Nature refuses to cooperate. Water levels are the highest in a decade.
09/24/1997 Houston Chronicle
WASHINGTON – The Sierra Club told Congress on Tuesday that it ought to drain Lake Powell, the second-largest man-made lake in America.
The proposal was met with protests that loomed like the 710-foot Glen Canyon Dam that holds the lake in northwest Arizona.
The Sierra environmentalists want to drain the 250-square-mile lake and dismantle the dam just upstream on the Colorado River from the Grand Canyon. Their goal is to help restore the area’s environment.
But representatives of state governments, electric power providers, the Navajo Nation, and the tourist industry lined up at a congressional subcommittee meeting to denounce the plan and argue that the Sierra Club’s goals were unachievable.
Melvin Bautista, natural resources executive director for the Navajo Nation, said that draining the lake would destroy the Navajo economy, eliminating a necessary water supply for coal-burning power plants and coal mines, and jeopardizing agribusiness.
Joseph Hunter, the executive director of the Colorado River Energy Distribution Association, a conglomerate of nonprofit power distributors, said the Southwest couldn’t get along without the electricity from the dam.
Critics of the plan also maintained that draining the lake would jeopardize water supplies in six Southwestern states – especially Arizona and Utah – and raise water costs as far away as Los Angeles.
Lake Powell has created a booming tourist economy, bringing in a half-billion dollars each year to the local economy, centered on Page, Ariz. Each year, an estimated 2.5 million people visit the lake, about five hours drive north of Phoenix.
Sierra Club executives and their environmental allies said the cold water released from the lake is disrupting the ecosystem of the Grand Canyon, and the trapping of silt behind the dam is preventing the renewal of beaches in the Grand Canyon.
How about the reason that the Sierra Club is Psychotic? It’s amazing to me that anyone would even need to rebut this lunacy.
We had a poster here for a while named Ed Darell who was pushing fictional works by Edward Abbey themed on blowing up Glen Canyon Dam.
Here is Ed’s latest post … on wind energy, no less …
http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/wind-power-video-primer-from-nsf/
Desert Solitaire might be a better read for someone unable to tell the difference between fiction, or someone unable even get the story straight about the fictional work of Ed Abbey. (It’s not “themed” on blowing up Glen Canyon Dam; the novel is The Monkeywrench Gang; “monkeywrenching” involves frustrating damaging development without harming humans. “First do no harm” is another principle you may want to get acquainted with.)
I know you’re jealous of the writing chops of Ed Abbey, but it doesn’t make you look any better to misstate what his books are about, or what goes on in them.
So, the decade-long drought at Glen Canyon has a momentary respite, at least in the level of Lake Powell — caused by near-catastrophic lake effect snows in the Upper Colorado states. How’s that affecting the drought around Lake Powell?
Among the great, frustrating disasters that accompany global warming is the maldistribution of water. Lake Powell is approaching non-drought levels for the first time in a decade, but only on the backs of snowpacks so dramatically above normal levels that they cause floods in the desert cities of Salt Lake City and Ogden, Utah; meanwhile, closer to Powell to the south, record wildfires burn tens of thousands of drought-parched acres, and Phoenix got swallowed by a monster drought-related dust-storm (ironically kicked up by thunderheads — but thunderheads that collapsed without delivering any water).
You used to have a poster named Steve Goddard who claimed the drought in Texas wasn’t so bad, no big deal, and soon to end.
He appears not to have read anything new since then. Trapped in the archives of the Houston Chronicle,, are you? Here, check this one out:
http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/2004_3759149/prolonged-drought-in-the-west-may-be-more-than-jus.html
It’s about a decade after the story you quote at the top. We might get you into the 21st century by the end of this year, at this rate.
Quite a strawman, Ed. Do you think that the high desert of Arizona generates a lot of stream flow normally?
Ed … your video post on wind power is pure elementary school stuff. Of course there is no mention of:
– using acids to remove rare earth metals from the ground in China and Mongolia to make the magnets for the rotors
– the increase in mining of copper and iron ore needed for the electrical wiring and steel
– the huge increase in the amount of concrete required to build the damn things
– the need for new roads to be built to access the land that the turbines are being built on
– the noise that the turbines make, and the people that suffer from headaches as a result
– the complaints that people have when turbines are built next to their property, which then causes their property to drop in value
– how much of a failure wind power has been in both the U.K. and Denmark
– the amount of power that is lost when electricity is generated off shore and transported inland
– wildlife (bats and birds) being killed by the blades
Wind power may have its uses, but it should be in a limited, supplemental capacity. When wealthy nations (ie: UK, Denmark) are falling all over themselves to build these things for no other reason than to appease green activists, they are setting themselves up for less prosperous future. Cheap, reliable electricity is absolutely necessary for the generation and maintenance of wealth. Wind power is neither cheap nor reliable.
No, and even less during a drought. Of course, when I mentioned the dramatic drought around Lake Powell in the last outing, you and your commenters said I was blowing things out of proportion.
That’s the nice version.
Not a strawman at all. Global warming messes up the weather. While Lake Powell may get up to “not drought stricken” levels this year, it’s on the record snows that have, so far, brought a modest amount of destruction farther north — weird, extreme weather. And while there’s no indication that such weirdness will be consistent, it’s useful to know that your claimed recovery of Lake Powell is actually a symptom of global warming. So, your claiming that Lake Powell’s recovery shows no global warming is a self-rebutting proposition.
Fictional works by Edward Abbey were at least grounded in reality.
@Ed: “Global warming messes up the weather”
Seriously … that’s the best you can come up with? I don’t accept crap like that from my grade 9 students.
P.J., it’s intended to be an elementary view of wind power. Hence, I called it “a primer.”
And while wind power is afflicted with some of the problems you mention — no more than any other form of electrical generation, by the way, so there’s not much significant new problems — that elementary piece from the National Science Foundation also contains the rebuttal information to the usual denialist claims that wind-generated electricity doesn’t replace other forms of generation and cannot be counted on. That’s been a minor theme here, but it’s a major point of debarkation from reality at blogs like Watts Up.
Tell me, P.J.: When the generator is fired by coal, do the Chinese not use acid to mine the rare earths? How do they know which form of electrical generation is to be the recipient of that ton of ore?
Wind generated half of one percent of UK energy today! http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm
“near-catastrophic lake effect snows in the Upper Colorado states.”
Pray tell us which areas of Idaho, Montana, Utah, Colorado and Nevada get “lake effect snows.” Then please tell us which lake(s) you are referring to.
@Ed: “that elementary piece from the National Science Foundation also contains the rebuttal information to the usual denialist claims that wind-generated electricity doesn’t replace other forms of generation and cannot be counted on”
1) Typical warmist … use the “denialist” smear … pathetic.
2) The rebuttal information you speak of was weak, at best. In my mind, it rebutted nothing.
3) If wind power is so reliable and great, why don’t you disconnect from the grid and have some wind turbines put up in your backyard? Surely the neighbors won’t mind … will they?
Have you ever wondered what would happen if your headlines bore any serious relation to the stuff you post, Steve? The article says nothing about “greens plotting the demise” of anything. Some Sierra Club members — and a significant number of others — lament the passing of Glen Canyon as a canyon. Its beauty was unique.
That’s what they were talking about in 1997. For those who wish the lake gone to free the canyon, it’s a bit of a pipe dream.
Is your reading comprehension as low as you pretend to be?
My reading comprehension isn’t low at all. Your headline isn’t supported by the article. You imply in the headline . . .
