Lee, How about the occasional Krakatoa or that Philippine volcano Pinatubo? Aren't the emissions from one of those big volcanic blasts equal to many years of CO2 emissions in an average year?
Do you know what the breakdown is for fossil fuels: oil, coal, natural gas? So if you want to reduce emissions enough to make a difference we all need to drive electric vehicles charged with electricity generated by nuclear, wind, or solar power; heat our homes, schools, and factories with something other than fossil fuel; stop deforestation; and become vegetarians. All these are highly commendable but a tall order. How about if we think of "geo-engineering" the weather if global warming does in fact get worse such as: seeding the oceans with iron to grow more plankton; building giant reflectors in space; creating more dust in the upper atmosphere to dim sunlight; or finding some economical way to extract CO2 from the atmosphere to keep the percentage constant. Mike Paul and Mike: I found some figures on the proportion of CO2 entering the atmosphere: Soils (except for agriculture), weathering of rocks, oceans and vegetation are a net sink for CO2 out of the atmosphere. Net sources are deforestation/agriculture: 35% of the new CO2 going into the atmosphere fossil fuels: 65% volcanoes: 1% (Note this adds to 101% due to rounding error when rounding to the nearest 1%) It looks like Bush's DOE figures are off by a couple orders of magnitude, but then thats what happens when you compare the amount of CO2 in fossil fuels that are burned to the flux of carbon rather than the pool of carbon in the atmosphere to deliberately mislead the public. Comparing CO2 relative to other greenhouse gases and aerosols in heat retention (global average heat trapping change since 1750): CO2: +1.5 watts per square meter CFC, N2O and methane: +1.2 watts per square meter Ozone: +0.4 watts per square meter Black carbon (soot): +0.6 watts per square meter Output from the sun, change since 1750: +0.3 watts per square meter Lee --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
