[Vision2020] US Per Capita Leaking of CO2 into Atmosphere: 19.18 Tons, 2008

Sat Jul 16 16:01:18 PDT 2011

If you want to be taken seriously, dismissing important relevant peer
reviewed scientific data on a topic under discussion, is a
questionable tactic.

I'm not sure what the phrase "careens left" means exactly, but do you
mean in a political sense?

Regarding the science indicating anthropogenic climate change is
occurring, there are not left wing or right wing, or democrat or
republican, versions of the laws of physics.  I recommend you not
dismiss the American Institute of Physics documentation of the history
of the science and physics regarding the CO2 greenhouse effect, which
I referenced in the section of my post you indicate "doesn't matter
much to me..."  http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

Also, you are not addressing the facts in a rational manner if you
dismiss, as you did if you dismissed the content of my post, the data
regarding total historical human CO2 emissions (500 billion tons),
which is critical to the essential point I was making:
"Carbon in the Atmosphere and Terrestrial Biosphere in the 21st Century":
http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/~ymalhi/publications/Malhi%20et%20al%20_%20carb
on%20biosphere%20atmosphere.pdf
"How do we know that recent CO2 increases are due to human activities?"
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/how-do-we-know-that-recent-cosub2sub-increases-are-due-to-human-activities-updated/

There are no misleading statements designed to illicit an emotional
reaction in my comments in this thread.  Your response might indicate
an emotional reaction to deny the scientific facts regarding human
impacts on climate.

It is clear I was contrasting one form of pollution, tons of oil
dumped into a river, and the reaction this would likely inspire if
discovered, in fact was inspiring in the case of the Yellowstone River
oil leak, to the fact that everyone of us in the US, on average, is
polluting the atmosphere with 19 tons of CO2 every year (2008 figure:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2.html
), yet there is not the same sort of outrage and alarm among many
people regarding the CO2 pollution, compared to oil pollution in
rivers or oceans.

I listed the actual and potential impacts of human sourced CO2
atmospheric pollution, certainly worth as much attention as the
impacts of oil spills, more fully documented below.

Again, I am stating facts and predictions based on science, not making
misleading statements.

For example, Moscow's population in July 2009 was 24338.  Using the US
2008 19 ton per capita average from the UCSUSA, which probably is a
bit high for Moscow residents, in part because our electricity is not
as much drawn from coal fired plants as other areas of the US, Moscow
residents dump 462422 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year.

Notice the outrage and headlines regarding Moscow's CO2 pollution?

Even the conservative leaning US Supreme Court has upheld the EPA's
authority to regulate CO2 as a greenhouse gas pollutant:
Supreme Court Upholds EPA's Authority to Regulate Carbon Dioxide:
WASHINGTON, DC, June 20, 2011 (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2011/2011-06-20-03.html

Is your position that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas pollutant?

Perhaps you deny the well documented science that human CO2 emissions
are causing damaging ocean acidification?

Perhaps you think my list of actual or potential impacts of
anthropogenic climate change, are not supported by scientific
evidence.  Below are a list of peer reviewed scientific publications,
and a few news articles referencing credible sources, that support my
assertions:

MIT study regarding probable temperature increases from human impacts
on climate:

Journal of Climate 2009; 22: 5175-5204
"Probabilistic Forecast for Twenty-First-Century Climate Based on
Uncertainties in Emissions (Without Policy) and Climate Parameters"
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2009JCLI2863.1
http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/44627/MITJPSPGC_Rpt169.pdf?sequence=1

Regarding flooding:

"Satellite-based global-ocean mass balance estimates of interannual
variability and emerging trends in continental freshwater discharge"
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/08/18/0907610106.abstract?sid=6024442c-0068-431b-aa9f-5f5e690e8452

Regarding drought and desertification:

"Expansion of the Hadley cell under global warming" published 2007:
Geophysical Research Letters, 34, L06805.
Rights Management (c)American Geophysical Union (AGU);
doi:10.1029/2006GL028443
http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/ir-main&CISOPTR=13325

Regarding sea level rise:

Rahmstorf and Vermeer 2009 paper in Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences indicating potential sea level rise by 2100 of 75
to 190 cm (close to
two meters at the high end):
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/51/21527.full

Regarding increases in fire frequency or intensity:

Warming and Earlier Spring Increase Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity
Published Online 6 July 2006
Science 18 August 2006:
Vol. 313 no. 5789 pp. 940-943
DOI: 10.1126/science.1128834
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/313/5789/940.full

Regarding ocean acidification:

Coral Reefs Under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean Acidification
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/318/5857/1737

Regarding species extinction:

June 21, 2011 IPSO Report: Extinction Event Inevitable If
Current Trajectory of Damage Continues.
http://www.stateoftheocean.org/ipso-2011-workshop-summary.cfm
http://www.sustainablelivingmagazine.org/planet-watch/environment/clean-water/129-our-oceans-in-crisis-new-study
"Increasing hypoxia, and anoxia... combined with warming of the ocean
and acidfication are the three factors that have been present in every
mass extinction event in Earth's history.
There is strong evidence that these three factors are combining in the
ocean again, exacerbated by multiple severe stressors.  The scientific
panel concluded that a new extinction event was inevitable if the
current trajectory of damage continues.