Oh, you’re not that stupid, are you?
They were able to stop construction of a dam between Glen Canyon and Boulder dams that had been in the works and would have been completed about 1984. They are also the reason for lower normal water levels in both lakes Powell and Mead which were lowered in the early to mid 90s.
Seeing as Lake Powell is artificial in the first place how is it that progressive greens have glommed onto it as some sort of proxy for AGW?
That’s an excellent question. Anybody care to elaborate?
Evidence. The decade-long decline of Lake Powell, particularly dramatic when it sank below the petroglyphs the lake usually covered, has been attributed to changing climate by most serious students of Lake Powell for about 20 years. We had the warnings the lake would drop due to climate change two decades ago, and then the lake dropped. for the past decade those tinfoil hattists who denied any effects from warming were pointed to Lake Powell.
And, as we now see, even the rise of Lake Powell, based on the lake effect super snows of this year in the Rockies, is an effect of climate change.
The denialists can’t get it right; humanity can’t win so long as they keep denying the facts.
Grumpy Grampy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/magazine/21water-t.html?pagewanted=6&sq&st=cse%22&scp=1%22perfect%20drought
Perhaps the “Sierra Club executives and their environmental allies” should be given a large quantity of explosive and a six-inch fuse and be invited to perform the deed themselves? I’d be willing to travel to see that.
Pardon my ignorance but does the Glen Canyon Dam produce any electricity? Or help maintain the flow through Hoover Dam?
How many wind turbines would it require to RELIABLY replace that electricity?
1,356 megawatts.
Reliably? Don’t step too deeply into transmission and contract issues few of us is prepared to discuss within reason. For example,fromt the site noted above, discussing the replacement of generation from Glen Canyon:
With the Navajo Generating Station added in, the Page complex produces 3,000 megawatts, which I suppose means that NGS provides about 1,644 megawatts. NGS is coal-fired, of course.
Coal-fired generators with “inherent unreliability problems.” Maybe wind should be investigated more seriously, yes?
Co
genergenerator).
See below …
The official Adaptive Management Program FAQ gives an incrementally lower power production figure for Glen Canyon Dam:
In our last drive through the area I was struck by how many buildings had small wind generators connected to them. One of the better ideas is to use small, essentially in situ generators to supplement, or replace, grid power at that site.
http://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/05/04/wind-turbine-output-proves-disappointing-in-scotland/
No, Steve, I don’t remember telling you Lake Powell was doomed. If I said that, surely you didn’t delete the comment.
Ultimately, of course, there will be the problem of sedimentation. My dim memory is that projections were there would be few problems for at least 80 years (about 2050), and no serious sedimentation issue for about 150 years.
Perhaps someone else told you the lake is doomed. Or perhaps you’re imagining it.
Here is what you said :
@Ed: “Tell me, P.J.: When the generator is fired by coal, do the Chinese not use acid to mine the rare earths? How do they know which form of electrical generation is to be the recipient of that ton of ore?”
I woman I know works at Ontario Power Generation. She told me on two separate occassions that to replace the coal fired plant at Nanticoke, it would take so many wind turbines, it would line the highway from Windsor, Ontario to Montreal, Quebec. I decided to see if she was correct:
1) Distance from Windsor to Montreal = 833.52 km (or 517.94 miles)
2) A turbine with an 80 metre rotor diameter will produce, at maximum capacity, 2.5MW. Though most wind turbines operate at much less than full capcacity, let’s just give you the benefit of the doubt and assume 100% capacity.
3) The maximum power generation of Nanticoke is 3640 MW.
4) Wind turbines need to be spaced such that there is 7 rotor diameters between adjacent turbines. Recent research suggests that to overcome the effects of wind turbulence, it should be 15 rotor diameters:
http://www.greenoptimistic.com/2011/01/22/wind-turbine-distance-doubled-meneveau/
But, to give you the benefit of the doubt, let’s go with 7.
Thus, 7x80m = 560m (or 0.560km) between turbines. 3640MW/2.5MW per turbine = 1456 turbines. And 1456 turbines x 0.56okm between each one = 815.36 km, or just 18km short of Montreal.
So Ed … I say to you, if the Chinese decided to go with wind power instead of coal, how much more acid would they be using to extract all the extra rare earth metals they would need to build all those wind turbines?
P.S. In case you decide to avoid the issue and go on about China’s dirty coal, I suggest you look up the clean way in which the electricity is generated at Nanticoke using coal (though it won’t last much longer … it is being phased out).
So, tell me, P.J.: When the generator is fired by coal, do the Chinese not use acid to mine the rare earths? How do they know which form of electrical generation is to be the recipient of that ton of ore?
Why do you think a generator attached to a wind turbine uses any more of those rare earths than the generators attached to water or steam turbines?
The source of the motive force doesn’t affect the rare earth requirement. We’re stuck with that, regardless the source of power — though I’m sure the rare earth requirements differ for solar electric cells.
Ed, you told me a few weeks ago that Lake Powell was doomed. Remember?
I don’t like nested threads. I replied to your question here, Steve:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/greens-having-been-plotting-the-demise-of-lake-powell-for-decades/#comment-69878
Ed — The big coal fired generators do not use rare earths at all in their generators — just copper and iron, basically. Modern wind turbine generators use rare earth permanent magnets (neodymium-iron-born) because they need to reduce the size and weight of the generators high up on the wind turbine. Ground-base coal-fired generators face no such restriction, so they create the rotor field electromagnetically, with current flowing through copper wires wound around an iron core.
This requires more size and mass, but this is not that important on the ground, and it is more cost-effective. It also permits the rotor’s magnetic field to be varied dynamically, which means that the generated electricity does not need to processed through power electronics (which use all sorts of nasties) to stay synchronized to the grid.
Oh, and I’m still trying to figure out which lakes can cause lake-effect snow over the entire northern Rockies — the Great Salt Lake doesn’t quite cut it.
It’s “lake effect” snow. The moisture comes from the Pacific Ocean, though. “Lake effect” applies to any body of water.
Surely you knew that.
What a buffoon
It only took about 5 seconds to find this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake-effect_snow
“The same effect over bodies of salt water is called ocean effect snow, sea effect snow, bay effect snow, or even sound effect snow in the most blisteringly extreme cases”
It’s a pretty small error, but pretending to know what you are talking about when others correct you when you don’t doesn’t make your other arguments more convincing.
By no stretch of the definition can snow in the Rocky Mountains be attributed to the particular phenomenon that is called lake-effect snow, even ocean-effect snow, from the Pacific Ocean, with a thousand miles in between the two. Calling this winter’s snow in the Rockies “lake-effect snow” is to display a total ignorance of the phenomenon.
Coming from Mother Buffoon, that’s high praise!
No, I didn’t say Lake Powell was doomed. Nice to know the lake effect is called ocean effect when it comes from the ocean.
See, Steve? You could learn stuff here, if you’d open your eyes and ears, and not pretend to be the expert on everything. Maybe the pressure on Venus is getting to you . . .
Snow in the Rockies has nothing to do with either lake or ocean effect. That occurs along shorelines when cold air passes over warmer water. Not 1,000 miles from the water.
Sure, Steve. Those goalposts and definitions were meant to be changed, right?
I thought you were some sort of student of weather. Am I mistaking you for someone else?
Ed:
It is probably time to keep quiet as you are making more of a fool of yourself. you are the one attempting to redefine the terms Lake effect and Ocean Effect.
Thanks, Curt. You’re right — big generators use a lot less rare earths that a lot of small generators.
