Discuss: When Words Fail

BT,

This same Stephen Schneider (quoted in your 212) once wrote, “We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” [Quoted in Jonathan Schell, “Our Fragile Earth,” Discover, October 1989, p. 47].  How refreshing to find a man who has such a devotion to science and truth.  You never have to wonder if such men are telling the truth. 

No, I was not wrong about rising sea level.  The sea level has been rising steadily since the end of the last Ice Age.  Your post confirmed it. 

Your comment 211 requests that I review all of your comments about my inaccuracies.  Insofar as I know, you have not documented any inaccuracy in any statement that I have posted.  If you care to provide conflicting information, as opposed to the unsubstantiated opinion that you have provided, please do so and I will respond. 

In 217, you ask which building codes I meant.  I don’t know.  You cited (in 180) some pollution limits, efficiency standards, and building codes, which if enforced nation wide would have saved a bunch of money in energy costs.  I asked you to provide information about the source of your data, but you declined. 

Your comment (in 218) about carbon dioxide absorbing strongly in the wavelength range from 10 to 12 micrometers is true but misleading.  Water vapor also absorbs in the same wavelength range.  As your graphic shows, the absorption coefficient for water vapor appears to be about half of the carbon dioxide coefficient.  However, the concentration of water vapor at 70 degrees F and 50% relative humidity is approximately 12,300 parts per million.  Therefore, even though carbon dioxide absorbs in that waveband, it can only increase the absorption provided by water vapor by about 3%, which is not significant. 

Carbon dioxide does have an absorption band at about 4.2 micrometers (where water does not absorb), but objects whose temperature is about 500 degrees F emit that wavelength.  The surface of the earth rarely, if ever gets that high.  Your graphic does not show that the total width of the carbon dioxide absorption band is from about 13 to 17 micrometers, because it truncates at about 15 micrometers. 

The data on water vapor concentration and black body emission temperature came from the “Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 70 ed., Chemical Rubber Company, 1999-1990.

I read the part about Prof. Schneider on Discover and I can tell Dennis Falgout he’s guilty of distorting what the professor really said. Falgout takes a fragment out of context, and I bet he knows darned well that’s what he’s doing. Can’t fool me.

I couldn’t get what Bob Tyson was saying about asphalt before that so I googled Falgout and asphalt and the first hit was some kind of EPA report on plants in LA that make asphalt. I had to search the document and found a place where it said a Dennis Falgout was responsible for some sort of inspection on a plant, but he wasn’t present for the testing.

What on earth IS all of this?

Vikki

Vittoria,

I have to admit that I find it hard to imagine a context that would make the sentence that I quoted OK.  I also admit that I have not seen the entire article.  However, if you have a link to the entire article, please post it and I will read the whole thing and let you know. 

It sounds like you and he have found a copy of a report of tests that engineers and technicians did under my direction.  There are many other such reports (perhaps a dozen) out there.  We did all of the tests while under contract to the USEPA.  Those and many other tests by other firms (not under my direction) were part of the Background Information Document for the USEPA rule that regulates combustion of hazardous wastes in boilers and industrial furnaces.  A Background Information Document contains all of the technical information and data that USEPA accumulates during its development of rules.  The tests (if I have guessed right about what they are) were to determine if industrial boilers, cement kilns, lime kilns, expanded aggregate (the light-weight spongy rocks you often see outside of McDonalds) and asphalt plants could destroy hazardous organic compounds well enough that there would be no harm to persons living and breathing in the vicinity of such furnaces.  The answer was yes. 

I was present at many of the tests, but did not go to California.

This is Orion, thanking you all for the lively and interesting discussion.

We are closing the discussion now, and hope to see you all at the next article!