On 1/15/07, Robert A. Rohde <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I once researched this for another purpose. My recollection is that
the US military accounts for about 2-3% of total US carbon emissions.
This confirms James' approach, as the military constitues about 3% of US
GDP.
And no, the collective energy from bombs and the like is totally
insignificant compared to the greenhouse effect. In fact, if you take
away the energy trapping effect of greenhouse gas emissions, the direct
energy content of all fossil fuels being burned is not enough to
appreciably warm the Earth.
I didn't get the sense that this was part of the original question, but it's
interesting to think about in these terms.
For instance, the world's population is about 6,000,000,000 people. (Or is
it 7 billion already? No matter, that is a small correction for this
purpose.) The world's surface area is about, hmm 5 x 10^14 square meters,
and the greenhouse forcing is already about 2 watts oer square meter, call
it 10^15 watts. So the greenhouse effect per capita is about 166 kilowatts.
Say 1667 very bright incandescent bulbs running 24 hours a day.
Note that this effect is cumulative. If we stop emitting carbon tomorrow, we
continue the 166 kilowatts for centuries. If we restrain carbon vigorously,
we are hoping to keep that forcing below twice that, or 3333 very bright
incandescent lightbulbs running 24/7 or 333 room space heaters running 24/7
or a 466 horsepower engine running at maximum torque 24/7 or...
Anthropogenic greenhouse warming exceeds anthropogenic warming from all
direct sources by about two orders of magnitude.
mt
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