R_P wrote: 
I'll try this one more time using your chart which if I read it correctly is the current distribution of GHG. Right ?

So CO2 comprises 76% of the current total and the others account for 24%.  Am I right so far ?

So, if we only used the number for methane to apply for the whole 24% ...  So according to the article, methane is at least a minimum 28 times worse than CO2 in terms of its affect on global warming.  So let's see how this works ...

I'm not sure exactly how to get the numbers correct but I think that the 24% becomes 60% ± and the CO2 76% becomes 40% ±  or a 3 to 2 ratio.  I'm sure that someone with higher math skills than I can figure it out exactly, but I think that I am pretty close.  It might even be closer to a 4 to 1 ratio or even a 5 to 1 ratio when that 2% F gas is adjusted for its minimum 146 times greater impact.  I would love to see someone do the actual math.

This is in the present.  CO2 while still a problem, it is already the lesser of the current problems. 

Your position still is that CO2 is the greatest problem in dealing with GHG. Is that correct ?  If we are talking about the present, it doesn't matter how long these gases remain, because the impact is constant over time unless mitigated because your composition number percentages will remain constant.

and you say ?

 

 miamizsun wrote: 
Some other interesting pics of Los Angeles.  Once upon a time we had street cars, until the clean diesel Generous Motors buses were brought to town.  I actually do remember seeing these still in operation.  This is a pic of one down by the Nu Pike Amusement Park in Long Beach.  The source page for these pics and larger views.    Have to scroll down some to find them.



Here's another of a smog removal plan ... a giant exhaust venting system.  Cost in the 50's estimated to be only $200 to $300 million ...

 kurtster wrote: 

those pics are awesome

 Steely_D wrote: 
While it doesn't 'prove' a point, it makes another one...

 
I was really enjoying the different perspectives until it started being less about ideas and more about insults.

If something's right, then why the personal attacks? Just prove the point.

 kurtster wrote: 
Again, methane stays a decade in the atmosphere. CO2 stays for thousands of years. Get the picture, Mr. Boss-of-Statistical-Analysis-While-Using-Apples-and-Oranges?

Toxicity isn't the factor we're necessarily interested in (even water can cause intoxication in sufficiently large amounts). It's the effect they have on the atmosphere w.r.t. warming it. And all these gases (a.k.a. GHG or Greenhouse Gas) do just that. So that's a nice red herring right there.

The denial still runs as strong as ever. And sure, why not end with a conspiracy?

 R_P wrote:

A. Well, if we took the minimums for Methane, 28X and for F-gas, 146X more powerful than CO2, CO2 is still dwarfed in comparison. Those are the numbers I used in making my statement.

These gases are toxic. 

CO2 is not, in any recorded levels through history.  

Then there is all the frozen Methane on the ocean bottom.  Another factor in the overall rise of the earth's surface temperature is the ocean's rising temp which is greatly being affected by underwater volcanoes and various heat vents, more so than by surface weather.  We cannot stop these underwater events and should just some small pockets of frozen methane thaw, those results have the potential to be devastating.

B. Yes, but let's be honest and admit that CO2 is a smaller part of the overall problem than is currently being put forth.  CO2 mitigation is all about money.  And that there is less fear to be had and money to be made mitigating these other factors.  

 kurtster wrote:
Repeating doesn't make it more true (or CO2 less of a problem). It's common knowledge that other gases have a powerful effect. But it isn't a simple multiplication game. They have different effects, incl. in the time they stick around (methane is more powerful but has a much shorter lifespan in the atmosphere vs. CO2), or what actual effect they have on the atmosphere.

He talks about the potential release, not real current pollution. Take away the other gases (and their potentially increased effects) and you still have a massive problem just from CO2. And all these gases contribute to the problem. But then again you like to point out the biggest (bigger) problem in order to minimize another. Hello, heart disease.

We've known for a while that more warming (or food waste) will release additional methane which is more disastrous (again in potential) in the total picture. The same goes for those F-gases which may be released at end-of-life, unless they are recycled. All on top of CO2 emissions.

Since it's a wide range mentioned for that F-gas potential, what would be the reasonable multiplication factor? You can't know for certain. Again, it isn't straightforward multiplication. What we do know is the on-going increase of CO2 continues to have a big impact. The current warming trend correlates closest with those CO2 emissions. Other gases will just increase the trend, if they're not mitigated like he proposes.

The most important point is that solutions are great, but not without the political will and investment.

PS: The average lifespan for methane in the atmosphere is a decade, for CO2 it is thousands of years.

 R_P wrote: 

We both read the same article, didn't we ?  

