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Showing posts with the label global warming

Mirror Mirror on the wall, Who is greenest of them all?

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  This is a test. Which of these three vehicles do you think was responsible for the most carbon dioxide emissions per year in Alberta?  Each vehicle was listed for sale in the Alberta Kijiji on line marketplace in late April 2021, cherry picked by the Red Neck to make a point.  So if you smell a rat, you are correct.  The Tesla is only four years old as this is written, but has managed to rack up an impressive 171,000 kilometers.  The little Civic is also extremely well used, 480,000 km and counting.  The truck on the other hand, has accumulated 82,327 km over 7 years, which for Alberta means it's mostly a lawn ornament.  Comparison  will use the average mileage, or kilometerage per year for each vehicle, so the Tesla's impact will be based on 42,750 km per year,  Honda has been motoring along for 15 years, so 32,000 km PA, the dumb truck could only manage 11,761 diesel burning km a year.   But wait the Tesla is electric, so zero emissions right?  Well no, not exactly.  Batter

Yet another inconvenient truth

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypticism#/media/File:Durer_Revelation_Four_Riders.jpg So, it turns out that global warming started 100 years ago .  This is really bad news if increased carbon dioxide levels are responsible for global warming. In 1900 it is estimated that the 296 ppm (parts per million) CO2 level was only 16 ppm higher than they were before the industrial revolution (estimated 280 ppm in 1800) started to impact CO2 levels .    Let's review what that implies.  In 1804 world human population was about 1 billion. World wide coal consumption could be measured in thousands of tons, mostly for heating homes in the few places where coal could be found or transported.  There were no gas or oil wells except maybe a few in China. And other than a few steam engines in Western Europe and the USA there were no cars, trucks, trains, airplanes or stationary machinery running on fossil fuel. According to Our World in Data coal energy produced in 1800 was 128 Terra W

The sky is falling

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Okay, I can see for myself that locally at least the climate is getting warmer.  There is a giant glacier near me that has been steadily shrinking for at least 125 years.  What I don't see is why this is a problem.  It gets damn cold here in the winter. Warm is good if you live in the frozen north. Over the long term climates are not stable.  There has been significant cooling and warming in  recorded history   We are being told that the earth is warming because of our profligate ways.   In 1912 Otto Pettersson, a Swedish scientist who studied the ocean tides published a prediction that the earth was entering a 400 year long warming cycle.  Some 40 years later climate scientists were already noticing that the arctic was starting to warm up.  Rachel Carson, the Silent Spring author, described Petterson's version of coming  global warming in  her  book, The Sea Around Us .  The global warming chapter of the book was condensed into an article for the November 1951 issue of