I think he may be confusing the Sierra Nevada’s large snows with the Rockies farther east. I spent time in both ranges this past winter and Sierra’s snow DID come in a few very large massive snowfalls. However, IIRC the snows in the Rockies were simply more frequent, without any out-of-the-ordinary massive dumps…so while both mountain ranges had very good snowpacks, the development of these snowpacks followed different mechanisms. Will someone correct me if this is incorrect?
Additionally, the snows in the Sierra could to some degree be termed “ocean effect”, as they were at least in part attributable to atmospheric rivers from the tropical Pacific. The thing is, it isn’t abnormal for the Sierra to get much of its snowfall from such phenomena. I actually know some people that have been working in CA to try to determine the effects of both atmospheric rivers and aerosols on CA precipitation (in an organized study that includes a variety of institutions, including Scripps, NOAA, Georgia Tech, and Boulder). I would say that every one of the individuals working on that project that I’ve met believe in AGW, with most believing in CAGW. And while they rightly are interested in the manmade contribution of aerosols, I don’t think any of them directly connect atmospheric rivers to manmade climate influences. Consequently, I don’t think that the attribution of manmade GHGs to the ocean effect snow can be made, regardless if that snow is in CA or UT/CO (although if there is evidence of this, I’d be interested to see it). Additionally, I’m not a weather expert at all, but can the UT/CO snow even be attributed to the ocean effect? I sure wouldn’t think so, but I’d be interested to see evidence to the contrary.
In summary, attributing ocean effect snow to manmade GHGs is likely not justified. It’d be like attributing any weather event, good or bad, to manmade GHGs. While I’m sure that manmade GHGs have altered the weather (even if just by the butterfly effect), I don’t think there’s been a properly attributed cause/effect for any single event there. Because while GHGs may have induced one bad weather event, they may have at the same time stopped a bad weather even somewhere else. I think that long-term trends (with proper adjustments for observational improvements) are the things to look at, and there’s not a significant, systematic change in such metrics.
-Scott
Ed,
Sorry that it sucks for you that Lake Powell is so full now. You mentioned that “serious students” of Lake Powell predicted lake levels would fall. Did your “serious students” predict it will fill back up again? No? Guess your “serious students” better go back to school.
Doesn’t suck for me. Yes, the predictions are that Lake Powell’s level will fluctuate. Long term, the predictions are that the lake levels will be less than optimum, more an more. The predictions made 20 years ago have been spot on.
You shouldn’t make ill-informed assumptions.
Ed:
As far as the hydrological cycle related to the Colorado River system is concerned average or “Normal” flow rates are meaningless. Sure you could get a yearly average over a few thousand years but that would not tell you what to expect next year or even for the next 500 years. Flood control was a major problem on the river before the dams and one more would not hurt. Even though I spent a lot of time fishing Lakes Mead and Mojave the recreation side of the lakes became a minor factor.
1983 could happen any year or a period of dry weather could also happen. That is the nature of variable weather patterns in those regions of the US.
Thanks for the answers Ed and P.J.
One could say that if ‘The Monkey Wrench Gang’ was updated, they would probably be working for Big Wind.
Why would you say that? George Washington Hayduke working for any power generating company? I don’t think it fits the character — any of the characters.
Read the book, will you? It’s a fun read.
Monkeywrenching was not original with Abbey. See the phrase, “spanner in the works.”
@Ed … thanks for the debate, and for the fact that I learned I was wrong about one thing – coal fired generators like Nanticoke don’t use rare earth metals (see Curt’s post above):
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/greens-having-been-plotting-the-demise-of-lake-powell-for-decades/#comment-69896
We all learn, P.J., if we’re open to it. Interesting to me that generators for the old-style sources haven’t been updated.
On the other hand, you could be right that rare earth difficulties could scotch some plans. Did you see that renewables — which depend on these rare earths a lot — now generate more power than nuclear plants? Interesting.
Ed:
Gee they include Hydro Power in their figures. Interesting! They are using the “Estimated maximum output” for their environmental damaging renewable sources like solar and wind. Per Watt your renewable are the most destructive of all forms of energy production.
Ed, you don’t believe everything your read, do you?
You’re not interpreting properly. Go here. http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/images/charts/electric_power_industry_net_generation_fuel-large.jpg
Now, understand that climate crock intentionally misleads, as does the LA times. Your wind and solar aren’t out generating nuclear, and comparing it to crude oil generation is side splitting and telling.
Here is the report both deceptive offerings were referencing. http://www.eia.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html
As you can see, clearly, wind and solar don’t even register. They’re not out producing anything. Sinclair? Really? The L.A. Times? lol……k
Ed, you seem to be sincere, and I don’t believe you’d intentionally deceive people. Towards that thought, I’d suggest you find different sources of information. Just to reiterate and reinforce, Pete Sinclair lies. So too, does the L.A. Times. regurgitating the falsehoods permeated by such sources makes you an accomplice towards deception. Now that you’ve been told, a continuing of such behavior would make you a willing accomplice towards intentional deception.
James
Grumpy and suyts:
Let’s not overlook the windfarms for the hot air blowing. Things change, technology advances, sometimes we’re better off for it.
lol, Darrell, first, theoretical wind “capacity” is entirely different than nuke or coal capacity. I’ve never known a wind farm to generate anywhere near capacity, nor can it for more than a few moments a year. It is another form of deception. If you don’t understand this, I’d be happy to go into further detail.
Secondly, investing more in renewable than nuclear, while returning less 30% of the payload isn’t a selling point for that particular technology.
Darrell, I’m an advocate of further R&D in both wind and solar. I believe we’ll get there one day. Today isn’t the day, nor will it be for several years to come. Presently, we’re spending too much for too little. It isn’t ready and it would be folly to embrace such fanciful pollyanna ideas.
The embrace of renewable energy is simply another way to keep poor people poverty stricken. Right now, people are suffering and renewable energy is adding to the suffering. Darrell, I truly wish you could see the harm this is causing. I believe if you did see it, you change much of your views. I’m seeing way too much of the harm up close and personal lately.
Shoot…….. Steve!!!!! I’ve a post in moderation hell!!!!!!
James said:
Lotta gall coming in a thread where I’m being attacked for pointing out — truthfully — that drought exists in Texas, that the drought in the drainage of the Colorado River (of Colorado, not Texas) is still on despite one year of record snowfalls in parts of the drainage (doesn’t yet make up for 11 years of drought).
You think your sources are more reliable that the LA Times and Ars Technica?
Will you share that stuff you’re smoking?
Quit being an accomplice towards deception, we’ll take you more seriously.
“You think your sources are more reliable that the LA Times and Ars Technica?”
Ed, do you bother reading the links I provide? Are you so close minded as to not even look to see what I’m talking about? Towards you being “attacked”, sorry, I don’t have an omnipresence here, but I think you’re a big boy and can probably handle it. If you have any specific writings from me participating in any deception, please point them out and I will investigate and retract and apologize if necessary.
For the record, yes, I believe the U.S. Energy Information Administration is more reliable (and credible) than the sources you quoted. Strange, I know, but true. But the fact is, I already knew the general numbers before I looked at the EIA report. So the true source would be my experience in the industry of providing energy.
.
Yeah, I read your links — which is where I realized that the chart you cited is a year behind the charts cited by the other more general sources (based on EIA data). So the 1% difference is probably a time difference.