Regarding disruption of water resources:
Kashmir: Melting Glaciers, Boiling Conflicts
http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/kashmir-glacier.htm

Regarding spreading of disease:

Climate Warming and Disease Risks for Terrestrial and Marine Biota
Science 21 June 2002:
Vol. 296 no. 5576 pp. 2158-2162
DOI: 10.1126/science.1063699
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/296/5576/2158.abstract

Regarding potential warfare from climate change, military scholar
Gwynne Dyer's book "Climate Wars" outlines various scenarios:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/8/gwynne_dyer_on_climate_wars_the
And US General Anthony Zinni stated in the following article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/science/earth/09climate.html
“We will pay for this one way or another,” Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, a
retired Marine and the former head of the Central Command, wrote
recently in a report he prepared as a member of a military advisory
board on energy and climate at CNA, a private group that does research
for the Navy. “We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today,
and we’ll have to take an economic hit of some kind.

“Or we will pay the price later in military terms,” he warned. “And
that will involve human lives.”

Assuming the above listed threats from anthropogenic climate change
are credible, agricultural failures, increase in starvation and
millions of climate change refuges are likely outcomes, especially if
world population continues to increase to 8 or 9 billion.

As alarmist and incredible as these predictions regarding the
consequences of anthropogenic climate warming might appear, they are
based on calm factual assessments of the various trends by experts in
their fields of study.
------------------------------------------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

On 7/9/11, Jay Borden <jborden at datawedge.com> wrote:

