Let's Talk Facts About Global Warming

Updated on 12/2/2019

Did you know...a gallon of gas weighs 6.3 pounds, yet burning it produces almost 20 pounds of carbon dioxide?

Gasoline is basically 87% carbon and 13% hydrogen. When gas burns, carbon is released and combines with oxygen in the atmosphere to form CO2 (hydrogen is also released and combines with oxygen to form water and water vapor, but this does not create the same problem as CO2 formation). Carbon has an atomic weight of 12; oxygen has an atomic weight of 16; so CO2 has an atomic weight of 44. Therefore, each new CO2 molecule weighs 44/12, or 3.7 times as much as the original carbon atom. 87% of 6.3 = 5.5; 5.5 X 3.7 = 20...that is 20 pounds of CO2.

The average person on earth produces 4 tons of CO2 per year (counting everything we do...burning gas, burning wood, deforestation, etc.); multiplied by 7 billion people means that, in addition to naturally occurring carbon dioxide, we add 28 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere per year. Although this may not sound like a lot since naturally occurring CO2 amounts to 700 billion tons per year, the earth can handle the naturally occurring CO2, and it can even handle some of the man-made CO2, but it is the portion of the excess we create that is not being naturally "exchanged" that we must be concerned about. Part of the problem is that the "half-life" of CO2 is about 27 years, so although about half of the CO2 humans are currently creating is "exchanged" or absorbed by the earth, half is not. Due to the fairly long "half-life" of CO2, the result is the level of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased from 280 ppm (the level it has been fairly stable at for the past 10,000 years) to 415 ppm since 1750. Almost two-thirds of that increase has occurred in the past 50 years, so the level of CO2 measured in the atmosphere appears to be accelerating. The level of 415 ppm has not been seen in the past 20 million years. You may have heard lies like, "The volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo released more CO2 than all of man's activities in history." In fact, average volcanic activity produces less than 1 billion tons of CO2 each year, and, according to volcanologists, the super eruptions like Pinatubo or Mount St. Helens added the equivalent of CO2 produced by humans in one day.

We know that CO2 can increase temperatures, especially night-time lows and winter temperatures. We know that increased temperatures can result in climate changes, including melting of glacial ice that can increase sea levels. We know that if the temperature on the planet increases at the upper range of scientific forecasts, we could see dramatic (as in bad) changes in agricultural production, mass species extinctions, flooding of low-lying coastal areas, weather extremes and even challenges to our very survival on the planet within the next 100 years.

These are the kinds of scientific facts we should be considering as we plan the future of this planet for our children and grandchildren and discuss the causes of "global warming" and what we can and should do about it.