On 12/2/2009 3:13 PM, Rune Allnor wrote:
> On 2 Des, 22:46, glen herrmannsfeldt<g...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>
>> It is easy to think that a little CO2 won't do much, but about four
>> tanks of gas in your car produces a ton of CO2. Tons per person
>> per year. Billions of cars, billions of tons. Then add power
>> plants, billions of tons more.
>
> Sure. The numbers are big. But so are the numbers they
> are compared to. Once people start talking about livestock
> being responsible for 20-30% of nation-wide emissions of
> greenhouse gasses, these numbers start to come into
> perspective: There are far fewer large mammals in the world
> today than only a couple of centuries ago. These emissions
> are lost in the balance, and counter significant parts
> of the CO2 emissions.

Plus the comparison to other natural sources like volcanoes, forest
fires, etc., and how those compare today to past history for typical
contributions of CO2 emissions. Depending on who you listen to, the
eruption in Alaska this year, if accounted for, would swamp the US
economy in a cap-and-trade scheme for CO2 emissions.

It makes little sense to me to regulate CO2 emissions, especially in a
wealth-redistribution scheme like cap and trade, that are small compared
to natural sources.

> And, as always: Until the impacts of a variable sun on the
> variations in climate are fully understood and accounted for,
> any statement relating to CO2 or other gasses and climate
> variations, is purely speculative.
>
> Rune

I agree with this point as well.

I'm not claiming that we should be ignorant of or discount the effects
we may be having on the planet, but we should be careful to really put
our efforts where it will have a genuine benefit. I'm seeing a lot of
evidence that the focus is on the wrong things, and the motivation for
keeping the focus where it is appears to me to be largely economic and
political and has not much to do with ecological concerns.

--
Eric Jacobsen
Minister of Algorithms
Abineau Communications
http://www.abineau.com