Climate skeptic columnist Christopher Booker returns to a
familiar theme this week, with an attack on measures designed to
cut carbon dioxide emissions. This week's instalment has an
antipodean theme as he criticises legislation to
charge carbon dioxide emitters in both the
UK and
Australia.
What sources does Booker pick to back his argument that carbon
dioxide is an imaginary threat? Well, he chooses a book by
Australian skeptic geologist and mining magnate, Ian Plimer.
But does Plimer's work make a solid foundation for arguing that
policies to cut carbon emissions are, as Aussie opposition leader
Tony Abbott would say, "crap"?
Plimer's book is rougishly titled 'How to get expelled from
school: a guide to climate change for pupils, parents and punters',
and suggests 101 questions for school children to ask their
teachers about climate change, along with Plimer's own answers.
The book has received
poor reviews from climate scientists, and usefully, the
Australian government's Department of Climate Change and Energy
Efficiency (DCCEE) actually bothered to provide
answers to the questions posed in Plimer's book based on
up to date peer reviewed science.
Citing Plimer's book, Booker gives a "vivid illustration of how
great is the threat posed to the planet by man-made CO2":
"If one imagines a length of the Earth's
atmosphere one kilometre long, 780 metres of this are made up of
nitrogen, 210 are oxygen and 10 metres are water vapour (the
largest greenhouse gas). Just 0.38 of a metre is carbon dioxide, to
which human emissions contribute one millimetre. Australia's share
of this is 0.015 of a millimetre"
We guess that the implication here is that the relative
proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is so small, it's
too small to change the climate.
Considering the analogy, it's (roughly) right that 0.38 metres
out of a kilometre would represent the proportion by volume of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Plimer and Booker are a little
out of date, and you can find the most up to date atmospheric
carbon dioxide measurements here.
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