> From: Dag T [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Why? Politicians are the only folks around who regularly lie to us as though it were a requirement of their profession!
> Should we be surprised if dumping > a lot of some compound into the environment affects it? We are so many > now that it�s obvious to me that we will change the environment in some > way. Really? What's a lot? Who told you it was a lot? Of the 186 billion tons of CO2 that enter earth's atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are from human activity. That would be about 3.2%. Approximately 90 billion tons come from biologic activity in earth's oceans and another 90 billion tons from such sources as volcanoes and decaying land plants. > Probably, we should be careful with too much of anything because it is > more than likely that some of it will affect our world, and we may not > notice it before it is too late. Really, how much is too much? At 368 parts per million CO2 is a minor constituent of earth's atmosphere-- less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present. Compared to former geologic times, earth's current atmosphere is CO2- impoverished. > It�s like smoking. Why shouldn�t drawing a lot of smoke through our > breathing organs cause some bad changes? It's not like smoking. A smoker draws into his/her lungs many orders of magnitude more pollutants than is in the natural air surrounding him. With CO2, we are talking orders of magnitude less. ------------------------ Water vapor is a much more efficient "greenhouse gas" and is two orders of magnitude more plentiful than CO2 in our atmosphere. (Perhaps we should rethink those fuel cell cars!) If we are in a global warming crisis today, even the most aggressive and costly proposals for limiting industrial carbon dioxide emissions would have a negligible effect on global climate! Don't be one of the sheeple. Just because someone spits out some number that seems alarmingly large to you in comparison to your daily references doesn't mean it's significant. Ninety three million miles seems like a large number - until you compare it with the distance to Sol's nearest neighbor. Regards, Bob... -------------------------------------------- "History is not a school-mistress. She does not teach. She is a prison matron who punishes for unlearned lessons." -- Vasily Klyutchevsky, Russian historian