> The rest of your email that careens left doesn't matter much to me...
> since your initial statement uses misleading statements to illicit an
> emotional (and alarming) reaction.
>
> If I would have stated that "19 tons of dihydrogen mono-oxide was dumped
> into the atmosphere..." and then tried to raise the hackles of the
> reader by analogizing "If a corporation dumped 19 tons of oil into the
> Snake River, they'd make headlines and be attacked, etc... I would
> expect to be dismissed pretty quickly.
>
> Jay
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ted Moffett [mailto:starbliss at gmail.com]
> Sent: Saturday, July 09, 2011 1:36 PM
> To: Jay Borden
> Cc: Donovan Arnold; Moscow Vision 2020
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] US Per Capita Leaking of CO2 into Atmosphere:
> 19.18 Tons, 2008
>
> To perhaps nitpick, I'll point out that oil leaks or spills usually
> don't involve oil being directly put into the atmosphere, though I
> wonder if the blown oil wells during the Kuwait/Iraq/US war were in
> some sense polluting the atmosphere directly with oil...
>
> But no, I am not saying that 1 ton of CO2 from fossil fuel emissions
> into the atmosphere is just as harmful to the environment, as 1 ton of
> oil dumped into a river or ocean coastline, like the Exxon Valdez oil
> spill.
>
> But humanity has dumped hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 into the
> atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution.
>
> Superb American Institute of Physics essay, "The Carbon Dioxide
> Greenhouse Effect" indicates "By recent calculations, the total amount
> of carbon laid up in coal and other fossil deposits that humanity can
> readily get at and burn is some ten times greater than the total
> amount in the atmosphere." http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
>
> Total fossil fuel emissions of carbon into atmosphere (not including
> land use associated emissions) close to 300 billion tons since 1850
> (total emissions close to 500 billion tons), according to data in this
> article, "Carbon in the Atmosphere and Terrestrial Biosphere in the
> 21st Century":
> http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/~ymalhi/publications/Malhi%20et%20al%20_%20carb
> on%20biosphere%20atmosphere.pdf
>
> Another source indicates the 500 billion ton figure for total human
> sourced carbon emissions is roughly correct: "How do we know that
> recent CO2 increases are due to human activities?"
> http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/how-do-we-know-tha
> t-recent-cosub2sub-increases-are-due-to-human-activities-updated/
>
> From website above:
>
> "Careful accounting of the amount of fossil fuel that has been
> extracted and combusted, and how much land clearing has occurred,
> shows that we have produced far more CO2 than now remains in the
> atmosphere. The roughly 500 billion metric tons of carbon we have
> produced is enough to have raised the atmospheric concentration of CO2
> to nearly 500 ppm."
> --------------------
> These rapid and immense emissions are overwhelming natural CO2 sinks
> (oceans, plants) thus significantly increasing atmospheric CO2 level,
> radiative forcing, and inducing ocean acidification.
>
> The predicted impacts, which are already occuring to some degree, are
> global in extent and potentially will result in mass extinction of
> species, extremes of drought, flood, fire, catastrophic sea level
> rise, disruption of water resources (irrigation) from major rivers,
> agricultural failures, starvation, hundreds of millions of climate
> change refuges, spread of diseases into different climate zones as
> climate changes, and likely warfare from any combination of the above.
>
> No oil leak or spill, even all of them together, has yet to present a
> threat to humanity or the biosphere of this magnitude, that I know of.
>
> As is often pointed out by skeptics of the severity of the problem of
> anthropogenic climate warming, some areas of the Earth will be more
> favorable to agriculture, being warmer and more habitable, the Arctic
> ocean will open to shipping and resource development, and if the ice
> sheets on Greenland and Antarctica melt, new land will open for human
> habitation and development.
>
> Such an argument is frankly quite insane, given that sea level rise
> alone will be a massive global disaster, displacing hundreds of
> millions of human beings and costing billions upon billions in damage
> to critical coastal infrastructure...
>
> I suppose someone in the construction business might see this as boon,
> given all the harbors and buildings and homes that would have to be
> constructed on higher ground, though predicting the new stable
> coastlines might prove difficult till global warming had played itself
> out over centuries.
>
> A Brave New World indeed!
> ------------------------------------------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
> On 7/7/11, Jay Borden <jborden at datawedge.com> wrote:
>
>> "If a corporation dumped 19 tons of oil into the Snake River, they'd
>> make headlines and be attacked, etc."
>>
>>
>>
>> Does this mean that you are taking the stance of "1 ton of CO2 in the
>> atmosphere is just as harmful to the environment as 1 ton of oil?"
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Jay Borden
>>
>> DataWedge, LLC
>>
>> p 208-874-4185
>>
>> f  214-722-1053
>>
>>
>>
>> For support questions, please contact:
>>
>> dwsupport at datawedge.com
>>
>>
>>
>> From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com
>> [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of Ted Moffett
>> Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2011 5:16 PM
>> To: Donovan Arnold
>> Cc: Moscow Vision 2020
>> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] US Per Capita Leaking of CO2 into
> Atmosphere:
>> 19.18 Tons, 2008
>>
>>
>>
>> Perhaps you could contract with ExxonMobil or British Petroleum to
> patch
>> their oil leaks... Duct tape is remarkably multi-purpose...
>>
>>
>>
>> I used the word "leaks" to describe human sourced CO2 emissions
>> (primarily from fossil fuels, not breathing, of course) because a leak
>> is something that is not supposed to happen, as with oil leaks like
> the
>> one polluting the Yellowstone river...
>>
>>
>>
>> Yet most people it appears do not think of the CO2 coming out of their
>> tailpipe, or out of a coal fired plant supplying their electricity,
> as
>> a polluting "leak" into the atmosphere, that induces the same degree
> of
>> alarm and demands for action to prevent such disasters, as a large oil
>> leak into a river or the ocean...
>>
>>
>>
>> Yet global ocean acidification from human CO2 emissions, along with
>> species compromising climate change, potentially could be more of a
>> threat to life in the oceans and on land, than oil pollution from
> leaks,
>> though these oil spill disasters, such as the Exxon Valdez or the BP
>> gulf well explosion, are locally very damaging.
>>
>> -------------------------------------------
>>
>> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 11:09 PM, Donovan Arnold
>> <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> I'll get some duct tape and stop my CO2 leaking right away!
>>
>>
>>
>> Donovan Arnold
>>
>> --- On Sun, 7/3/11, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> 	
>> 	From: Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>
>> 	Subject: [Vision2020] US Per Capita Leaking of CO2 into
>> Atmosphere: 19.18 Tons, 2008
>> 	To: "Moscow Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
>> 	Cc: "Friends of the Clearwater" <foc at friendsoftheclearwater.org>
>> 	Date: Sunday, July 3, 2011, 3:11 PM
>>
>> 	US per capita leaking of CO2 into the atmosphere in 2008, 19.18
>> tons:
>> 	
>>
> http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/each-co
>> untrys-share-of-co2.html
>> 	
>> 	That means you, I, everyone in the US, on average due to our
>> economy
>> 	and lifestyle, dumping 19 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, with
>> annual
>> 	amounts close to this figure, year after year.
>> 	
>> 	If a corporation dumped 19 tons of oil into the Snake River,
>> they'd
>> 	make headlines and be attacked, etc.
>> 	
>> 	Yet despite the science indicating CO2 is inducing potentially
>> 	catastrophic climate change, which includes CO2 polluting the
>> Earth's
>> 	oceans via the process of ocean acidification, most people
>> accept this
>> 	massive dumping into the atmosphere as though it were an open
>> sewer,
>> 	with a curious lack of urgency.
>> 	
>> 	The US Supreme Court has ruled the EPA can regulate CO2 as a
>> pollutant
>> 	( Supreme Court Upholds EPA's Authority to Regulate Carbon
>> Dioxide:
>> 	WASHINGTON, DC, June 20, 2011 (ENS)
>> 	http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2011/2011-06-20-03.html ),
>> yet
>> 	opposition to both the EPA's authority to enforce such
>> regulations,
>> 	and US Congressional legislation to regulate CO2, is formidable:
>> 	
>> 	Tuesday, June 7, 2011
>> 	Media Matters: Opponents of EPA Climate Action Dominate TV News
>> 	Airwaves -- only scientist interviewed was Patrick Michaels,
>> noted
>> 	liar before Congress:
>> 	
>>
> http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2011/06/media-matters-oppone
>> nts-of-epa-climate.html
>> 	------------------------------------------
>> 	Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>>
>>
>>
>>
>