I Got Gas

I went outside this morning and it was well over 60 degrees, beautiful weather, balmy breezes, just the kind of weather that makes me nostalgic for global warming. As the last of the leaves are falling and decomposing into rich organic material so I can grow even bigger and hotter hot peppers next spring, I immediately became concerned over the amount of CO2 that was being released to satisfy my craving for hot peppers.

Actually, it is exactly CO2 that is blamed for most of the greenhouse gases and thus the villain we should all be concerned about, let’s look at this Inconvenient Truth or Carbon Dioxide’s effect on temperature. I will do my best to keep this from being a science lesson for those of you who recently escaped the education system, so every time I mention CO2 just breathe out and expel those bad gases into our pristine environment. We don’t want this turning into another Venus or something.

The relationship between global temperature and carbon dioxide (CO2), on which the entire global warming scare is founded, is not as simple as they would have you believe. Do not let them load you up with a bunch of horse turds about how much is being added and that we need to slow it down. You see they want you to believe something that has the sound of truth to it, when it doesn’t have any. Each and every molecule (those tiny things you can’t see) of CO2 added to the atmosphere contributes less to warming than the previous one.

So while 1 + 1 = 2, it really isn’t when it comes to global warming. Confused? They want you to be. Think of it this way. If you get 15 miles per gallon on a gallon of gasoline, would you be able to drive exactly 30 miles on two gallons? The answer is no, because you have to subtract the weight of the extra gasoline that is added to the car’s weight to calculate the exact mileage, as you add more gas the vehicle becomes heavier and you get less mileage per gallon. Well CO2 works in a similar fashion.

Perhaps you would like another example that is even easier to understand, yes. Good. If you take an empty bucket that holds a gallon of liquid and pour in one gallon of water you have a full bucket. If you pour in a second gallon, is the bucket fuller or are your shoes very wet? Try this experiment on your new living room rug when you get home.

Evidence from plant fossil-remains suggest to us that there was as much CO2 in the atmosphere about 11,000 years ago as there is today. So where does it go and if decomposing, animals and plants add CO2 and 1+1=2 that we would be living in almost a pure CO2 atmosphere after so many millions of years wouldn’t we. Cough, cough. I’m thinking here that since we are looking at plant fossils, than we can’t really calculate a moment by moment environmental warming as some web sites counters might wish you to believe. Besides, if the amount of CO2 were about the same as 11,000 years ago we would need one damn accurate counter. I’m not sure my watch is that accurate.

Throughout our little study, you need to keep another little Inconvenient Truth in mind. You will hear that the United States is the largest producer of CO2 of all nations and that we need to do something and do it now. The reason we are the largest producer isn’t because we are really really mean, it is because our economy is the largest, so to reduce our CO2 we need to make our economy somewhat smaller, say like approximately the GNP of Chad, that economic powerhouse of Africa.

In a future post I will explain to you climate sensitivity which takes the CO2 and does something with it. It is quite boring to read, but I promise I will make it a little more interesting when I get around to it. The bottom line is that CO2 temperatures increases in the atmosphere aren’t linear. That is an important sounding way of saying, it gets to a certain point and than the hell with it, it sort of up chucks.

There are so many areas to ridicule in the global warming arena that I can amuse you for weeks; but, I will intersperse global warming rubbish with other things that amuse me even more. So until next time, stop breathing so much.