being removed from the atmosphere, then filling the air with CO2 is like trying to fill a leaky bucket with water. It's emptying at an increasing pace. Plants do absorb a lot more CO2 when the concentration is higher, which is why greenhouse growers buy fuel to burn to enrich their CO2 levels. The ecosphere operates on a faster cycle. Ocean algae do the same, growing faster with more CO2, which boosts the food chain and increases the rate of deposition onto the ocean floor. So, if the human production of CO2 was reduced tomorrow from 30 billion tons per year to 15 billion tons per year, the concentration in air would remain stable, with 15 billion tons in and 15 billion tons out. Since it would be simple to cut CO2 production by that much, we don't really have a problem. Cut taxes on Cyberspace and transfer the taxes to carbon and hey presto, people will use less carbon and use more Cyberspace. Cyberspace has the happy effect of reducing the need for carbon. For example instead of roaring down a freeway to a mall, people could order on-line and have a courier do a door to door delivery using a tiny fraction of the energy required for individual driving. With high quality Cyberspace, people would choose to hold 3D video meetings instead of driving a long way to meet, which would save a lot of money on accommodation, meals and other things apart from reducing energy used. It looks as though CO2 is not much of a problem to solve even if it does turn out to be a problem. But really, it's not going to be a problem with the 2020 reglaciation looming closer with each orbit of the sun. With a bit of luck the extra CO2 might hold the reglaciation to just a Little Ice Age. But that's wishful thinking. Already, Apple has passed Exxon as the USA's biggest company by market capitalisation. That's a very big vote in favour of Cyberspace instead of oil. Unlike most voting, it's voting not with opm but their own money. Oil is so last century. Oil is Industrial Revolution technology. Mobile Cyberspace is for the 21st century. Mqurice

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (8291)	8/14/2011 3:47:12 PM
From: Maurice Winn	2 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 49019

Wharfie, I am starting to think there really is global warming. Look what is happening in New Zealand nzherald.co.nz There is so much heat evaporating so much water that it's dropping out as snow in Wellington. Or is that extremely unusual snow due to Global Cooling? Some snow is due to Global Warming. How do you know which is which? If it's due to Global Cooling, then it seems that we might be lucky to get through to 2020 before the onset of the next reglaciation or hopefully just Little Ice Age. Maybe we should cut taxes on fossil fuels to encourage more CO2 production to avoid reglaciation. Mqurice