Posted on 02/20/2005 9:45:38 AM PST by Libloather
Do cows and tennis balls boost global warming?
February 21, 2005
Cows and sheep grazing in fields, joggers' shoes or even refrigerators could all be targeted under a new United Nations pact meant to rein in global warming.
The Kyoto protocol, which came into force last week, is an attempt to put the brakes on a build-up of heat-trapping gases that many scientists fear will trigger more heat waves, droughts and floods and could raise global sea levels by almost a meter by 2100.
And tennis balls may be an infinitesimal part of the problem.
Kyoto focuses on cutting carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars that are widely blamed as the biggest contributor to nudging up world temperatures.
The 141-nation Kyoto pact, weakened by a United States pullout in 2001, will also seek to limit a cocktail of five less common gases found everywhere, from cows' stomachs to aluminum smelters and from car tires to household refrigerators.
``There's been much less attention to these other gases even though some of them are very powerful in their greenhouse gas effect,'' said Bo Kjellen, a former Swedish climate negotiator now at the British Tyndall Centre environmental think tank. ``A major problem has been that it's more difficult to calculate their effect on the climate. There will have to be much more focus on these gases in coming years.''
One of the gases, sulfur hexafluoride, is estimated to be 23,900 times more powerful at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, according to the United Nations climate change panel.
Hexafluoride is used to give bounce to some sports shoes, tennis balls or car tires.
The European Union has draft legislation to outlaw some of the gases, forcing the industrial sector to make upgrades costing hundreds of millions of euros.
``Most countries are not doing enough to control these gases,'' said Mahi Sideridou of the Greenpeace environmental lobby in Brussels, saying that the EU plans are a lowest common denominator.
Outside the EU, many countries have no legislation on many of the gases, viewing them as harmless or the best available.
Under Kyoto, developed countries will have to cut their overall emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012.
US President George W Bush withdrew in 2001, saying Kyoto was too costly and wrongly excluded developing countries from the first round of targets. Bush doubts whether scientists know enough about the climate to warrant Kyoto-style caps.
In 2001, carbon dioxide accounted for 83.6 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions from human sources, followed by methane at 8.7 percent and nitrous oxide at 6.1 percent, according to official US figures.
The other gases - sulfur hexafluoride, perfluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons (HFC) - made up the remaining 1.6 percent.
Concentrations of some of the trace gases, albeit tiny, are rising.
Methane concentrations have risen by about 150 percent since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century.
Farmers worried about global warming may have to get used to phrases like ``manure management'' and ``enteric fermentation'' - the latter referring to how methane is produced in the stomachs of livestock like cows and goats and expelled.
Changes in diet or in fertilizer use can help cut livestock emissions. Methane is also released from sources such as rice farming, rotting vegetation and coal mines.
Kjellen said the non-carbon dioxide gases would become more important in coming years when backers of Kyoto seek to encourage developing countries, where energy use is less intensive and agriculture more important, to sign up from 2012.
``Some of the main problems relating to methane are linked to the developing countries - rice fields in India, cattle and so on,'' he said.
Some developed countries have big farming sectors.
Methane from livestock is the biggest source of greenhouse gases in New Zealand, where 49.2 percent came from agriculture in 2002, more than from energy.
The world is sharply divided about how to axe some of the non-carbon dioxide gases.
Some, including those used in refrigerants, were introduced as substitutes for gases that were banned after they were found to be destroying the ozone layer, which helps shield the planet from damaging solar radiation.
The EU, for instance, wants to phase out use of HFC 134a, the refrigerant universally used in car air conditioners. The United States, for instance, does not favor some of the HFC substitutes because they are flammable.
No. How about volcanoes?
So, what are scientists going to do about this? I mean, if cow farts cause global warming. Maybe make a law requiring every cow to wear a ziplock bag surgically attached to its backside, to collect the fart gas?
We're doomed, L. Doomed I tell you!
:)
SF6 is used everywhere, not just in tennis balls and sneakers. It's an electrical insulator, it's integral to many semiconductor processes, etc.
Don't exhale!!!! Exhaling releases CO2 as well!! Can't pollute because the Earth is going to be destroyed by us durned Republicans and W!! /sarcasm off....
"So, what are scientists going to do about this? I mean, if cow farts cause global warming."
We cannot rely on scientists for everything. The only solution is for all americans to pitch in and do their part. We have to each hold our own gasses in internally and never release them. In an effort to diminish warming greenhouse gasses al gore has not farted since 1990. Yes, this causes the body to expand into a rotund shape, but the environment should be our first priority.
Just as long as breathing in is allowable, I'm all for it...
yeah....me too :)
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Uh, not if you're around my husband and one of his friends after they've eaten a large bowl of navy beans and had 2 or 3 beers. We had to drive to "the lake" with every car window open and numerous pit stops along the way. I could only breathe in if I stuck my head out the window. LOL
Now for another plate of refried beans.
I had no idea cows were causing all this trouble. Wait ... I have a great idea ... let's kill the cows and eat them! Oh ... that's right ... we already do that. Oh well ... back to the drawing board.
What happened to the global cooling and nuclear winter disasters that were predicted in the 1970's to spell doom for civilization by the year 2000?
Stumbled across this site while I was looking for a link to the recent story that says we may have prevented the next ice age. This is hilarious: http://www.junkscience.com/
What happens if you put a tennis ball into a cow's...oh, never mind.
No, no...I saw a better solution. It was a patent( wish I could find it but I can't seem too) for a device to catch farts. A tube would be inserted up your anus and you would fart into it and the gas would be transmitted to a bottle worn under the clothes. I swear this was a real application for a patent, sometime in the 1890s. We could simply modify the bottle to have spark device that would periodically burn off the methane, or we could transfer the gas into the fuel tanks of our methane burning cars! Hows that, great idea huh? /humor off...
Mooo !!
And there are about 50,000,000,000,000,000,000 times more carbon dioxide than there is sulfer hexafluoride. I am not sure about sulfer hexafluoride, but the gas emitting from these liberals is certainly raising my temp.
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