I'll try and add something meaningful later....

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"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
Read them, rate them, got money, film them

"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV

A) I presume you're meaning human-generated CO2.

B) No, he doesn't question it. He denys it, flat out. This is because of the fact that has been pointed out here multiple times: human CO2 emissions are NOTHING. If CO2 is damaging to the environment, then the world is screwed by design, because volcanoes put orders of magnitude more CO2 into the atmosphere than we ever could. We do nothing. It's like dropping a match in the middle of a burning forest, and you saying, "Oh, look, we caused a forest fire. Shame on us."

* Rush Limbaugh has gotten a lot of mileage out of his claim that volcanoes do more harm to the ozone layer than human-produced chemicals. He featured it in his best-selling book, The Way Things Ought to Be (paperback edition pp. 155-157): "Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines spewed forth more than a thousand times the amount of ozone-depleting chemicals in one eruption than all the fluorocarbons manufactured by wicked, diabolical and insensitive corporations in history.... Mankind can't possibly equal the output of even one eruption from Pinatubo, much less 4 billion years' worth of them, so how can we destroy ozone?"

Limbaugh calls concern about the ozone layer: "balderdash. Poppycock." The only people who worry about it are "environmental wackos," "dunderheaded alarmists and prophets of doom."

Syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell (New York Post, 1/14/94) used the volcano theory as Exhibit A to illustrate Limbaugh's "very well-informed and savvy understanding of the political issues of our time." "While far more pretentious people have been joining the chorus of hysteria over 'global warming,'" Sowell wrote, "Limbaugh pointed out in his [first] book that one of the high readings of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere came right after a volcanic eruption--and volcanoes can put more gases into the atmosphere than the entire human race."

The alert reader will notice that Sowell has mixed up global warming and the ozone layer, two different problems. Still, Sowell concluded of Limbaugh, "It is obvious that the man has done his homework--and done it well."

Ted Koppel must have thought so, too, when he invited Limbaugh to be on Nightline (2/4/92) as an environmental "expert," opposite then-Sen. Al Gore. "If you listen to what Senator Gore said," Limbaugh proclaimed, "it is man-made products which are causing the ozone depletion, yet Mount Pinatubo has put 570 times the amount of chlorine into the atmosphere in one eruption than all of man-made chlorofluorocarbons in one year."

On his radio show, his syndicated TV show, and in two best-selling books, Limbaugh has advanced the idea that volcanoes are the real ozone culprits. This theory, like so many of Limbaugh's claims, has only one problem: Limbaugh doesn't know what he's talking about.

A Mountain of Distortion

"Chlorine from natural sources is soluble, and so it gets rained out of the lower atmosphere," the journal Science explained (6/11/93). "CFCs, in contrast, are insoluble and inert and thus make it to the stratosphere to release their chlorine."
Science also noted that chlorine found in the stratosphere-- where it can eat away at Earth's protective ozone layer--is always found with other byproducts of CFCs, and not with the byproducts of natural chlorine sources.

"Ozone depletion is real, as certain as Neil Armstrong's landing on the moon," Dr. Sherwood Rowland, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California at Irvine, told Extra!. "Natural causes of ozone depletion are not significant."

But Limbaugh didn't rely on atmospheric scientists for his information about the ozone layer--he dismissed them as the "agenda-oriented scientific community." Instead, he turned to Dixy Lee Ray, a former Washington State governor and Atomic Energy Commission chair, who wrote Trashing the Planet--"the most footnoted, documented book I have ever read," Limbaugh says.

If you check Ray's footnotes, you'll find that the main source for the volcano theory is Rogelio Maduro, the associate editor of 21st Century Science & Technology, a magazine published by the Lyndon LaRouche network. Maduro is evidently not part of the "agenda-oriented scientific community"--even though he does have a bachelor's degree in geology.

The volcano theorists can't even keep their stories straight. In his book, Limbaugh claims that the 1991 Pinatubo eruption put 1000 times as much chlorine into the atmosphere as industry has ever produced through CFCs; yet on Nightline, Pinatubo is alleged to have produced 570 times the equivalent of one year's worth of CFCs. Both can't be right. It turns out neither are.

The figure 570 apparently derives from Ray's book--but she said it was Mount Augustine, an Alaskan volcano that erupted in 1976, that put out 570 times as much chlorine as one year's worth of CFCs. Ray's source is a 1980 Science magazine article--but that piece was actually talking about the chlorine produced by a gigantic eruption that occurred 700,000 years ago in California (Science, 6/11/93).

