Greenhouse Gas

MIT Technology Review ^ | May 2005 | Joseph Romm

[Semper]

Crichton isn't perfect. But he's still obviously correct.

You got the first part right but missed on the second. Crichton has not devoted his life to the study of environmental science and there were several substantiated errors cited in his book. If Crichton and Rush are wrong, by the time that becomes obvious, it will be too late to correct it. If Dr. Romm is wrong, we will have a cleaner environment and be less dependent upon forign energy sources.

Regarding your "source" of Rush, he still has not accepted the fact that sucking tobacco smoke into your body (via cigar or whatever) will pollute your body sufficiently to cause health problems and premature death. Great source.

[Semper]

Crichton is well-known for stretching science around his novel's needs ... Crichton provides scientific background, but it's not surprising that it supports the viewpoint of the novel.

The problem is that a great many more people will be reading Crichton's fiction than Dr. Romm's facts (biased as they may be). And too many readers of Crichton's fiction will take it as fact.

[MaxMax]

[exDemMom]

Romm consults with businesses such as IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Collins Pine, Nike, Timberland, Texaco, and Lockheed-Martin on energy technology and environmental strategy. He is author of the first book to benchmark corporate best practices for using advanced energy technologies including fuel cells to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

It looks like Dr. Romm is being somewhat dishonest himself. A person holding a Ph.D. in physics almost certainly knows that 1) hydrogen does not naturally occur in a free state (on Earth, anyway)--it is always covalently bonded to other atoms; 2) it takes as much energy to break a bond (to free the hydrogen) as one gains by making a bond (how the fuel cell releases energy); 3) there is never 100% conversion of energy from one form to another--IIRC, the best one could hope for would be ~90%, in an ideal system. Hydrogen fuel cells MIGHT be clean (hmm, do they contain heavy metals?), but producing the energy to produce the hydrogen won't be any cleaner than any other production of energy.

Since Dr. Romm is himself dishonest, how can I trust his truthfulness in any criticism he could make of Crichton? Or that his depiction of what Crichton wrote is accurate?

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

One of the reasons the air is now clean is that legislation was passed requiring industrial enterprises to clean up their emissions. That legislation was opposed by many who did not want to accept the connection between human activity and environmental consequences

The article states that global warming regressed from the 1940's to the 1970's. The irony of politics is that those who championed the cleaning of the air in the 60's revived the process of global warming. Those very same people could have gone a long way in cutting down on power plant emissions if they didn't kill the nuclear power industry. The environmentalist need to take a good look in the mirror on who is to blame.

[Semper]

Those very same people could have gone a long way in cutting down on power plant emissions if they didn't kill the nuclear power industry. The environmentalist need to take a good look in the mirror on who is to blame.

I agree completely. Also, Nuclear power generation has no emissions under normal operation which can not be said for any other source of power generation. Nuclear waste can be managed safely.