So it’s still accurate to note that “renewable” power sources are about as significant as nuclear power in the U.S. It doesn’t get us out of any mess, but it does suggest that the economic viability of alternative sources including hydro is pretty well proven. Hydro isn’t going to develop much more, and it’s threatened by a lack of water in the right places at the right times. It will be interesting and important to watch the growth of solar and wind. Around this thread, though, wind is regarded as “elementary.” How that’s a problem, I don’t know.
Ed, read my second link. It is specifically about the first quarter this current year.
And, comparing renewable to nuclear as being as significant, is accurate only towards cost, not generation. Which is alarming. Seeing that they included hydro in their figure, which little or no investment is occurring, we’re realizing even a smaller return on the investment. This will require rate hikes across the board.
I’m not sure what you mean by “elementary”, but yes, wind is an archaic technology.and we’re still decades away for it to be a viable alternative to any traditional source of energy.
Hydro is dead, but it isn’t the lack of water that makes it so. Anywhere there is hydro generation now, if space is available a few miles down river, capacity could be doubled….. tripled ….etc. Its environmental concerns that make it dead. BTW, that is the preferred source of energy for most utilities where transmission is viable.
Solar is a strange animal, because in some places it could be reliable, but only 12 hrs a day. An entire other generation plant would have to be built at the same or higher capacity traditionally fueled, and the necessary supportive infrastructure. The redundancy makes it cost prohibitive and will continue to be so until we find a way to store AC power.
Even still, I could have almost got behind this surgence of renewable energy but this nation failed even in the execution of the various construction. If we had mandated U.S. material, U.S. workers and U.S. design companies, it would be more palatable. We didn’t. Instead, what we ended up with, for the most part, foreign companies implementing foreign designs built by foreign material, constructed by foreign workers. And all of that, in order to provide the U.S. public with a more expensive, less reliable form of energy. In my view, this is the problem with renewable energy. I wont even get into the REE fiasco, but we might as well have written China another $trillion check.
We had a good, budding alternative energy set of industries in the U.S., circa 1978.
They even installed solar power at the White House.
In 1981 Ronald Reagan had the solar array torn out, just a poke in the eye to environmentalists. Then, in 1982, he killed federal support for domestic alternative energy industries.
Be wary of revolutions. Generally in revolutions people die and property is destroyed.
Be wary of revolutions. Generally in revolutions people die and property is destroyed.
Indeed. We should go through great pains as to not encourage one. But, as one of them old dead guys stated, “the tree of liberty…..” and all that. I think he was trying to state that a government even in the most auspicious of designs will gravitate towards despotism and tyranny.
Actually, Jefferson was making a point that Americans tend to reason, and that we need to get the facts in order to avoid tyranny or a rush to despotism. He was arguing that Americans do not revolt regularly, and that the tree of liberty in America doesn’t require either a lot of revolution, nor despotism.
“Tree of Liberty” letter from Thomas Jefferson, in Paris, to William Smith, November 13, 1787
I think that last line is a particular jab at denialism in all vocations and avocations.
Ed, your interpretive style is, indeed, amusing. Thanks for keeping with the spirit of Jefferson’s letter.
The want of facts worth communicating to you has occasioned me to give a little loose to dissertation. We must be contented to amuse, when we cannot inform.
This is a jab at alarmism. In fact, the entire letter is a poke at alarmism. But, one needs to take care when reading such letters, in that if one reads it too earnestly, they’ll miss the satirical pokes and the interpretation will fall apart.
What country before ever existed a century & a half without a rebellion? Of course, Jefferson was fully aware of countries that had existed without rebellions every century & 1/2.
I think, if you re-read the letter, you’ll see my interpretation was spot on. See, “The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive.” ….. and “what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.”
One must context properly the statements with the person.
@Ed “Be wary of revolutions. Generally in revolutions people die and property is destroyed.”
That’s why I am wary of the “Green Revolution” ;).
P.S. Don’t forget … the Nazis were “green” to the core.
Nazis wore green uniforms, yes. The policies of the Nazis, and of the fascist parties of Italy and Spain, were not favorable to environmental protection. They were politically brown, not green. Same with other totalitarians of the 20th century, including especially the Soviets and Communist Chinese.
Not “green” at all, in any way.
Check again Ed … vegetarianism, animal rights, homeopathy, organic farming, etc were very common among the Nazis. Hitler himself was a vegetarian who wanted to make all of Germany vegetarian as a response to the “unhealthiness of capitalism”.
Vegetarianism isn’t conservation. One of my colleagues teaching conservation to Scouts was a survival instructor for Outward Bound, and then for a program at BYU. We laughed about it a lot: We’d find some beautiful specimen of a plant, and if we didn’t catch him and explain to him why he shouldn’t, he’d “harvest” the thing and eat it, or use it in some other way.
Hippies, some of the them, were also green-oriented. But being vegetarian is not the same thing as supporting conservation.
You guys are really confused, you know?
Ed … I think we are talking about two different things. I don’t have a problem with conservation (but I don’t know where you get conservation out of all this anyway). The problem I have with the “green revolution” is when green activists push nutty ideas like:
– replacing reliable forms of electrical generation with ONLY wind and solar because they don’t emit CO2, and seeing politicians fall all over themselves to capitulate to the activist demands; this is nothing more than appeasement of a special interest group
– carbon ration cards (this idea is being floated in both Australia and the U.K.)
– carbon taxes
– cap and trade (scam!)
– taxes on meat and milk
– banning incandescent lightbulbs (I say let the people decide; if incandescent is truly inferior, it will fade away on its own)
– tatooing “deniers” (a columnist from Australia half -jokingly, half not, wondered aloud about having “deniers” tatooed so their grandchildren could see how “stupid” they were)
– etc (you get the idea)
What I see far too often is green activists wanting government to get involved to force EVERYONE to conform to their demands. To that I say, do your own thing and leave me alone.
Ed – Your are not exactly correct:
“What follows is a critical and supplemented condensation of three books on the history of environmentalism written between 1985 and 1994 by Oxford History Professor Anna Bramwell. The latter two books were published by Yale University. The books make clear the Third Reich was a radical environmentalist regime. The Nazis promoted organic farming, reforestation, species preservation, naturalism, neo-paganism, holistic science, animal rights, sun-worship, herbalism, anti-capitalism, ecology, anti-urbanism, alternative energy, hysterical anti-pollutionism and apocalyptic anti-industrialism. At the same time the British ecology movement was stridently, treasonously fascist.”
http://www.ecofascism.com/review11.html
But you are correct in a way. The so-called Greens today ALSO just use environmental issues for another agenda, which is why they are more accurately called Watermelons.
PJ said:
We’re talking about a lot of different things, it appears to me. Not sure where you get the idea that many of these ideas are ungrounded in history, or science, but I think it seriously affects your views, detrimentally.
Conservation of natural resources is the broader general category into which all of these things fall. Untethering a discussion of essential conservation issues from the philosophy of conservation weakens and scrambles any serious argument that could be made. I think I understand better some of the silly ideas I see in this forum, thank you.
For example, untying the phrase “green revolution” from Norman Borlaug and the Rockefeller Foundation’s 40-year struggle to feed a couple billion people with less land, less fertilizer and less water suggests a great deal of confusion about history, history that well informs current science and politics.
The “Green Revolution” is the revolution in food crops spurred by Norman Borlaug’s development of cereal grains that produced higher protein content and higher vitamin content more quickly, on less land, with less fertilizer (though much was needed for some of the crops), more quickly, thereby conserving water for other uses. Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts — but I know most passengers in these fora think the Nobel committees to be evil. Most rational people understand and appreciate what a Nobel Peace Prize means, and I like to keep this discussions grounded in reality as much as possible.
