Thursday, August 17, 2006

(anti) Global Warming Petition - parry, riposte

Global Warming Petition

"We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.


Parry
First off, you can have a bachelor's in poetry and be able to sign this petition. It is marketed as a petition of scientists, but it is really a petition of college graduates. Considering that most college graduates can't calculate the price of an "$18 pair of pants, 20% off" ($14.40) this group of "scientists" doesn't hold a lot of weight with me. I'm going to contact OISM.org and ask them about this. I'd visit in person since I live in Portland, Oregon but OISM is in Cave Junction, the middle of nowhere. (Actually, it is the junction of two highways, Redwood Hwy and Caves Hwy near natural caves. It is further than the middle of nowhere.)

On to the petition wording itself. I will nitpick only once here, the Kyoto Protocol wasn't written entirely in Kyoto 1997. The official history from the horse's mouth, shows the document compiled in Bonn, Geneva and Kyoto then adopted at the end of the year in Kyoto December, 1997. Signatures began in 1998.

"The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, ..." So it appears they concede the concept of greenhouse gases, and then claim that limiting them will harm the environment. Human production of greenhouse gases, that cause the greenhouse effect, would harm the environment how? Plants need human smog, fire extinguishers and coolants to be released into the environment? Obviously no plants existed prior to the year 1900, because without human greenhouse gases they were harmed.

"...hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind." The first phrase might be plausible, but historic evidence indicates otherwise. When Robert Heinlein was asked to speak about the social effects of NASA, his researchers, wife and himself traced NASA as the initial research for miniaturizing electronics, life support systems used in hospitals, lasers, national defense systems, nutrition research and much more. In my understanding of research and development, funding new ideas and products leads to more new ideas and products. There are two main ways industry can cut down on emissions. The first is to close up shop and go home, stop making products. The second is researching new ways of making the same things. I'm simplifying the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol, and a commodity based market for emissions would make it so the worst polluters needed to pay more. (If the amount is too low, the low prices encourage pollution.) Doing so would attach a financial value on decreasing emissions. A more fundamental understanding like the one Dupont adopted would increase profits. Their annual goal is produce 10% more using 10% less, every year. They achieve this by increasing efficiency. Dupont realized they purchased the chemicals that left their smokestacks, and by decreasing waste, they increased profits. So far it has worked very well and they have met their goals. (Exhaustive facts and figures anyone?) If research and human ingenuity are exhausted, then cutting back emissions by decreasing production may be the only option, but I'm more of a pragmatic optimist when it comes to increasing efficiency of very wasteful processes developed in the late 1800s through 1950s. (I looked up recipes for cement, etc. We already have the cost effective formulas to drastically cut greenhouse gases, we just aren't using them.)

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate." I do need to agree with the statement in its entirety, based on the key words "convincing scientific evidence" and "catastrophic". I think misspelling the word "gases" sort of detracts from the impact of their statement. On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that greenhouse gases do increase temperature, see below for my riposte. Personally, I haven't seen convincing scientific evidence that a huge asteroid hitting the Earth would cause catastrophic heating or damage to the Earth or its climate. The math I saw for an NSA competition estimate the effects of a huge asteroid hitting the Earth said that most of the heat would dissipate into space, and the impact would be negligible. If the ice melts and/or becomes clouds, evidence would support a runaway positive feedback loop. That evidence is not convincingly catastrophic. Short version: they avoided the issue completely by using extreme language.

"Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth." This is partially true. Plants favor higher CO2 density (Advanced Life Support - NASA page 40) of 0.120kPa (1,200ppm) compared to Earth nominal 300-400ppm (NASA says 350-400ppm in the document based on CO2 levels in the past 50 years, but historic records indicate much lower quantities were present in the past.) The fact that plants (which use CO2 for photosynthesis) can survive with more CO2 is not the question, or the issue. The issue is: do greenhouse gases cause global warming? Is global warming a "bad thing"?

Riposte
They avoided the issue almost entirely, but is this a claim that greenhouse gases do not convert light into infrared radiation which is received in the lower atmosphere as heat? That would require changing a few chemistry books, and proving this is bad has little to nothing in common with observed wind and climate patterns. Global warming (aka tropospheric heating effect) is affected by changes in the atmosphere as infrared and UV light interacts with particles and molecules as they react. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect along with "Living in the Environment" 13th Edition G. Tyler Miller, Jr page 448.

For reference, the majority of greenhouse gases emitted from human activity are:
Carbon Dioxide, 50-120 years in the atmosphere, relative warming to CO2: 1
Methane, 12-18 years, 23 x CO2
Nitrous Oxide, 114-120 years, 296x CO2
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), 11-20 years (65-110 year in stratosphere) 900-8300 x CO2
Hydro chlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), 9-390 years, 470-2000 x CO2
Hydro fluorocarbons (HFCs), 15-390 years, 130-12700 x CO2
Halons, 65 years, 5500 x CO2
Carbon tetrachloride, 42 years, 1400 x CO2
(I'd be suspicious of any gas with chloro or fluoro in its name.)
Source: "Living in the Environment" 13th Edition G. Tyler Miller, Jr page 448.
Betting that greenhouse gases don't warm the Earth is a long term bet. We are betting that for the next 20-400 years that the gases we release today won't cause any significant or harmful environmental change. Nitrous Oxide is created any time atmospheric temperature is over 400 degrees F. Any form of combustion or strong heating, even electric heaters or burning hydrogen, releases greenhouse gases.

"Recent measurements of carbon dioxide amounts from Mauna Loa observatory show that CO2 has increased from about 313 ppm (parts per million) in 1960 to about 375 ppm in 2005. The current observed amount of CO2 exceeds the geological record of CO2 maxima (~300 ppm) from ice core data (Hansen, J., Climatic Change, 68, 269, 2005)" That is a huge observation! The highest recorded CO2 level before the current era was approximately 300ppm. We are 25% over that amount, and 75% over the previous range of 200ppm-300ppm (variance of 100ppm, currently 75ppm over previous maximum.)

We know that CO2 reacts with light from the Sun to release heat and increase temperature. We know that the concentrations of CO2 and other 'greenhouse gases' are increasing in concentrations in the atmosphere. We know that the Earth is increasing in temperature, 0.5 Celsius since 1960. (Science 308, 1431, 2005)

What is the big stretch? The fact the oceans have not risen makes sense, since melting of floating ice doesn't increase water level. Try it in a cup of water. Now add an ice cube, did the water increase? When the ice cube melts, does the water level change? Now imagine adding an ice cube 3km tall and larger than the state of Texas. Additionally, it is currently below sea level and sitting on mud, so ocean water may break it up and cause it to be free floating once the open ocean connects with it.

The only bit of science necessary to know that global warming is happening is a ruler. Go measure the ice. Greenland is melting. North pole is melting. South pole is melting. Yes, increased rainfall has (slightly) increased the ice pack in some areas, but in many more the ice pack is retreating. The retreating ice pack far outweighs the extra snowfall.

A ruler measuring ice says the Earth is melting ice. What effect can that melting ice have? Order of magnitude estimates calculate that a single ice shelf, WAIS, would raise sea levels approximately 3-6 meters, or 10-20 feet. If all ice currently on land melted and flowed into the ocean, the sea level (order of magnitude estimate) would rise by 50 meters. That is approximately 164 feet. Maybe some of those 'scientists' should answer two questions: How much ice is there on land? Would human life, industry and the environment be negatively impacted if that ice was in the ocean?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

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