Water Water everywhere and not a thought to think
Lorne Gunter is a skeptic. Here he uses an elaborate analogy to point out that the amount of CO2 in the air is very tiny and therefore CO2 doesn't contribute to greenhouse gasses. As he writes:
"Out of our model atmosphere of 2,400 litres of water, just about a shot glassful is carbon dioxide put their by humans. And of that miniscule amount, Canada's contribution is just 2% --about 1 ml."
K. For once I'm going to do the global warming believers a favor. Just to show you how fair I am, I'm gonna tell you how to handle this one. Everyone go and buy some really poisonous snake. No really. And I don't care which one. Buyers choice. You like Indian food, buy a cobra. Kill Bill fan? Black mamba is the way to go. Hell, it doesnt even have to be a snake. Lots of scorpions and spiders will do the job just fine.
The next time someone makes this argument I want you to reach into the cage that you have conveniently been carrying with you and carefully brandish your new pet at the skeptic. Ask the skeptic if he would like to pet the pet. Thrust it menacingly in his face. When they object look at them incredulously and say,
"don't be absurd! Your bloodsteam is equivalent to 3 two litre bottles of coke! And this snake's venom is just a teeny tiny teensy weensy droplet of liquid. How could it ever cause your heart to stop, your nervous system to shake, your throat to constrict and make your last moments of life on this planet a veritable buffet of agonising sensations before it sucks you down down down into the inky inky darkness of the beyond? Don't be so gullible. PET MY SNAKE YOU COWARD!!!"
Maybe then he'll get the idea that even if he turns out to be right, It was hardly a self-evident truism.
"Out of our model atmosphere of 2,400 litres of water, just about a shot glassful is carbon dioxide put their by humans. And of that miniscule amount, Canada's contribution is just 2% --about 1 ml."
K. For once I'm going to do the global warming believers a favor. Just to show you how fair I am, I'm gonna tell you how to handle this one. Everyone go and buy some really poisonous snake. No really. And I don't care which one. Buyers choice. You like Indian food, buy a cobra. Kill Bill fan? Black mamba is the way to go. Hell, it doesnt even have to be a snake. Lots of scorpions and spiders will do the job just fine.
The next time someone makes this argument I want you to reach into the cage that you have conveniently been carrying with you and carefully brandish your new pet at the skeptic. Ask the skeptic if he would like to pet the pet. Thrust it menacingly in his face. When they object look at them incredulously and say,
"don't be absurd! Your bloodsteam is equivalent to 3 two litre bottles of coke! And this snake's venom is just a teeny tiny teensy weensy droplet of liquid. How could it ever cause your heart to stop, your nervous system to shake, your throat to constrict and make your last moments of life on this planet a veritable buffet of agonising sensations before it sucks you down down down into the inky inky darkness of the beyond? Don't be so gullible. PET MY SNAKE YOU COWARD!!!"
Maybe then he'll get the idea that even if he turns out to be right, It was hardly a self-evident truism.
2 comments:
Idiocy Unbound:
The correct analogy is to say to your friend - you ARE a cobra and I want you to pet my cobra which may add a very little bit of venom to you, a cobra that already has venom in its blood stream.
Alternatively, in keeping with the apocolyptica view, you could say "Hey friend, you have been bitten 400 times by someone else's cobra - my cobra wants to bite you to.
FACT: Naturally occuring CO2 is, by a factor of a thousand, far more prevalent in the Earth's atmosphere than the CO2 emitted by people.
Trifluoromethane and Hexafluoroethane are a totally different story, however.
FACT: Anthropogenic releases in Canada account for a minute percentage of the world totals and a percentage reduction would have a massive impact on industry competitiveness with no impact beyond a rounding error on the worldwide numbers.
FACT: reductions in Canada based on a Kyoto targer would not reduce
Uh...should you really be asking people to pet your snake Cory? Think of the children...
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