So I think you might dial back your view of what “green revolution” refers to, so others will better understand what you’re talking about. Most of what you refer to has nothing whatever to do with the green revolution, as vegetarianism has only a tangential relation with conservation issues.
That’s a straw man argument promoted by reality denialists. Non-CO2-emitting sources are nice, but no one thinks we can make a rapid substitution, and with the exception of a few in the Tea Party and other crevices of the Far Right, no serious green politician holds those views. Probably only Tom Coburn and James Inhofe would agree with your image here — and that would explain why they oppose that image, and why they are regarded as nutcases by most serious people in the relevant fields.
I find humans rarely are cartoons.
Ultimately, increasing use of solar power for direct production of electricity offers significant advantages over central generating stations linked to usage points by a spaghetti tangle of wires, for many reasons, It’s a noble goal, unachievable under present technology.
We eliminated much of particulate pollution, sulfur oxide pollution, and nitrogen oxide pollution with limits and regulations that amount to rationing cards. It’s a scheme that worked very well in the past. Why do you think it won’t work in the future? What great change in human nature has occurred since, say, 1970, that makes limiting use of resources or limiting emissions of effluents unreasonable?
Classic free-market style solution. As von Hayek noted, what gets taxed, diminishes. The greatest conservative economists of the past 200 years advocated taxing effluents — including both von Hayek and von Mises. It works well. What’s your kick?
By the way, most of those who advocate this solution are not conservationists unless we stretch the term. And all of them are capitalists. I think you need to figure out a better shorthand for such advocates.
Worked well to limit SO2 and NOx in the latter stages of our campaign to control those pollutants. What frustrated the U.S. exchange on cap-and-trade was Congress’s failure to cap.
So here we have a workable mechanism that you call scam, but which has demonstrated its practicality in reducing effluents, especially harmful air pollutants.
Again, it’s a device proposed by non-conservationists mostly, business guys who wished to get a workable and fair mechanism, preferably with market incentives, to meed health goals of anti-pollution laws.
Why do you call it a scam?
I’m unaware of any serious proposal to tax either for clean air. Can you offer an example? There is the problem of non-point source pollution, generally water pollution — but to the extent that mean and milk production pollutes the commonly-held air and water resources of the nation, a well-devised tax could offer the incentives to clean it up. God or devil in the details, of course — do you have an example?
Meat production will be an increasing problem for a couple of reasons, worldwide. Especially as China and India gain prosperity (which will limit their populations! voluntarily!), they increase consumption of meat per capita — same with Brazil, and all prosperity gaining nations. It takes a lot of resources to produce a pound of meat, including especially water. China and Saudia Arabia have been buying land in Africa and Asia to grow corn and other cereals, as a cheap and effective means of exporting the water of those purchased lands, to feed animals, to produce meat. In a few African nations this has already run afoul of local development efforts for the benefit of local people, to get them enough food and water.
If there is no other means of making producers of meat and milk fairly compensate others for their pollution of the commons, a tax makes eminent sense, don’t you think? Why not?
Here, look at the real discussion. There is no ban on incandescents — the markets for them faded, and lightbulb manufacturers asked for a nationwide standard on conservation to avoid the problem of 53 different jurisdictions regulating energy conservation with standards for appliances.
So, again, your opposition is not based in fact, but in a cartoon of serious action, proposed by businessmen, rampant capitalists, to enable them to innovate.
Under the 2007 lightbulb standards, by the way, two new incandescents were introduced to U.S. markets last year. Incandescents have been, to now, heaters that give a small by-product of light (75% to 90% heat). Making those lights a third more efficient can save us from building 30 power generating plants in the next 20 years. Plus, the efficient bulbs will decrease the average homeowner’s electric bills from $300 to $1,000 a year.
People decided, inefficient incandescents are fading on their own (the last plant making them in the U.S. closed several months ago) — what’s your kick?
Can’t take a joke, eh? Those Australians are obnoxiously blunt — we just don’t get their comedy.
And of course, you always defend Al Gore as svelte and honest.
I don’t think you’ve offered a single example of any green activist insisting that government force anyone to conform to their demands.
It seems obvious to me you’ve been left alone, and as a consequence you’ve not been allowed, or forced, to get up to speed on these issues.
So again I wonder: What’s your real kick?
Nazis weren’t “green” in the sense that they were environmental activists. Vegeterianism isn’t conservation (I’ve met very few vegetarians among seriously active conservationists; Frank Bogert, Mo Udall, Sheldon Coleman and Patrick Noonan all enjoyed the steak fry as much as the next guy). In any case, if Hitler was a vegetarian, that did not extend to the Third Reich or any policy I’ve ever found. The Green Revolution was about crops, and about conserving resources only as a happy and necessary by-product. Pollution regulation works, and we need to extend it to forms of pollution we have not yet controlled, to save our planet’s environment, so people can continue to live here.
Because, in the end, we can’t save the planet itself. It will continue to be here. If we foul our human habitat so that we kill off humanity, the planet and surviving life will not miss us. Selfishness is its own reward, but it’s awfully unfair to children and grandchildren. See the illustration here: http://wp.me/p1dDS-3Gx.
Bramwell’s history appears quite a bit distorted, more a polemic than a study.
In any case, the history of the Nazi party is largely, if not completely, irrelevant to U.S. pollution control, the Boy Scouts, the Soil Conservation Service, and the roots of modern environmentalism in public health and farming.
There’s a post in moderation that might shed a little light — moderator? You there?
And in fact, Yale University Press describes the book NOT as a book of history, but a book by a polemicist:
I would suggest instead that a concerned person take a look at Ken Burns’ series on the National Parks, at the Report of the President’s Commission on Americans Outdoors (1987; Reagan administration) and especially its work on the history of environmentalism and outdoor recreation in the U.S., the video series on the 100th anniversary of the Forest Service, “The Greatest Good,” Rachel Carson’s books especially including Silent Spring, Stewart Udall’s The Quiet Crisis (which can also put one to sleep), Cadillac Desert, Phillip Fradkin’s River No More, Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, Douglas’s The Everglades — River of Grass, William E. Brown’s Islands of Hope (the 1970 book, not the one from the 1990s — though, the latter book, by a different author, probably is pretty good one, too). They aren’t all history books, technically, but any one of them will give a much better and more accurate history of the American environmental movement, which has no roots in Nazi Germany, and shares nothing with that movement that Bramwell describes.
From everything I’ve seen, Bramwell is a crank, ate least with regard to environmental protection in the U.s. Her books don’t get close.
Al Gored, have you read any of Bramwell’s books? Does she make any mention of the U.S. movement? Is there any connection to environmentalism in the U.S., post-1960, or at any other time?
Ed Darrell says:
July 12, 2011 at 12:26 am
“Evidence. The decade-long decline of Lake Powell, particularly dramatic when it sank below the petroglyphs the lake usually covered, has been attributed to changing climate by most serious students of Lake Powell for about 20 years. We had the warnings the lake would drop due to climate change two decades ago, and then the lake dropped. for the past decade those tinfoil hattists who denied any effects from warming were pointed to Lake Powell.
And, as we now see, even the rise of Lake Powell, based on the lake effect super snows of this year in the Rockies, is an effect of climate change. ”
Global warming is unfalsifiable, so it must be true. Quod erat demonstrandum.
The rise of Lake Powell this year, in the twelfth year of drought, has not yet ended the drought. Lake Powell still is not up to non-drought levels, and there is some fear it won’t make it.
