I am surprised that you use ad hominem arguments and use long irrelevant quotes to try to bamboozle readers.

Describing yourself. However you don’t show where you plagiarized your ones from. At least I linked to what I was reading.

Nothing that NZ does or tries to do in an attempt to reduce CO2 in the air will ever have a measureable effect

Nothing X number of people does will have any effect. Please define what the upper limit of X is? In the end result it is always 1 because if you are too lazy or self-centered to take responsibility for your trash, then who else will? Frankly you just come across as a self-centered irresponsible brat.

You could say that about any group of 4 million people on the planet.

Its a bit hard, however to tell the other 5.96 bill on the earth to stop killing the planet when we take that attitude however.

If you use that fact to argue that ‘therefore nothing can be done’ then you’d be as stupid as someone who argued that because an element is only a small part of a mixture, then it can’t have any major effects on anything.

Here’s a short argument: Nothing that NZ does or tries to do in an attempt to reduce CO2 in the air will ever have a measureable effect. If you don’t agree, tell me your figures. So an Emissions Trading Scheme involving perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars will be a complete waste of money and be run by the same guys who just wrecked the world economy – money shufflers.

For instance the amounts of CFC’s were infinitesimal, but it was catalyzing a large scale change in the radiation shielding of the atmosphere by reducing the ozone (O3) in the stratosphere. Which is why those compounds have been heavily controlled from the late 70′s onwards, and the ozone holes have not increased much since the ban got effective. CFC’s should last about a century in the upper atmosphere before decaying on average, so we aren’t likely to see much improvement for a while. Tiny amount of gas – big big effects

It isn’t the absolute quantities or percentages that is important. It is the effects that are important.

In the case of C02 ~0.04%, despite its low level compared to O2 ~16%, everything living on land is utterly dependent on it. Plants breathe free CO2 and its removal would result in the rapid extinction of land-species.

Its role in the adsorption of energy of energy in the atmosphere is what makes it important in climate change. Removal of CO2 would cause a catastrophic reduction in the ground level temperatures to below water freezing levels. Conversely increasing it will result in increased energy being adsorbed by the atmosphere.

The reason for this is because:-

Despite its relatively small concentration overall in the atmosphere, CO2 is an important component of Earth’s atmosphere because it absorbs and emits infrared radiation at wavelengths of 4.26 µm (asymmetric stretching vibrational mode) and 14.99 µm (bending vibrational mode), thereby playing a role in the greenhouse effect.

It terby allows the earths atmosphere to adsorb and retain significant amounts of the solar energy.

Since 1960, it has increased from about 0.0315% to 0.0385% at the longest sequence at Mauna Loa, ie a 22% increase in less than 50 years. As you can see from the chart, the rate of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing. The 1832 level is estimated to have been 0.0284% from ice-core samples, ie about a 35% increase to todays levels.

CH4 (methane) and NO2 (nitrous oxide) have had increases as well. It is quite clear from the isotopic balances with CO2 that most of this is coming from fossil fuels being burnt.

While it is difficult to measure long-term changes in water vapour because of its nature and uneven dispersion. No similar levels of change have been exhibited for water vapor.

In short – you don’t know what you’re talking about. This is really really basic science and could have been looked up in minutes.

Sprouting figures without understanding their significance and not looking at change rates really makes you look rather stupid. You look like you’re just plagiarizing someones spin lines.

But my apologies for calling you an Act voter – it’s just that you display all the innate selfishness and short-sighted moral bankruptcy of the breed. An honest mistake on my part.

Head. In. Sand.

micky and Clarke, it isn’t worthwhile arguing with him on the facts because he doesn’t know any and don’t bother ridiculing him, he is ridiculous enough as is.

Not a freeloader either, but you won’t believe me anyway. I also don’t wring my hands, I’m not concerned about the world at all, in fact the Earth is fine. Humanity will disappear long before the “environment”. But I do recycle (aren’t I awesome?).

You could argue on your daft basis that there isn’t any impact from changing fossil hydrocarbons into simpler compounds. You’d be right – in time scales that give a good probability of humans going extinct. You’re talking abyssal trench timescales.

But since you won’t know what they are either… Kind of pointless talking to a scientific idiot…

Ah no. Some animals emit far more methane than others – ruminants with their complex multi-stomach system for extracting the most out of plant matter emit thousands of times more methane via burping than humans and most animals do.

On the credit side of the equation:
Animals absorb carbon as they grow.
Vegetation would have died and emited methane as it rotted if the animals had not eaten it.

Ah no… (your simple scientific ignorance is showing). Plants generally don’t emit methane on decomposition, they emit CO2, SO3, and all sorts of other things. CH4 creation requires special conditions. Essentially an anaerobic environment, usually with specialized bacteria who have been doing it for billions of years, and in the relative absence of free oxygen. ie a fermentation chamber like a ruminants stomach or a peat bog.

So all animals are not created equal. If you replace forest animals (few ruminants) with pasture and ruminants, then methane generation rises massively.

Your entire argument is flawed because it simplistically says that replacing birds with cows is equivalent – which is dead wrong. It says that replacing forest mulch with sheep is equivalent – also dead wrong.

You sound like an economist. Simple assumptions and processes don’t even begin to describe either the biosphere or the geological processes. They’re only useful on simple things – like you for instance.