[ RadSafe ] Edward Teller on Climate change

[Theo Richel]

Kjell is worried about the extra CO2 we humans indeed put in the
atmosphere and its consequences for food production. 

My take: the 6000 ppm you mention is something from geological time and
completely irrelevant for our situation where the CO2 hovers around 400
PPM. Check http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/plantgrowth.php
for a large list of publications and summaries making clear that for
instance a doubling of the current CO2 concentrations will have very
positive consequences for food production all over the world, and for
what looks like every plant. The earth is greening thanks to our CO2
emission. This is why greenhouses (the real ones) fertilize their crops
with lots of extra CO2 (which they buy from oil refineries).

And also: even alarmists concede now that earth temperatures have not
risen in the past 16 years, (IPCC's Rajendra Pachauri, James Hansen ande
the Climate Research Unit Univ East Anglia in England). Meanwhile CO2
has been rising steadily.  So even if Pacific islands were being flooded
(they are not) you'd have a hard time blaming it on rising temperatures.

Best

TR
-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Johansen,
Kjell
Sent: dinsdag 5 maart 2013 20:43
To: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Edward Teller on Climate change

Victor Anderson wrote:

One inconvenient fact; 70 million years ago carbon dioxide levels were
about 6,000 ppm.  The earth did not change into a "hot house" planet
like Venus.
Life is still very sustainable.  So what if the global temperature is
rising.  Go look at number for human generated carbon dioxide emissions
and divide it my the mass of the atmosphere. You come out with a number
in the range of 20 ppm.

This is not a good argument.  It does not address the effects of
increased CO2 and climate change.  It merely says no big deal.
1)       70 million years ago there were no humans ( as we now
understand humans) or humans living in the types of societies we now
have.  
2)       With the loss of the Antarctic and Greenland icecaps, are you
prepared to have New Orleans, New York, London and other less know
cities and various Pacific Islands flooded?  Where do all of these
people go? It does not make sense to let global climate change happen by
continuing to pump more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
3)       With regard to 70 M years ago, where did all of those plants
go?  They were buried by plate tectonics and other procesess and turned
into coal.  So you take millions of years of carbon and over a short
period of several hundred years you release it back into the
environnment.  In which way do you think the biogeochemical processes
will go?  For one, the oceans become more acidic over a time period in
which natural adaptation can not cope.  Without all those phytoplankton,
we lose a lot of oxygen.
4)       If climate change were not important, why does the Pentagon and
CIA have synarios in which climate change is an important driver in
initiating events?

Well there are a lot more items on which I could comment with regard to
all of those on this list who dismiss global climate change, or, as the
media likes to call it because sells, global warming.  Needless to say,
as an oceanographer and a member of one of the world's major religions,
I take my stewardship of the earth and its resources very seriously.
That's why I am in nuclear power.

My own comments and not necessarily those of my employer.

Kjell Johansen
Nuclear Chemistry Analyst
kjell.johansen at NextERAEnergy.com

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