The waters that flow into Lake Powell come disproportionately from the freak snows in the Upper Colorado basin. Are you arguing those freak snows are not freak snows? The freak snows were prompted in part by a shift in the jetstream, attributed to climate change by most experts, and in part by lake effect shows from the Great Salt Lake, caused by warmer-than-normal air and water, and ocean effect snows, water that came out of the Pacific in greater-than-normal amounts because of warmer-than-normal water pushed father inland than the Sierras by the not-normal jetsream.
I didn’t say these were all caused by global warming. Rational people reserve judgment on such issues. But neither are they normal.
To call an almost-end to an historic drought by freak weather a refutation of the global warming hypotheses is unwarranted. What’s your evidence that the freak weather will continue? What about the rest of the Colorado River drainage, which is still in serious drought?
Evidence piles up, but the true denialist looks and says, “Oh, Warmists just make wild claims.” Hey, I’m not the guy basing his claim on a series of freak events.
@Ed: “- replacing reliable forms of electrical generation with ONLY wind and solar because they don’t emit CO2, and seeing politicians fall all over themselves to capitulate to the activist demands; this is nothing more than appeasement of a special interest group
“That’s a straw man argument promoted by reality denialists. Non-CO2-emitting sources are nice, but no one thinks we can make a rapid substitution, and with the exception of a few in the Tea Party and other crevices of the Far Right …”
I wish I had the time you had to continue this … I don’t know where you get it … you must be retired. I will argue this one for now. Currently in Ontario, the provincial government is pushing forward very quickly with wind, solar, and hydro-electric (solar, IMHO, is fine for rooftops and for people with several acres, but large sacle projects are just not cost effective yet; hydro-electric has its pros and cons … at least it produces electricity on demand; my big issue is with wind power, which is why I got involved with this thread in the first place). Denmark and the U.K. went crazy on wind, to their detriment. Governments (left and right) have shown their short-sightedness on many issues, past and present; this is one more example. So to say that nobody thinks we can make rapid substitution is wrong … it is being done now. By the way, anyone I know who knows anything about wind power on a large scale laughs about it. Watch this to see what is occurring with wind power in Europe:
http://www.europesillwind.org/films/europes-ill-wind-2.html
@Ed: One point of clarification … when I speak of the “green revolution”, I speak of the modern one associated with AGW. My apologies for not making that clear before.
@Ed … OK, I have some time so here goes:
1) carbon ration cards (this idea is being floated in both Australia and the U.K.)
“We eliminated much of particulate pollution, sulfur oxide pollution, and nitrogen oxide pollution with limits and regulations that amount to rationing cards”
I am referring to carbon ration cards for individual people. You are allotted a certain amount of carbon per month. If you go over, you have to purchase extra carbon credit from other people who have used less. To me, this is an assault upon the dignity of the indivdual, and is a totalitarian ideal. The very notion of people having carbon ration cards makes me want to vomit.
2) carbon taxes
“Classic free-market style solution. As von Hayek noted, what gets taxed, diminishes. The greatest conservative economists of the past 200 years advocated taxing effluents …”
I don’t see CO2 as a pollutant. As such, carbon taxes (IMHO) are nothing more than a tax grab by governments desperate to increase revenue.
3) cap and trade (scam!)
“Worked well to limit SO2 and NOx in the latter stages of our campaign to control those pollutants.”
Unfortunately we are talking about different things. I am referring to cap-and-trade in Europe, where there were more carbon credits available than there was carbon to emit. In other words, it wasn’t going to reduce carbon emissions anyway … all it was going to do was grease the palms of already very rich investors.
4) “People decided, inefficient incandescents are fading on their own (the last plant making them in the U.S. closed several months ago) — what’s your kick?”
I am Canadian, not American. There are plans to ban them here. If incandescents fade on their own, not a problem. I just don’t want government legislating what type of light bulb I can or cannot buy. By the way, I switched over to CFL’s but switched back to incandescent. Not only were the CFL’s burning out more quickly, I hated the light they produced.
Gotta go … things to do. It’s too bad we were on different wavelengths for much of this discussion Ed, but I have learned some things from it. Thanks! 🙂
You can compost chicken manure and create a great, high nitrogen lawn fertilizer.
That doesn’t mean chickens can defecate on your dinner plate and you shouldn’t get angry or disgusted. If the farmer next door dumps a ton of fresh chicken manure on your doorstep, he can’t get off of the criminal mischief charge by claiming “it’s natural,” or “nitrogen is essential to plants,” or “it was a free delivery of pre-composted fertilizer — I should have charged him for it.”
CO2 is a pollutant when it is in excess — we’ve had indoor air standards for CO2 for 80 years in the U.S. — or when it is simply in the wrong place.
Yeah, Canada does tend to be more environmentally alert and astute than the U.S., and often, more in need of being economically wise. Smaller population, much less room for waste. Canada’s going to ban incandescents? Got a link to the rule?
The OSHA standard is an eight-hour time-weighted average of 5,000 ppm with a short-term 15-minute average limit of 30,000 ppm.
The current level can be seen here: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
At the current rate, CO2 will be a dangerous pollutant in 3854AD.
The OSHA standard is an eight-hour time-weighted average (TWA) of 5,000 ppm with a short-term 15-minute average limit of 30,000 ppm.
@Ed … incandescent bulbs were due to be banned here Jan 1, 2012, but it has now been delayed two years. The ban in the province of British Columbia will stay, despite the federal delay:
http://www.timescolonist.com/technology/bulb+stay+despite+Ottawa+delay/4815235/story.html
At that level, people start passing out. Humans can’t live.
1. At least you’re not claiming, foolishly, that CO2 is not a pollutant.
2. As a greenhouse gas, CO2 is dangerous at much, much lower levels — it starts to be a serious problem at about 300 ppm. As of June 2011, CO2 around the Earth averaged about 394 ppm.
Got a cite for that, or you just spitballing?
@Ed: That’s quite the strawman … chicken manure. CO2 doesn’t have to be composted to be a plant fertilizer, it IS a plant fertilizer. And we don’t have 394 ppm of chicken manure in the air we breathe. It is now a day after your “serious problem at about 300 ppm” remark and I am still in utter disbelief at it. Have you got a link to prove it … or did you just make that up?
@Ed: “1. At least you’re not claiming, foolishly, that CO2 is not a pollutant.
2. As a greenhouse gas, CO2 is dangerous at much, much lower levels — it starts to be a serious problem at about 300 ppm”
I won’t even attempt to argue with this. If you regard CO2 as both a pollutant and being a serious problem over 300 ppm, then there is nothing I can say that will convince you otherwise. To be honest Ed, I am shocked you would believe such nonsense.
P.S. The air you breathe out is at 40000 ppm of CO2. Based you your above logic, why does anyone bother with CPR?
If only you were informed enough to realize that’s a good stance, or honest enough to carry it out.
Alas, then you argued:
Nothing truthful, no. Those of use who have worked in botany, air pollution, and human health, know the facts. You can’t change the laws of chemistry or physics, nor the biological systems that have evolved over millions of years to function with the air we had previously.
I don’t “believe” it. I follow the evidence. I wish more denialists would stop pretending this is a metaphysical discussion about how many molecules of carbon dioxide you can get to dance on a pinhead.
I have to be honest, too, P.J. I can’t help but wonder if there is some grand, undescribed virus that wipes out much of the reasoning functions of people who deny that CO2, or any other substance in too great a concentration in the wrong place, is a pollutant. Don’t you have dictionaries? Have none of you ever studied chemistry?
