Grumpa Joe's Place

Last week I got the urge to research the effect of carbon dioxide on global warming. I must have looked at charts on a dozen different websites. What I found was not what I hoped to find. Chart after chart showed CO2 levels rising yearly. My inner brain began to trickle information to the front of my mind. Most notable was a vacation camping trip I took with my kids. We went to Arizona and one of the stops was between Phoenix and Tucson at a place called Biosphere 2. It was intended to be a giant experiment to determine if man could survive in space in a man made atmosphere replicating that of Earth.

Inside Biosphere 2 was a much smaller experiment. In fact, I would call it a tiny experiment showing the result of CO2 on plant growth. Biosphere 2 is a three acre glass topped structure that is hermetically sealed off from Earth’s atmosphere. The tiny experiment was three twenty gallon aquarium tanks set up side by side. Tank 1 had a normal CO2 level, Tank 2 had a generous percentage more CO2, and Tank 3 had a ridiculously high percentage above normal CO2, they all had the same amount of light. The test was to see the effect of CO2 levels on corn growth. In Tank 1 the corn was normal, kind of what we see in the fields near the 4th of July. The CO2 level was increased in Tank 2, and surprisingly the growth was hearty and healthier looking than normal, but in Tank 3 the corn was a shriveled dried up mess. The CO2 level in Tank 3 was increased to double digits above normal. That experiment stuck with me. Rising CO2 levels gives us a an agricultural advantage, and too much CO2 dries up the earth and burns the crops. That is when I put the brakes on writing about the CO2 hoax and global warming.

Then yesterday, the idea light turned on and I got a new insight. In all the charts and articles about global warming there was not a single one that showed a temperature rise on the earth’s surface or atmosphere. If there is such a report the green new dealers are hiding the facts. In order for the Arctic ice caps to melt the air temperature at the pole has to rise. Another thing that is missing is any data that indicates a rise in water levels other than that caused by the tides and the position of the moon relative to Earth. I also remember seeing another shocking video on rising water levels in Venice, Italy. They showed knee high water covering St. Mark’s Square. My God, I thought, is it really happening? A few weeks later I saw another article that explained that the high water in Venice is cyclical, and is attributed to seasonal tides. The news station made a scare piece that would make one believe that the ice caps are melting. The Venetian locals have learned to live with rising water as we will if ever our coastlines begin to go under water. No where have I found one article that takes the opposite approach and identifies a phenomenon that cancels the effect of rising CO2 like what if the hole in the Ozone layer acts as a vent that draws excess CO2 out into the stratosphere? Is no one interested in playing devil’s advocate?

Another part of my research was to compile a list of cars, trucks, busses, locomotives, ships, and airplanes that contribute to CO2. The worldwide transportation component accounts for 40% of the CO2 load, but I have yet to see a single article about how walking and bicycle riding can reduce CO2. If you want to make a personal contribution break out your trusty Schwinn, air up the tires, oil the chain, and start pedaling. Not only will you reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, you will lose weight, sleep better, and generally be healthier.

Fossil fueled Electricity is the number two contributor to the CO2 load just behind light vehicles. What I don’t see is a projection of how converting cars from fossil fuel to electricity will affect electricity generation. I guess we will worry about that when it actually happens. That conversion is not just a USA problem it is also a world-wide problem. China is of course the world’s largest polluter and is far ahead of where the USA was in the nineteen forties. If the United States worked overtime and created a pollution free atmosphere the air flow around the planet would change out our pure air and mix it with stinky Chinese air. We pay to clean the air, and they continue to pollute. In my mind we are the slaves of the Chinese.

As a kid, I remember very well how polluted the air was on the Southside of Chicago. We had a concentration of steel mills and oil refineries that spewed tons of caustic gasses and ash into the sky, the stink was amazing. We made great strides in eliminating the problem by losing the steel mills to Korea, and the refineries to the gulf coast. We cleaned our atmosphere by worsening someone else’s. As the world becomes more intelligent and uses more computers it also becomes an electrical energy hog. By concentrating on reducing car emissions by converting to electricity we have pushed the electrical generation problem off toward the fantasy of wind and solar, neither of which will suffice. If the politicians were smart they would send China a monthly bill as payment for the U.S.A. filtering their crummy air.

During the nineteen eighties I had to determine why our products were failing in the pristine eastern region of Canada. After microscopic examination of the failed products I determined that the plastic was being attacked chemically. Why and how does that happen in the deepest forests of the continent? Finally, after much study I blamed it on acid rain. How did the rain get loaded with acid so far in the wilderness? The answer was that the air became polluted by smoke pouring out of smoke stacks eight hundred miles away that were modified and made taller to move the pollution away from a population center. The smoke reached a layer of air moving eastward and fell out over the forest where our product was used. The pollutant mixed with the rain and caused the rainfall to be very acidic. An example of one area solving its pollution problem by transferring it to another area. We came to our conclusion after learning that the fish in that area were dying from lake water that was highly acidic.

The air pollution problem is huge and complex. I would like to see a viable solution to it in my life time, but I fear that will not happen. One suggestion that I have is to go backwards in civilization. We must go back to the days when there were no industries, or gasoline gulping cars, and we didn’t need so much electricity. Trash your computers, TV’s, phones, lights, and air conditioners, then, we might be able to make a dent in rising CO2 levels, but will we affect a change on global warming?

In closing, picture this, a world that exists one hundred years from now, and civilization has made the ultimate sacrifice to reduce CO2 levels to normal. Yet, with all that sacrifice the planet has continued to get hotter as it normally does in a cyclical way, and the ice caps have melted anyway. How will we answer to that? We will have wasted a hundred years of human effort causing untold misery on several generations of people on solving the wrong problem. What will the politicians say to that? What will their spin be? WiIl we believe it, or will we buy into what ever bull crap Uncle feeds us, and we drink the cool aid. I for one, would like to be here a hundred years from now to fend off the leaders who will lie their way out of the problem, and blame it all on Trump.

Filed under: Education, family, Government | Tagged: AIr Pollution, Biosphere, Green New Deal, Ozone Layer, Rising cO2, Venice floods | 7 Comments »