Global Carbon Transfer

I have said before that we should call this concept we are all familiar with Global Carbon Transfer. That is what it is and always has been.

Global Carbon Transfer is directly measurable.

The term “Global Carbon Transfer” is completely accurate to what we are actually doing. We know that we are transferring carbon.

The name “Global Carbon Transfer” allows for consideration of other unknown effects that we have yet to identify that nobody even talks about.

We are transferring a lot of carbon from the ground to the atmosphere. This is an indisputable fact.

Simple Man’s Evidence for Global Warming

I personally believe that global carbon transfer is causing significant man-made global warming. Here is a list of the evidence that shapes my concept of the world, my personal observations that lead to my belief:

• I learned in Physics class in high school in ~2001 that carbon dioxide reflects infrared light / heat more than the other more highly-abundant components of the atmosphere. This makes sense to me. It would be difficult to fake this, easy to confirm or refute. I put this under the heading of scientific fact.
• We learned what the greenhouse effect is, and I have personally been inside both a hot car in the sun, and an actual greenhouse. Fact.
• I have personally seen an equilibrium exhibit a large change based on a small increase in a catalyst. For example:
  • Milk goes sour if you drink from the carton.
  • I saw chemicals abruptly change color in chemistry class after just drops of liquid entering.
  • If I had drunk two beers this morning instead of two cups of coffee, my blood would have changed by less than one percent, but I would absolutely not have written this post.
  • Small change can yield big change.
  • Catalysts exist.
• I have seen man affect the environment, both for good and bad. Some of these I didn’t personally see of course, but they happened:
  • Water quality in Columbus, Ohio versus Rio de Janeiro.
  • Chemical disaster in Bhopal, India 1984.
  • Smog in LA.
  • Scale of the Piper Alpha explosion in 1988.
  • Personal accounts of the reduction in litter in the United States following anti-litter campaigns in the 1970s.
  • Chernobyl of course, but that’s nuclear not chemical, a whole ‘nother level.
  • Urban sewage management, cities now versus 200 years ago.
  • Forests versus fields.
• I see carbon entering the atmosphere that used to be in the ground from sources that are less than a century old. Sound ridiculous? It’s everywhere. Everywhere. Try not seeing it! We could not transfer more carbon if we started a campaign to transfer more. Everything we do contributes to carbon transfer, and is mostly new!
• The earth is really really old. There has been a lot of time for plants live, absorb carbon dioxide, respire oxygen, die, and be buried in the ground. Let me repeat, really really old, and a lot a lot a lot a lot of time. A lot. There has been so much time in fact that I no longer view the air I breath as coming from “the earth in general,” but as being the breathed out breath of plants. Call me a tree-hugger, but it is an accurate concept, much more accurate than the “general earth air” idea that comes easy. The atmosphere is and always has been a product of life and vice versa. It is a two-way street.

Some more carbon numbers, click here.