You put up a marvelous little video showing what can happen with added CO2 to some plants — but you fail to note that most plants don’t have enough water or nitrogen to be able to consume more CO2, and you appear to be botanically-challenged that you fail to understand that added CO2 will aid weeds more than beneficial plants.
P.J., do you really “believe” that too much oxygen will NOT damage the eyes of newborn infants? Do you really “believe” that SO2 — a compound necessary for much plant life — or nitrogen oxides — containing nitrogen which we know is an essential nutrient — are not pollutants that should be controlled? Do you really “believe” that acid rain cannot harm any plant?
I don’t get this grand failure of brain that says “CO2 is not a pollutant.” It’s a foolish statement, completely unsupported by science. It’s like saying that, since most humans need vegetable matter, eating ten pounds of potatoes a day will not harm a human. Or saying that since infants need milk, no human can possibly be lactose intolerant.
Poisons often depend on the dosage. Anything can be a poison, in too great a concentration, in the wrong place. Water will kill you — if you drink 16 pints in a short period of time. Will you deny that, simply because water is essential to life?
I’m not the one departing from well-established principles of science, nor wandering away from well-established facts here.
You’re acting as an idiot, right? Please tell me it’s an act. And then offer some evidence.
Exhaled air typically has less than 1600 ppm CO2 — but assume your figure were correct: What would happen to someone breathing air with 40,000 ppm CO2 for longer than the amount of time CPR occurs? Please give us an indication you’re not totally divorced from reality.
“it starts to be a serious problem at about 300 ppm”
You bet it does…..at 250ppm there is a measurable slow down in plant growth.
For most of the last 550 million years, CO2 has been over 1000 ppm. How did life flourish in such a toxic environment? See below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2qVNK6zFgE
Human life didn’t flourish. You gotta lotta gall to call for CO2 levels destructive of human life, and then claim environmentalists are uncaring.
Ed … you are putting words in my mouth. I didn’t call for levels that are destructive to human life … whatever those levels are (quote? link? give me something Ed). My words were that life flourished, and it did. To call CO2 levels of 300 ppm as being a serious problem without providing so much as a shred of evidence is laughable.
P.S. Show me where I said environmentalists are uncaring regarding CO2. By the way, I seem to recall thanking you for this debate not once, but twice. What did you do? You turned around and implied I was a fool (“At least you’re not claiming, foolishly, that CO2 is not a pollutant”). You have more crust than a loaf of bread.
Not trying to put words into your mouth. I’ll ask more basic questions. I thought your concern was humanity. I pointed out that human life did not flourish 550 million years ago. I regret you regard that as “pissing,” but then, my experience with denialists is that they get hard core when confronted with facts. I don’t like your pissing in the argument by making absurd claims like “life flourished 550 million years ago with higher than 350 ppm CO2.” I didn’t start any pissing contest here.
Let me back up and give you a chance to explain.
Please tell us how human populations did during those times that CO2 has been over 1,000 ppm. Start with 550 million years ago: What was the human population then, and were there any problems with any greenhouse effect that existed at the time?
Not to put too fine a point on it, but if our concern is preserving human life and conditions for human life and prosperity — that is, not human life hanging on at the edges — but can you give us examples that don’t tend to the absurd? If you don’t think that’s absurd, please explain why.
Human life did not flourish 550 million years ago, so far as everything I’ve seen. Human life, with modern humans, may have 1 million years of existence at the outside. That dinosaurs may have done well, or that plant life may have done well, is not a claim that human will do well with CO2 above 350 ppm and little effective control of other greenhouse gases.
@Ed: “Please tell us how human populations did during those times that CO2 has been over 1,000 ppm”
My exact words were: “For most of the last 550 million years, CO2 has been over 1000 ppm. How did life flourish in such a toxic environment?”
Where do you see the word human in that statement?
P.S. “my experience with denialists is that they get hard core when confronted with facts.”
That is the exact experience I have had with warmists. By the way, did you check the links I posted below re: CO2 in exhaled air? Where did you ever get the 1600 ppm in exhaled air from?
By the way, if you had even bothered to ask, I get the idea that anything can be a pollutant at certain levels. That is a no-brainer! Give me some credit, eh! On the flipside, just about anything also has a safe level of exposure. Take CO2 … the standard level for an 8 HOUR work day is 5000 ppm. You say above 300 ppm it becomes a serious problem. Link please?
Ed, if you’re worried about how well humans will do, then you need to worry about how well is the support system for humans on this planet.
Can you agree that experiments have shown that all plants, including aquatic plants, do better at higher levels of CO2?
That’s false. Not true.
It becomes even more false when considered with relation to crops we grow for food, which do not increase their yields with excess CO2, but instead may reduce their yields. In farm fields, under actual tests, increased CO2 frequently decreases crop yields partly because it encourages water-hogging and nutrient-stealing weeds more.
It is enough of a falsehood to be absolute to claim CO2 shows all plants do better with higher CO2. I don’t agree, and I know of no research that comes close to supporting such a claim. Where did you get that?
This guy seems to have a good grasp of the issues (go see what he says, since he lists links; Steve’s system here is link-aversive, I think — more than one link almost always sends a post into the ozone (figuratively) at least for a while – so go see the links at Moore’s site):
Let me offer another example. I spent three years experimenting with plants to see their susceptibility to air pollution. In order to produce damage in desert plants, however, we needed to get them to open their stoma. Most plants open their stoma most of the day, taking in CO2, to make photosynthesis happen. However, photosynthesis requires water, and plants with open stomates lose water due to evaporation. So desert plants often exist in an almost-dormant, stomate-closed status. Higher CO2 does nothing for them, because they don’t have enough water to use the CO2. To the extent that anything warms the air, that is a greater detriment because it would increase evaporation if the plant opened for business.
In order for CO2 to increase plant growth across the board, it would have to offer a sort of counter-greenhouse effect — or do something else to increase rainfall in areas where rainfall is generally scarce. if CO2 contribute to warming in any way, it decreases the growth of those desert species.
We’re looking at stunted growth of wild plants across the board in much of the western U.S., due to drought. Here in Texas, our warm temperatures contribute to dryness and more warm temperatures by creating a high pressure zone which keeps rain-bearing air out. If CO2 has any effect to increase temperatures in Texas, it’s decreasing plant productivity, very much across the board.
Gosh, “Ed Darrell”, another multi-hundred-word post with no bearing on the topic at all. Did you actually read that stuff before you cut & pasted it?
@Ed: “Exhaled air typically has less than 1600 ppm CO2”
Where did you get this? I have seen 4% (or 40000 ppm) as the figure quoted from many sources. I guess they are all wrong, eh?
“You’re acting as an idiot, right?”
You have now turned this into a pissing contest. This is typical of my experience with warmists. Keep them talking long enough and the arrogance and venom comes out. It’s been a slice Ed … I’m done with you.
@Ed … P.S.:
http://www.biotopics.co.uk/humans/inhaledexhaled.html
@Ed … P.S. # 2:
http://www.answers.com/topic/carbon-dioxide
From above link: “A colourless gas which makes up about 0.04% of the atmosphere. It is denser than air. It is toxic only above about 6% concentration …”
Since 0.04% is 400 ppm, thus 4% is 40000 ppm, and 6% is 60000 ppm. See?
And … “We inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide level in exhaled air is ratherconstant about 3,8 % (38000 ppm). When carbon dioxide is exhaled it will quickly be mixed
with the surrounding air and, if the ventilation is good, the concentration will be reduced to
harmless levels.”
http://www.senseair.se/Datablad/what_is_co2_dcv.pdf
They should reclassify water as a pollutant too.
Look at the harm caused by water. Incalculable !
They need to regulate that stuff. It’s dangerous.
Yup … look at how many people drown every year!
They always told us that drinks were bad for us but I don’t remember hearing that the really dangerous parts were the water and the bubbles.
When are they going to crack down on the soft drink industry ?
Since water is “normal” and not harmful, you don’t bother to put a PFD on your children when you toss them in the lake for a cooling off, right?
If you do, then you understand the error of your suggestion. If you don’t put PFD’s on your kids when they swim in lakes of “normal” and “non-polluting” water, then you’re an irresponsible monster, and that alone disqualifies your suggestion.
I won’t assume you were joking. Water is regulated, by the way — especially heated water, in your home, and in workplaces. Where and when water is dangerous, it’s usually regulated. CO2 should be regulate where and when it’s dangerous, too.
@Ed: “Since water is “normal” and not harmful, you don’t bother to put a PFD on your children when you toss them in the lake for a cooling off, right?”
You are totally ridiculous. I took my 5 year old son canoing the other day. BOTH of us wore PFD’s! By the way, he is a strong swimmer for his age and so am I.
“I won’t assume you were joking.”
You make a LOT of assumptions based on what I have said – almost every one of them has been wrong.
So you wear a gas mask around Carbon dioxide too, right?
(I wasn’t raised by prissy fruitcakes, so I’ve never used a PFD in my life & neither I nor anyone I grew up around drowned from a failure to wear one)
Calculated. Sources I looked at said we exhale four times as much CO2 as we inhale — 400% increase. Average CO2 concentrations are under 400 ppm — I used 350 ppm. Multiply 350 ppm by 4, that’s 1500 ppm.
With a deeper search, I find sources that say air exhaled from humans may be as high as 4% CO2, which would be close to your 40,000 ppm figure. “As high as” I took to mean the upper levels; am I in error?
But of course, you were joking, right? You’re not seriously claiming that 40,000 ppm CO2 is either normal or healthy. Exhaled air is immediately diluted, generally down to way under 5,000 ppm in a closed room. If it’s not, people begin to feel unwell.
What’s your source?
It’s more complex than a simple calculation, I’ll agree, but 40,000 ppm sounds a bit high to me. For example, consider this discussion from Oak Ridge National Lab experts:
You’ll note that this source suggests 100,000 ppm as “immediately dangerous to life,” whereas my earlier statement was that at 40,000 ppm we would not do well, not thrive. I think that’s a fair assumption. Occupational standards — for exposure on the job, assuming 16 hours a day with dramatically lower CO2 — are limited to 10,000 ppm or below.
Perhaps you were unaware that there is a hundred years of health research into the issue of unhealthy levels of CO2, and perhaps you thought 40,000 ppm would be safe, since it’s just pollution from humans, which is “normal.”
Manure is normal, too, but you keep it out of your food, generally (want a discussion of mycology and mushroom farming?). And while some e. coli in your food is considered normal, too much is a bad thing, I think even you would agree.
The question with CO2 is not “is it natural,” but should instead be at the first level, “What is the concentration, and what are the acute effects on living things of such concentrations,” and at the second level, “What are the secondary effects of such concentrations on living things, directly or indirectly.”
Greenhouse effects of CO2 made life possible on Earth. Too much greenhouse effect will make life intolerable, or impossible.
I don’t think it’s asking too much that I expect you to consider dosage and effects, nor that I ask you to not insist, religiously, that we ignore chemistry, physics and biology. CO2 doesn’t care what we believe about it — it continues to act as it has always acted, chemically and physically. You may not believe CO2 greenhouse effects, but life exists because of them, and CO2 will continue to be a pollutant, whether you agree with the chemical or legal definition of pollutant, or the colloquial definition of pollutant.
Hit “send” too soon.
You pee on my leg insisting it’s rain, and then accuse me of starting a pissing contest?
You can be done with me all you wish. CO2 levels continue to rise, CO2 continues to act as a greenhouse gas, and it remains a pollutant therefore.
The Oak Ridge Labs source: http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/pns/faq_othr.html
You’d do well to look at the NIOSH criteria documents for CO2 as a pollutant, too:
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/pdfs/76-194a.pdf
(NIOSH = National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health)
Well, if the totally objective scientists and green lawyers at the EPA say it is a pollutant, who can possibly question them?
There’s so many of them that they also qualify as a pollutant, so they should know.
Gee, “Ed Darrell”, you sure cut and paste a lot. Why don’t you get a web log so you can just cut and paste nonsense all day?
By your asinine standards, water is a pollutant.
@Ed: “perhaps you thought 40,000 ppm would be safe, since it’s just pollution from humans, which is “normal.”
Where did I say that? All I ever said was 40000 ppm is the CO2 level in exhaled air. The three links I posted above all confirm this. YOUR calculation puts CO2 at 3.7% by volume (“[(150 ml)/(500 ml) x 0.04% CO2] + [(350 ml)/(500 ml) x 5.3% CO2] = 3.7% CO2 by volume”) which is 37000 ppm by volume … nowhere near 1600.
“Greenhouse effects of CO2 made life possible on Earth. Too much greenhouse effect will make life intolerable, or impossible”
So what is the safe level Ed? You said 300ppm, but have provided no link to back this up. The links you provided have much the same info mine did … 5000 ppm per 8 hour work day and the like. Where does 300 ppm fit into this?
“CO2 levels continue to rise, CO2 continues to act as a greenhouse gas, and it remains a pollutant therefore.”
At 394 ppm? You call that a pollutant? That’s ridiculous!
Ed Darrell says:
July 17, 2011 at 10:41 pm
That’s false. Not true.
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Ok, Ed that’s it….you’re right, we’re all going to die because CO2 increased 0.01
Phytoplankton has a doubling of mass for every 20ppm increase in atmospheric CO2.
There’s not one thing we can do about it, nothing is going to lower CO2 levels or even keep them the same……..enjoy your hysteria
The question was, “isn’t it true that all plants benefit from more CO2.”
With explanation at some length, I explained that it is not true, and I offered examples to show that in specific situation it was quite the opposite, especially with regard to food crops.
So with regard to that specific question, I said: “That’s false. Not true.”
Latitude offers not an iota of rebuttal, but instead makes an hysteric leap of . . . reasoning (I hesitate to call it logic):
Before I nominate for Hysteric of the Year, care to explain how you got there from my answer? I said nothing remotely like that.
Not to be too obvious, but of course that is not our experience over the past two centuries. Got a citation for that?
Can you explain why it is that phytoplankton on the Earth hasn’t doubled several times over the course of the 20th century, when there was more than a 20 ppm increase in CO2?
Have you seen the oceans, Great Lakes (or any lakes), or any river, lately? No doubling of phytoplankton. In fact, phytoplankton are in decline.
We’ve been increasing CLO2 — -why can’t we decrease it?
Pardon me, but I’m not the one in hysteria here. And mind you, some people don’t like your trying to start a pissing match.
Shoulda been “CO2,” not “CLO2.”
Wonder if it’s even possible to have CLO2.
Ed, pardon the French, but you’re a real nut job…………..
Perhaps, Latitude, perhaps.
However, that’s not a response to my arguments. If my arguments are nutjobs, too, you should be able to handle them well and quickly, with facts and honesty.
All you have is a vaporous epithet?