But I got into a nice debate with Nicole's Husband Nick. For all that don't know him he's a fairly ardent conservative. He and I get along great and we have a lot in common. Except that he's a neo-con and I'm a bleeding-heart-sandal-wearing-tree-hugging liberal. We got into a discussion from his off-hand comment about whether I believed in the global warming "myth". That led to him saying that a single Volcano emits more CO2 than all the humans in the world. Well that debate led to an argument of numbers. He thinks a few ten-thousand volcanoes blah blah blah and I argued a few tons times billions of people... blah blah blah.
Well I researched into it and tried to figure out where this notion of volcanic activity out-producing humans comes from. Well, I think I may have found it. Printed in 1997 (right when I was starting college) is an article that to this day is still widely emailed.
Yellowstone Mud Volcano Area
Arguably this is one of the seminal articles that perpetuate this notion.
Well I read into it. An honest man always hears the other side. I noticed about half-way through that my gut (yes that tool that conservatives always go with, the one that led to the Iraq war, the feeling most often mistaken for heart-burn that for some reason is allowed to trump logic... I digress) I noticed that my gut was telling me "Something is wrong here"
Ms. Werner et al recorded emissions at the "Mud Volcano Area" (Not just the volcano itself) produced about 176,300 tons per year. The next paragraph is the killer though:
"Loosely expanding those figures based on the park's underlying geology, they suggest that each year the entire park may emit about 44 million tons of carbon dioxide...By contrast, a medium-sized power plant that burns fossil fuels is estimated to release 4.4 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year."
This is where this all falls apart. Somehow they go from 176,300 tons per year to 44 million?!
Apparently they can do this by "Loosely expanding" the figures so they can ultimately say 'MAY'. Right. And if you loosely expand the definition of Sexually Transmitted Disease, orgies 'MAY' be a great idea!
So the Mud Volcano area pumps out more CO2 than 10 power plants!
Admittedly I've never been to Yellowstone, but I doubt that the air there could be that bad and still be called a Park.
So it goes to show the power and the lack of accountability in the press. I don't know how they got away with this, but the lack of professionalism is astounding. You measure a figure, and then you turn around and say "we measured this, but we think that there 'MAY' be 250 times more CO2 than we can measure..." How do you arrive at that? How do you justify a 250 multiplier? Are you going to do follow up studies?
Still the letter of the law says they didn't lie. Did they intend to mislead? I can't say, but the article is definitely misleading.
2 comments:
uh, and there are at least 378 coal power plants in america alone, AND all the cars, AND...
"While carbon dioxide emissions from power plants are now at roughly 2.5 billion tons per year, more than 150 new coal-fired power plants are being permitted and built across the country"
Even if his claim is true, 44 million is still only 1/500th of CO2 emitted by the the coal power plants in America w/o the plants in China or India or Russia or...
and the girlfriend says "Uh????"
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