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Contributor: roheline
Date: 2003-04-26 11:03:04
Ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by the Government of Canada was a mistake.
Implementation of the Kyoto Protocol by our Government would be a disaster for the country, if not an out and out hoax and fraud perpetrated on the citizens of Canada.
As a plant scientist, and as a recently retired teacher of biology and chemistry, I can tell you with absolute certainty that carbon dioxide gas, CO2, is an ecologically essential gas, and CO2 is NOT a pollutant. CO2 is still a SCARCE and priceless commodity in the atmosphere and the biosphere of Earth at sea level. All of the plantlife of planet Earth needs CO2 to live.... If plants live then the rest of us get to live another day. You see, if wasn't for the green plants of Earth, most other forms of life, including human life, would have no food and no oxygen gas, O2, and could not exist.
The carbon atoms in the organic molecules of human beings, and all other living things, were a part of the CO2 content of air only a short time before being absorbed by green plants to make their biomass so they could live and grow. When we eat our cereal, fruits, vegetables, eggs, and beef and the meat of other herbivores, we ingest and incorporate into our being the same carbon atoms which but a brief time before was a part of the good, clean CO2 gas of air.
All life on Earth is fortunate that plants consume CO2 of air and maintain the atmospheric content of CO2 at only 0.033%.
By the way, plants don't care whether the CO2 comes from the lungs of the 6 million people on Earth, or from an erupting volcano, from decaying leaves, burning of a candle, car exhaust, your burp after having a TUMS, pop or beer, or from the combustion of natural gas in your home stove or furnace, or whether or not the CO2 came from a coal-fired electricity generating station. CO2 is CO2 and plants love it all..... and it can never get out of wack to cause global warming or climate change because plants will simply use more of it, and faster, to make more biomass if more is available -- say after a major forest fire. Nature has many checks and balances.
Human beings and their protocols and accords are not needed. In fact, if the Kyoto Protocol is implemented it would only aggravate and further impoverish the already over-taxed citizens of our nation.
I hope I have demonstrated that CO2, although vilified and lambasted mercilessly by our Ministry of the Environment and their ad campaign just prior to ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in Dec. 2002, is NOT a pollutant, and not evil. If CO2 is not bad for Canada or for the world, then Kyoto is not needed.
Since the Kyoto Protocol is not needed, then it should not be implemented.
Now, since this forum is about Canada's foreign policy, Minister Bill Graham, do not allow the government to begin purchasing of "Green, or Carbon, Credits" from overseas countries. Canada has enough greenery of her own.
For more of my thoughts on this issue, please visit, and read, what I've posted at: http://PlantsEatCO2.blogspot.com
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Contributor: codc01
Date: 2003-04-26 16:34:12
Everybody knows that CO2 is necessary for plant life - but did you know that the CO2 proportion is fixed in the air, and because of human causes (destroying forests, and increasing CO2 emissions by fossil fuels among others), the proportion of CO2 is increasing... And this is not good for us humans and will cause global warming! Unless you want us to become plants, or we all grow plants everywhere and leave all our cities to plant life... We must reduce our CO2 emissions.
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Contributor: roheline
Date: 2003-04-27 00:27:07
Hi there Codc01, and all other readers:
Yes, as a matter of fact the PROPORTION of CO2 in air at sea level is pretty well fixed at the extremely low amount of 0.033% worldwide, on average, as indicated in my original, introductory remarks. The fact that the proportion of air, at sea level, contains such a scant amount of CO2, and is adequately maintained at this LOW percentage by natural processes such as photosynthesis, and also by natural chemical equilibrium reactions, means that there is no need for human beings to implement or enact accords (Kyoto) to lower CO2 concentrations. All regulatory efforts would be futile.
Moreover, because CO2 is ecologically essential, and NOT a pollutant, Foreign Affairs should not encourage nor facilitate the buying of the totally unneeded "green, or carbon, credits" from countries such as Russia, or certain African, Central and South American and Asian nations. Canada simply does not need to purchase such credits. We are "green" enough, and there is nothing wrong with the CO2 content of the atmosphere.
Besides, the plants of Earth don't care whether or not they "eat" anthropogenic CO2 (generated by human beings), or whether the CO2 comes from other parts of the carbon cycle, again, as indicated originally. CO2 is CO2 and they love it all.
The tiny proportion of air, the 0.033% CO2 gas, at sea level, is certainly not enough to cause global warming, nor any other form of global climate change. Please do read my entire essay on the issue at http://PlantsEatCO2.blogspot.com . Human beings, and all other forms of life, are truly fortunate that there is still enough plant life on Earth, ranging from phytoplanktonic species, algae, and higher aquatic plants in oceans, lakes, streams and ponds, to all of the many terrestrial species. All of these help to keep the CO2 content of air LOW year in and year out.
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Contributor: codc01
Date: 2003-04-27 17:04:57
"The fact that the proportion of air, at sea level, contains such a scant amount of CO2, and is adequately maintained at this LOW percentage by natural processes such as photosynthesis, and also by natural chemical equilibrium reactions, means that there is no need for human beings to implement or enact accords (Kyoto) to lower CO2 concentrations"
My environmental science is a bit hazy in my memory, but why are you always comparing your values at sea level? What about higher up in the atmosphere?
