CO2 is not a pollutant.
I'm sick and tired of Al Gore and his cronies saying that CO2 is a pollutant. It's NOT. You want to talk about pollutants that come out of a tail pipe? Unburned fuel (hydrocarbons, which is when the hydrogen is still attached to the carbon), NOx, particulates, CO... So many more things that could POTENTIALLY come out of a tail pipe than CO2 (And believe me, the amount per millions of those things has so greatly gone down since the 80's it's insane). IDEAL combustion has 3 things come out of the end, N2 (from the air), H20, and CO2. That's right, it's IDEAL. Anything that burns, decays, or has any form of living organism creates CO2. So everything you can think of that could potentially be a fuel for a car, has carbon in it and therefore will create Carbon Dioxide when burned. What about Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars? Will never work. Not widely anyway. The process of producing pure carbon is extremely energy intensive. Not to mention the very combustability of hydrogen. there's a reason why hydrogen is almost always connected to something else (especially carbon!)
As for saying CO2 is the cause of global warming... I think it's totally debunked. If you go back and see how much more CO2 is emitted now than 50 years ago... and use the "predictions" that they're saying... it's completely off (not to mention the period of "global cooling" in the 80s that was blamed on CO2). That is called bad science. Climatologist can't predict how the weather will be in 10 days, much less 50 years.
I find it funny that everyone focuses so much on the carbon emissions. Did you know that water vapor has tons times the effect of warming than carbon dioxide? Just think about it. How much hotter are places with humidity than the dryer climates? water vapor traps heat.
So doing stupid things like "banning incandescent lightbulbs" is not going to "stop" global warming and "save our planet". It may lower your energy bill. But our electricity plants run at one level. (well, they go up in the summer because of air conditioning). They don't have some variable amount of electricity they pump out. They dont' continually monitor what's being used. Every house has the same amount of potential electricity they can use. And you know you would be pissed if you plugged in one more appliance into an outlet and there wasn't any more voltage. Besides, while flourescent lightbulbs seem like a good idea for that reason... they have MERCURY in them. how on earth are you going to contain all that mercury? And, they're not exactly safe on the eyes, either.
I believe we are stewards of this planet and need to take care of it. We need to be more resource conscious and efficient in how we do things. But all of this doom and gloom nonsense? Stop, please. I'm an engineer. Our job is to make things as efficient as possible. Fuel efficiency is one of the top areas of research for automotive companies. They have made leaps and bounds in the past 20 years as far as emissions and mpg go. Coal plants are cleaner than they used to be, oil refineries are cleaner than they used to be. Are there still steps to be taken? Absolutely. We should strive to be the best we can be. But stop telling me the planet is going to blow up in 50 years or something equally as silly.
Okay, rant ended.
As for saying CO2 is the cause of global warming... I think it's totally debunked. If you go back and see how much more CO2 is emitted now than 50 years ago... and use the "predictions" that they're saying... it's completely off (not to mention the period of "global cooling" in the 80s that was blamed on CO2). That is called bad science. Climatologist can't predict how the weather will be in 10 days, much less 50 years.
I find it funny that everyone focuses so much on the carbon emissions. Did you know that water vapor has tons times the effect of warming than carbon dioxide? Just think about it. How much hotter are places with humidity than the dryer climates? water vapor traps heat.
So doing stupid things like "banning incandescent lightbulbs" is not going to "stop" global warming and "save our planet". It may lower your energy bill. But our electricity plants run at one level. (well, they go up in the summer because of air conditioning). They don't have some variable amount of electricity they pump out. They dont' continually monitor what's being used. Every house has the same amount of potential electricity they can use. And you know you would be pissed if you plugged in one more appliance into an outlet and there wasn't any more voltage. Besides, while flourescent lightbulbs seem like a good idea for that reason... they have MERCURY in them. how on earth are you going to contain all that mercury? And, they're not exactly safe on the eyes, either.
I believe we are stewards of this planet and need to take care of it. We need to be more resource conscious and efficient in how we do things. But all of this doom and gloom nonsense? Stop, please. I'm an engineer. Our job is to make things as efficient as possible. Fuel efficiency is one of the top areas of research for automotive companies. They have made leaps and bounds in the past 20 years as far as emissions and mpg go. Coal plants are cleaner than they used to be, oil refineries are cleaner than they used to be. Are there still steps to be taken? Absolutely. We should strive to be the best we can be. But stop telling me the planet is going to blow up in 50 years or something equally as silly.
Okay, rant ended.