On 27 Jul 2003 16:26:49 GMT, in <alt.privacy.spyware>, Karlsen <x@x.com>
wrote:
>
> "Gerald Wellborn" <gwellbor@tampabay.rr.com> wrote in
> news:sfRUa.64879$k85.2491219@twister.tampabay.rr.c om:
>
[snip]
> >
> > Again, where is the data proving the addition of the 15 tons per day
> > claim?
>
>
> http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030620.html

*SPLORF!*

The key quotation from that page is:

--> The statement you keep seeing is a paraphrase of the opening
--> lines of Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a
--> Postmodern World by David W. Orr (1992). Orr, who's more of a
--> philosopher than a scientist, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
And a whopper of an understatement *that* is!

--> provides no cites for his statistics

Which *should* put paid to the whole thing... Except that the page author,
one "CECIL ADAMS", then goes on to expose his own ignorance on the subject
-- the most obvious example being:

--> Added 15 million tons of carbon dioxide.
--> Another error. The substance of importance here is carbon, not carbon
--> dioxide. In a column back in January we established that humans on
--> balance add as much as 1.5 billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere
--> annually. Some of that may be removed by terrestrial "carbon sinks,"
--> but that hasn't been definitely established. If instead all the carbon
--> stays airborne, we're adding more than 4 million tons per day (which
--> would be 15 million tons of carbon dioxide if it were all in that
--> form--but it isn't).

Carbon and Carbon Dioxide are two ENTIRELY different materials, with
completely different properties. In fact, they have *nothing* in common
except at the sub-molecular level (i.e., they both happen to contain a
carbon atom; big whoopie -- do you fear that glass of water you're about to
drink will explode in your face like the Hindenberg because it contains
hydrogen atoms?). CO2 is a gas, while C is a solid. And the only form in
which C could possibly find its way into the atmosphere in the first place
is as a *particulate* solid, at that; so -- remembering that C is heavier
than air -- it will literally "fall out" of the atmosphere (at least almost)
as fast as we can put it in via combustion or whatever. And while
atmospheric CO2 has of course been linked to ozone-layer depletion (the
significance/importance of which has itself yet to be fully proven; but for
sake of simplicity, let's take that as a given for the moment), airborne
carbon is simply *NOT* an environmental concern (except, of course, during
temporary instances of acute exposure -- such as if you stand in the smoke
cloud of a burning building; and even then, there are near-certainly many
FAR greater health hazards than simple carbon to be found in that smoke
cloud).

Man, oh man... I *DO* wish that the "do-gooders" would get their facts
straight.

--

Jay T. Blocksom
--------------------------------
Appropriate Technology, Inc.
usenet01[at]appropriate-tech.net


"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.

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