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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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