You miss the real important parts of the article where it states for example that :

P.H.: Two of the top four solutions individuals can practice every day. No. 3 is reduced food waste, which particularly applies to America, where we waste 133 billion pounds of food a year — close to a third of the food supply. That is a conservative estimate. In our model we didn’t include the methane emissions caused by landfilling our food because we couldn’t get the data — and methane is 28 to 36 times more powerful in global warming potential than carbon dioxide.

and ...

D.B.: Can you talk about the No. 1 solution? I was surprised to see that it was “‘refrigerant management.”

P.H.: We were, too. The hydrochlorofluorocarbon gases (HFCs) used in refrigerants that replaced chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were destroying the ozone layer, are anywhere from 146 to 12,500 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in their global warming potential.

Nice pie chart sir, but if you factored in the impact of methane versus CO2 then the size of CO2 and Methane would be reversed on your chart.  When the damage factor is correctly assigned to just these two agents,  CO2 would barely be there on your nice little chart.

You need to learn a little bit more about data analysis, imho.

As I said, All this stuff about CO2 being our primary concern is blown to hell here.   

A little bit more for your consideration ...

Cars now clean enough that household products rival them for air pollution

The first major emission controls on motor vehicles were introduced in 1975 with the advent of the catalytic converter.

Today's cars emit less than 1 percent of the three "criteria" pollutants that came out of their tailpipes half a century ago.

They emit relatively so little carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and hydrocarbons that the collective effect of vehicle emission in the U.S. may now be outweighed by ... household products?
...

That's the startling conclusion of a new study issued in mid-February by a team of university and government scientists.

 kurtster wrote:
Not at all. You draw the wrong conclusion from the mere availability of solutions that might mitigate the total output of all responsible gases (even in CO2 equivalence such as the F-gases in solution no. 1) at some point in future.

There is a big difference between finding solutions and finding the political will (or personal will like with a vegetable instead of meat solution) to actually implement them. See your Orange Boy Wonder and his EPA crony...

As for your 'personal story', see the reversal of proposed targets for emission standards.

 miamizsun wrote: 
fascinating ...

A little perspective though ...


the caption: A layer of pollution hovering over Los Angeles last fall.

So much has been done to clean up the air that we forget that in the 1960's this would have been considered a clear day.  Those buildings in Downtown LA would not even be visible and the color of the "haze" would be dark brown.  I lived there then.  There were days you would go outside and it hurt, really hurt to breathe.  It made your eyes sting and water.  And this is as a healthy 16 year old south of all that in Orange County.  So don't ask for any links on that.  Y'all will just have to take my word on this.  Or try this picture ...  this was once normal !







Note the Daily Planet building on the left ... actually City Hall.

I have similar recollections of the same thing up north in SF in the 50's although not as frequently as LA.  Seeing the entire SF Bay basin filled with brown smog.  Alcatraz invisible and only the peak of Yerba Buena Island which is between the two spans of the Bay Bridge popping out above the stuff.

To the board ...

It really pisses me off when I hear that we have done nothing or so little to work on this problem.  To see the picture from the NYT article as an example of serious air pollution makes me laugh and cough from laughing.  If you are one who thinks that what the NYT considers serious air pollution, you are young or never lived somewhere like LA when there was real, serious air pollution.  We have done a huge amount of work and in a relatively short time when you consider that there are 5 times more people and 10 times more cars in LA now than back in the 60's.  So don't tell me we haven't done anything meaningful yet.  Maybe not in your lifetime or your personal experience, but much has already been accomplished in mine.  We're not done yet, but we've already accomplished a whole hell of a lot.

Back to the article.  Yes, fascinating.  As a denier according to so many here, this is meaningful stuff.  It identifies what the real problems are.  You cannot solve a problem until you know exactly what it is.  This gives me hope that rational thought and real solutions can be devised.  All this stuff about CO2 being our primary concern is blown to hell here.  There are so many greater concerns and the solutions for these greater problems involve mostly education and common sense based upon increased awareness of the real issues.

It gives me hope.  Real hope.  And it ain't about Carbon Credits either.

An interesting link I stumbled on while finding pictures ...

L.A.'s Smoggy Past, in Photos

 R_P wrote: 
I've got nothing to worry about. I can walk to two different supermarkets.

 rhahl wrote:
Happy chappy!

Not easy being happy, loving, etc. on an empty stomach.

'We're doomed': Mayer Hillman on the climate reality no one else will dare mention

 miamizsun wrote:
Solutions aren't the problem.

 miamizsun wrote: 
Fascinating.

put that fork down...

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
true

 miamizsun wrote: 
We won't smell nearly as good, tho.

don't get too excited, we're still going to fry like bacon...

Longer winters are coming in reality and will partially blunt global warming for 50 years