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Values and Culture

Thank you for participating in the Dialogue on Foreign Policy. The interactive web site is now closed. The Minister's report will appear on this web site once it is released.

This Forum is bilingual, and participants post messages in their language of choice.

Buying "Green, or Carbon, Credits" from 3rd World Nations would be wrong

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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Buying "Green, or Carbon, Credits" from 3rd World Nations would be wrong

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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Buying "Green, or Carbon, Credits" from 3rd World Nations would be wrong

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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