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
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"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
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I wouln't say that anyone who has ceased to post every time you rant has "realized that they couldn't win" Omega. It's more like "oh, great he comes Mr. conservative frontal lobotomy boy who only hits one note over and over and over and over..."
-Jay, July 15, 2000

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have increased nearly 30%, methane concentrations have more than doubled, and nitrous oxide concentrations have risen by about 15%. These increases have enhanced the heat-trapping capability of the earth�s atmosphere.

Why are greenhouse gas concentrations increasing? Scientists generally believe that the combustion of fossil fuels and other human activities are the primary reason for the increased concentration of carbon dioxide. Plant respiration and the decomposition of organic matter release more than 10 times the CO2 released by human activities; but these releases have generally been in balance during the centuries leading up to the industrial revolution with carbon dioxide absorbed by terrestrial vegetation and the oceans.

(above info from the EPA site http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/climate/index.html )

In other words, the biosphere has adapted to cope with the amount of CO2 produced naturally. The CO2 produced by humans lies outside this natural equilibrium process. I've said this before. I'm saying it again now. I'll say it again the next time you ignore it.

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"If you can't beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing."

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
I wouln't say that anyone who has ceased to post every time you rant has "realized that they couldn't win" Omega. It's more like "oh, great he comes Mr. conservative frontal lobotomy boy who only hits one note over and over and over and over..."
-Jay, July 15, 2000

I'm reversing at least SOME of my position on this issue.

As it turns out, volcanoes generally release about 110 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year.

But, according to World Almanac (one of my favorite fact sources,) human activity generates around 5 BILLION metric tons of CO2 a year.

So I'd have to say that human creation of CO2 IS significant. How MUCH human production of CO2 effects the environment is still somewhat uncertain, as World almanac says that the forests of the US alone can absorb some 200 million metric tons of CO2 a year.

As I said before, though, Volcanoes also release significant amounts of Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) into the air, which is apparently a de-greenhouse gas, which is why massive volcanic eruptions often cause COLDER weather.

And water vapor is a greenhouse gas that both plants and evaporation produce.

And much CO2 is created by tilling soil. You know, agriculture, that stuff we need to do so we can FEED everybody.

See, the problem is that everybody wants to clean the air, but nobody knows how. Nobody wants to give up their heat and a/c and car and all their electric appliances, which is what we use electricity for which is what we burn all the dirty stuff for.

It's A/C that's going to cause a new crunch in CA this summer. You want to clean up the air? Turn off your central air!

BTW, it was on the news today that CA is going to try to find a way AROUND the federal pollution standards, by getting an 'exemption' or some such in order to keep plants online this summer when the power demands get high... So much for leading the nation in environmentalism.

Good to see the US right has at least somebody who's open to facts and science and not whatever bullshit Limbaugh spouts. There apparently are conservatives with brains. I was beginning to get worried.

BTW, excellent point you bring up about A/C in California.

Alas, if the US were only a dictatorship, A/C could be banned and everyone would benefit. Unfortunately, that crappy ass democracy thing is burdened by human selfishness and stupidity. All power to the Soviets!

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"Instructed by history and reflection, Julian was persuaded that, if the diseases of the body may sometimes be cured by salutary violence, neither steel nor fire can eradicate the erroneous opinions of the mind."

-Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
I wouln't say that anyone who has ceased to post every time you rant has "realized that they couldn't win" Omega. It's more like "oh, great he comes Mr. conservative frontal lobotomy boy who only hits one note over and over and over and over..."
-Jay, July 15, 2000

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"Instructed by history and reflection, Julian was persuaded that, if the diseases of the body may sometimes be cured by salutary violence, neither steel nor fire can eradicate the erroneous opinions of the mind."

-Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire.

The whole issue is admittedly rather complicated, with a huge amount of factors playing a part, humans, volcanoes, forests, oceans, and animals. This should highlight the fact that Earth's biosphere is extremely complex and we should not shirk our duty in protecting it and minimizing our effect on the natural balances that exist, and have existed for hundreds of millions of years.

Although the increase in CO2 caused by humans is accepted even by those against the Kyoto agreement ( http://www.sitewave.net/PPROJECT/pproject.htm ), the effect of this rise in CO2 levels is still in dispute.

Many claim that all we are doing is reintroducing CO2 back to the atmosphere and that this is beneficial to the environment in that it has beneficial effects on plant growth rates. Indeed there are data that indicate that increased levels of CO2 do benefit plants. However, such a radical increase, ~30% in 150 years, is bad news in my opinion, considering the timescales over which the natural balances in the environment have developed. Coupled with the deforestation and pollution of the seas (and consequent loss of algae), which affect the biosphere's capacity to absorb CO2, we are looking at severe environmental disruption here.

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"If you can't beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing."