Gordaen's Blog

Senator Larry Craig (R.-Idaho) says “[Industrial Carbon Dioxide] is not a pollutant.” Senator James Inhofe (R.-Okla) has been quoted for saying that global warming is a “hoax.” Here’s a quote from an article he wrote:

Despite the lack of a scientific consensus to warrant such measures, climate change alarmists — in the heat of the summer for the scariest effect — are promoting mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions in the USA. It’s a classic case of “ready, fire, aim.”

After overcoming my initial surprise that someone so blind can write, I decided to do a little research. First, I already knew that CO2 was considered a pollutant prior to the Bush Administration and that Republicans in general put extremely low value on the environment (I guess if you live in the barren wasteland of Western Texas, it’s hard to care about anything green). I looked up some information and saw this quote:

“Why would you regulate a pollutant that is an inert gas that is vital to plant photosynthesis and that people exhale when they breathe?” said Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a Washington-based industry lobby. “That’s not a pollutant.”

Are you kidding me? From the dictionary: Pollutant, 2: any substance, as certain chemicals or waste products, that renders the air, soil, water, or other natural resource harmful or unsuitable for a specific purpose. Perhaps I am Old School, but I think breathing might be a specific purpose worth noting. The levels of all gasses need to be regulated, some more than others, and (to anyone with more than one brain cell) CO2 is one of the important ones to pay attention to.

Yet another scientific study points to rising CO2 levels as causing global warming, which in turn causes worsening hurricanes. So, in addition to being anti-environment, the administration is slow to respond to the hurricanes that have been made worse by their lack of environmental concern. They continue to deny global warming, claiming all the vast research showing global warming being largely effected by mankind is wrong and the near-nonexistent “evidence” that the changes are “natural cycles” is correct. Maybe they believe God makes hurricanes to clean the air!

In the heated (useless) debate about Pluto’s planethood, facts about other planets like the ridiculous temperatures on Venus (caused by greenhouse gasses) are far in the background. The surface temperature on Venus is around 860 degrees Fahrenheit and 96% carbon dioxide, but that’s one of those wild coincidences, right? Keep in mind the majority of “normal” (as in the spectrum we see) light is reflected by the atmosphere on Venus, yet it is more than two-and-a-half times the average temperature of Mercury (which has nearly no atmosphere because it is so close to the sun). It’s got to be a coincidence, right senators? After all, it’s not like your car becomes super hot in the sun if all the windows are up because light converted to the infrared spectrum can’t escape through the glass…

The numbers mankind spits out are super tiny, yeah… that’s it. Like Ford’s sale of 912,000 F-Series trucks in 2004. That’s a small number, because the Earth uses big numbers like its surface area of about 200 million square miles. I mean, if you look at the numbers, a 2WD F150 with a V6 and stickshift only puts out 10.1 tons of pollution per year (driven 15,000 miles per year, 45% hwy, 55% city) and it’s not like those figures are based off of inaccurate data, because the EPA isn’t affected by party values and all people keep their vehicles in perfect condition to minimize polluting anyway, right? So if all of the F-series trucks sold that year just drove those 15,000 miles and they were all the little V6-powered 2WD wanna-be trucks, that’s only a bit over 18 billion pounds of pollution in one year for one model line of one manufacturer. Oh darn, I forgot that trucks don’t drive on the water, so I guess you have to compare the 18 billion pounds of pollution in one year to the 57 million square miles of land to have a fair number comparison. See, that’s only about 315 pounds of pollution per square mile per year for one model line of one manufacturer. Besides, one ton of CO2 pollution would be a bit under 20,000 cubic feet, and that’s not much pollution at all. With just 315 pounds of pollution per square mile, that’s only 3,150 cubic feet per mile. That’s just 195 square feet of pollution one inch thick per square mile per year for one model line of one manufacturer. I’m sure if we add all the cars from all the manufacturers and totally ignore the past century of driving, the numbers will still be very good for the environment!

I am really glad that destroying 6,000 square miles of trees in the Amazon Rainforest each year, the millions of miles of road in the US that replaced that ugly green plant-stuff, and all the rest of the world’s activities in the past century have had and will continue to have absolutely no impact on the environment. A senator told me so.

If I did happen to make a mistake in my math, I am sorry. My country spends about seven times more money on paying the interest of the national debt than the budget of the Department of Education.