Stuff snipped


What I wonder is why nontoxic CO2 is lumped with the toxic gasses that cause
even more problems with our climate. Maybe the world's population should be
reduced just to cut down on the amount of CO2 that is exhaled.


I remember hearing about a village in Cameroon that was essentially asphyxiated
when a local volcano spewed out CO2 that blamketed the area. In that case, such a
large quantity of CO2 given off in a short period of time was toxic enough to wipe
out a village.

There are a few good natural solutions to excess CO2 in the atmosphere. One is that
the bodies of water in the world can act as a CO2 sink. The other solution are
plants as they consume CO2 during photosynthesis. Maybe humanity should quit
deforesting at an ugly rate?


Here's the breakdown of Earth's atmospheric gases:

The atmosphere is primarily composed of Nitrogen (N2, 78%), Oxygen (O2, 21%),
and Argon (Ar, 1%). A myriad of other very influential components are also
present which include the water (H2O, 0 - 7%), "greenhouse" gases or Ozone (O,
0 - 0.01%), Carbon Dioxide (CO2, 0.01-0.1%).

Note that water vapor, also a greenhouse gas although not so noted in this list
I got off the Internet, averages many time greater than CO2.

Bill, K5BY

That's the crux of the matter. Water vapour is in much greater quantities than CO2
in the atmosphere and does have an obsrvable day-to-day effect on local
temperature. If you were to compare equal quantities of water vapour and CO2 then
CO2's efficiency as a greenhouse gas becomes quite a bit greater than water vapour.

Regards

John Barnard