Comments on: Q&A: What really goes into that carbon footprint?

Sustainability expert Kevin Wilhelm explains how companies are facing the green equivalent of Y2K, and using the environmental cause as a way to save money and motivate change-resistant workers.

[professionaladventurer]

Wait, I know a much shorter answer to the headline! Tons of subjective BS. (as long as a carbon footprint is self reported)

[directorblue]

Until the UN's IPCC divests itself from all of the conflicts of interest it has, no one should believe or support this junk science.

The World Rainforest Movement and most other environmentalists -- hardly a bunch of right-wing nuts -- call carbon trading a "scam", "fraud", "ridiculous", "flawed" and more. The reason? Because the IPCC bureaucrats made their original recommendation in favor of carbon trading without disclosing their business interests.

Put simply, most of the original IPCC members have made a killing from this grift, and no one is bothering to report on it. Google __ Ecosecurities "conflict of interest" __ and you'll see what I mean.

This carbon crap is an utter, complete sham and it will destroy our economy. Let your representative know.

[GKrynen]

A sure fire way to offset the carbon is to plant trees, lots of them. A company planting 100 trees a year will cost them close to nothing in the big picture and help rebuild forests worldwide, starting here in the United States by the way! It takes years to grow a proper tree that can clean the air but trees also hold the ground, cool, provide building materials and are just plain fun to climb and hide behind!

[Atlas_]

Clean in the USA
Dirty in China

The key to all this is CHINA and they are getting a free pass on carbon emissions. We are wasting our time and wasting our money as long as China is allowed to pollute at will. We are sending the consultants to the WRONG COUNTRY. Go preach this stuff in China where it might actually make a Difference!!!

China puts out more CO2 than the USA (they passed us two years ago) and by the year 2050 will put out more CO2 than the rest of the world COMBINED!!

[William Crow]

If one is to believe the Al Gore predictions, of the world ending as we know it, ie., cities worldwide underwater, and it being TOO LATE to make changes within about 5 years (an Al Gore mantra)...Should we go to war with the Chinese to prevent them from being able to spew that much CO2? At the very least, you must agree, we - the Saudi Arabia of Coal - should quit selling coal to China and the rest of the world. Afterall, the world is coming to an end...at least the world that we know. We'd just be saving the earth.
If you think not then you must admit to your own questioning of the Al Gore end-of-world scenario...that its little more than a social/political scare tactic.

[LuvThatCO2]

I never understood why reducing CO2 is considered 'green'. I pump CO2 into my aquarium to make the plants grow faster. As do many greenhouses. CO2 is GOOD for plants since they need that to grow. So why is CO2 not 'green'?

[W7ILL]

CO2 is good its just that were cutting down alot of plants and forests so that the amount of CO2 were making is too much for the plants to use and the excess CO2 is causing the greenhouse effect.

[Tom Budlong]

A few related questions and ideas:
1) Buy a better mileage car to use less gas than the old one. How many miles must I drive it to make up for the carbon emissions resulting from making the new car ? mining the metal, refining it, stamping it into shape, etc.
2) Most potato chip bags are only half full. What energy is used to transport this air from the chip maker to the store? Note: This is a form of visual fraud ? making a package look bigger than what?s in it. Another example is the huge dimple on the bottom of yogurt packages.
3) Wind energy and solar: How long must the windmill or the solar plant run to make up for the energy needed to make and install the windmill or the solar collectors?
4) Solar energy in the desert. The common conception is that the desert is dead and empty, when in fact desert areas are biologically very active, extracting CO2 from the atmosphere. Solar in the desert requires scraping the desert clean of all vegetation. How much does this removal reduce the carbon benefit of the solar installation?
5) All solar needs water ? to wash the photovoltaic panels or the solar collector mirrors. Desert water is scarce and almost totally allocated already. What?s the carbon footprint of replacing or importing the necessary water?
6) In California anyway, residential rooftop solar can?t sell its excess back to the power company. How much does this reduce incentive to install rooftop solar?

[ruflossn]

This whole discussion is really pointless. The underlying question of man made global warming, is junk science at best. The very idea that a gas (the atmosphere), regardless of its composition, will absorb and retain more heat than a solid object (the earth), is ridiculous at best and criminal at worst. Global warming induced by gaseous heating, violates the laws of thermodynamics and it runs contrary to gas laws (not theories). When a gas is heated it expands (think hot air balloon) and where does it go? Up!!!! Since colder air is more dense then hot air, the warm air will float on colder air so the balloon goes up. Heat rises. Secondly 99.97% of all radiation directed at the earth reaches the earth surface that leaves .03% being absorbed by the atmosphere. So at best CO2 is a bit player if not completely irrelevant the latter being the more likely role.

[martin1212]

ruflossn, that is one of the most clueless posts I have read here, and that is really saying something. I don't quite know where to begin. I suggest you start with some elementary thermal physics to get you started. Since I don't have the time or inclination to show you how you are wrong on all your points, I'll just pick on the last one:

Nearly all the radiation from the sun reaches the Earth's surface, it is true. But that radiation is then re-emitted from the surface (it must be to maintain energy balance.) The crucial point is that far more of the re-emitted radiation is in the infrared than the incident radiation from the sun. Infrared radiation is absorbed by CO2. So the radiation is absorbed on the way out, not on the way in.

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[ruflossn]

Retained background radiation is your best argument? IR is absorbed directly from the sun at .03% and then is magically able to absorb more because it is being reflected off the surface of the earth? The question you should be asking is the earth being heated by the sun directly or is the earth being heated by the atmosphere? My money is on the one that absorbs the most heat per square meter. The next question is which way does energy travel? The second law of thermodynamics states that energy travels from high to low. Never is there mutual heating between objects that are not at the same temperature. So according to established laws, not conjecture, or therories, or models, heat is being shed to the atmosphere, since gas is a horrible at holding on to heat, it sheds it to the next coldest atmospheric gas until it reaches into space. By the way one the most basic thermal phsical properties is convection, the water is heated by the sun and evaporates, as it enters the cooler atmosphere it condenses and fall to the earth as rain. Again the earth is heating the atmosphere not the other way around, if it did then we wouldnt have rain. Hope that is basic enough for you.