Emissions and Omissions

January 18, 2010 by Dr. Mc.

Does it bother anyone else that we are supposed to be “going green” by reducing carbon dioxide emissions? I learned in my ninth grade biology class that GREEN plants need carbon dioxide to “breath” just as animals need oxygen. I also learned, probably long before that, that green houses were places that green plants grow better. So some how by reducing carbon dioxide we are supposed to make Planet Earth “greener?” Fundamentals like that cause me to look a little harder at all the statistics that are supposed to make us responsible for global warming. Why is it that they include figures like how many pounds of carbon dioxide humans and their industries have put into the atmosphere each year, but I can’t find anywhere what percent of the earth’s carbon dioxide that is at any given time? One example is this link by UC San Diego. Glance down to the graph showing the rise in carbon dioxide captured in polar snow. Are the any studies on how fast carbon dioxide escapes from polar snow? This would be vital to any indication of change over time.
In that same paragraph in which that graph first intrudes, there is an explanation of the increase in CO2 ppm that includes a logarithmic conversion. Logarithmic conversions are useful when measuring things that increase by huge multiples in comparing their significance, as with the Richter Scale for earthquakes. They are absolutely useless in comparing two numbers where one is not even double the other. Perhaps it was included so that the average reader would get lost and just accept the conclusion, in this case that “we are a little more than one third of the way to a doubling of carbon dioxide, on a log scale.” Anyone with four-function math skills can tell that 360 divided by 280 is closer to a fourth in difference than it is to a third (28.6%). The actual increase since 1957 is a little over a fourth. For the sake of argument, let’s use logs and give them the third. It certainly sounds more dramatic to say that the number is more than a third of the way to doubling than to say it’s gone up by a little over a third, which is of course the same thing, but without using the word “doubling” it sounds less ominous.
OK, so assume that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by one third since 1957. During that same time frame the population of humans (Remember, they are the villains in this story.) has increased from less than 3 billion to around 6.8 billion, which is MORE than double. Sometimes people are forced in a direction against their better judgment, but it’s more powerful to direct their judgment by withholding certain information.

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