At 03:33 PM 5/20/2007, Alexander Cockburn wrote:
I have said more than once that the catalytic converter pollutes more than a decently turned old car because it converts hydrocarbons into sulphuric acid (which drips out of the tailpipe) which get dispersed as atmospheric soup, tactfully not included in official pollution counts. . The catalytic converter was originally a diversion from the serious polluters of nitrous oxides etc, meaning power stations. As for GW, see my current pieces. Proyect's not a bad fellow, but on matters of science and the environment he's one hundred per cent kneejerk and ignorant, with no ambition to evolve from that sorry state. Best Alex
You are right, Alex. I am kneejerk and ignorant. I guess that all the things I have read from radical environmentalists over the years makes me leery of the skeptics. I was especially influenced by a book called "The Fate of the Forest" that was co-authored by Alexander Cockburn and Susanna Hecht. Here's an excerpt from Chapter 3: THE GREENHOUSE QUESTION As midwesterners in the United States sweltered in the summer of 1988 and plowed their desiccated grain fields under, the question of the 'greenhouse effect' became a topic of popular discussion and political debate. The phrase refers to the gradual global heating of the atmosphere, thought to stem mainly from additions of carbon dioxide derived primarily from the burning of fossil fuels. Solar radiation first strikes the earth's surface in short waves, and is reflected back as long wave infrared radiation into the atmosphere where the buildup of carbon dioxide absorbs some of the radiation and re-radiates the remainder within the atmosphere, causing the atmosphere to grow warmer, with far-reaching effects on the movement of air and water currents that control the climate of the planet. Other 'greenhouse gases', like methane, affect the atmosphere in ways that also augment the atmospheric warming and now roughly equal the impact of carbon dioxide.16 Combustion of petroleum products in the First World provides most of the carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides and chlorofluorocarbons going into the atmosphere, but Third World energy use and deforestation contribute to the ever-increasing amounts. One index of the changing situation is the rising curve of complaints from satellite photo-analysts that they are unable to get decent dry-season shots of the Amazon anymore, because of the great clouds of smoke and particulates hanging over large parts of the forest. The reasons for this pall are quite clear when one examines the numbers of fires and the consequent contributions of particulates and 'greenhouse' gases. Compton Tucker and his colleagues at the Goddard Space Flight Center have monitored the numbers of fires during the burning period of July through September 1987 in a quadrant from 6.5 to 15.5 degrees latitude and 55 to 67 ' degrees west longitude, an area that includes Rondonia and western Mato Grosso; i.e., that of the most severe burning on the Amazon flank. What they have shown is that more than 8,000 fires burn each day during the burning season. Factoring in the average duration of fires, Tucker's group arrived at a total of 240,000 fires over the season. On the average each fire belches out some 4,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide, 750 metric tons of carbon monoxide and more than 25 metric tons of methane. By the end of the burning season more than 10 million metric tons of particulates have darkened the sky.17