You're trying to tell me that that we can pump up as many tons of CO2 as we wish, and the proportion of CO2 will stay the same (in the atmosphere - not at sea level)? I'm sorry, but i simply don't believe you for a second... I need hard evidence - and the evidence points to the contrary.
Kyoto is a good deal, but preserving ur forest is also very important.
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Contributor: fatmomma
Date: 2003-04-27 02:04:58
I believe you are right codco. We are increasing CO2 unnecessarily and reducing forests and plants which need the CO2. There is a growing unbalance. We must not only reduce emissions but quit removing so many forests. Not only is too much CO2 leading to possible global warming: I am sure it is not good for our lungs. I notice many more people with allergies today than before. All these emissions can not be good for our health. I do think it is even more important to retain our forests and plants as they are what produce oxygen for us
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Contributor: codc01
Date: 2003-04-27 17:07:07
Exactly, nature is a delicate balance, and humans are the prime reason of most environmental disbalances (spelling?)...
We must always watch out to keep the balance (increasing plant life, while decreasing CO2 emissions)...
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Contributor: roheline
Date: 2003-04-27 23:11:36
Hi again codc01, and Hello fatmomma:
My answer to your questions was just gobbled up and lost in cyberspace. I don't know why. So, instead of retyping the whole thing again, please read an essay of mine on this serious issue at http://PlantsEatCO2.blogspot.com ~ I would also like to respond to two specific things you've raised, codc01: 1. Since you are an engineer, I will just say, "at sea level" must be specified because molecules of different substances have different densities. (The molar mass of CO2 is 44 g/mol, but its concentration is only 0.033% ON AVERAGE at sea level, while nitrogen gas, N2, is at 28 g/mol, but is the most plentiful gas at 78% at sea level, and oxygen gas, O2, with 32 g/mol, accounts for 21% of the air at sea level.) Of course, as one goes to higher elevations, the percentage concentration of each one of these gases decreases.
2. In your initial response to my opening remarks, you said something interesting and contradictory -- that the amount of CO2 in air is "fixed" (almost true), but then, a little further on, added that the proportions vary. Well, which is it? It can't be both. The proportion of CO2 in air, at sea level, right across the world is still, even after the industrial revolution, only 0.033%, ON AVERAGE, which of course means 0.033 mL of CO2 per 100 mL of air, or to put it another way, that would be 33 L of CO2 / 100 000 L of air, which is also equal to 330 ppm (parts per million); a very, very low amount even in our modern times where human beings do contribute to CO2 in air. (But like any CO2, plants love the CO2 generated by human factories, vehicles, furnaces, burps and farts just as much as any other CO2. At the molecular level, CO2 is pure clean, ecologically essential CO2, and plants love and absorb it all.
Do read the essay. I do know what I am talking about, in this area. My working life has been spent in the plant sciences, and biology and chemistry. I am also an environmentalist and naturalist of long standing, and because of their stand on Kyoto Protocol, I feel betrayed by the current environmental movement, and by the Federal Ministry of the Environment.
P.S. Besides the "Essay", also read the answers of participant # 1616. That's me, too; "roheline".
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Contributor: codc01
Date: 2003-04-28 14:30:14
"The proportion of CO2 in air, at sea level, right across the world is still, even after the industrial revolution, only 0.033%,"
At SEA LEVEL, its true i'm sure because of all the photosynthesis effect of planktons (I read your essay rapidly)... Otherwise, its FALSE. You have to take your analysis at a macroscopic level, and not at a microscopic level.
To help you out, a professor with the same view as you admits that CO2 levels are increasing (please also note the URL address):
Rising Carbon Dioxide Is Great for Plants (http://www.oilsurvey.com/php/link.php3?CoId=6365&path=co2ok.html&PHPSESSID=75cba8945db9b2d0080945d11bd30e4f)
Increasing CO2 levels:
"Since pre-industrial times, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by 31 percent. Over the same period, atmospheric methane has risen by 151 percent, mostly from agricultural activities like growing rice and raising cattle."
Sources:
http://www.gcrio.org/ipcc/qa/05.html
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/pns/faq.html
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/global_warming/page.cfm?pageID=498
http://www.fnh.org/francais/faq/effet_serre/anthropique.htm
http://www.effet-de-serre.gouv.fr/main.cfm?page=fr/savoir/savoir.htm
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Contributor: roheline
Date: 2003-04-29 18:12:08
Thanks for the sites. Be sure to read the info given about "uncertainties" at the 1st website you suggested, the EPA site. EPA admits to huge uncertainties, but then confidently urges readers to buy into the notion of global warming. As far as microscopic vs. macroscopic CO2 goes. If I say that the "worldwide" concetration of CO2 in air 0.033% then it should be clear that this is a universal, macroscopic, average CO2 concentration. Turn to a recent edition of any good biolgy text. This number is still in use.
Plants have been around for 4 billion years; much longer than any animal. It has been, and still is, the plantlife of Earth, along with a dynamic chemical equilibrium, which has, and continues, to keep the amount of CO2 in air low; not the edicts and accords of man. Please read: http://PlantsEatCO2.blogspot.com
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