Hide your carbon!
By Robert T. Smith
web posted July 15, 2013
Hide your carbon! U.S. President Barack Obama and his eco-activist shills are still on the hunt for your energy supply. The rationale for their carbon hunt is the failed hypothesis that man has caused global warming, as a result of the use of carbon-based fossil fuels.
Carbon is the sixth most abundant element in the universe. Coal is composed primarily of carbon, along with many other compounds and the basic elements of nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur, as well as others. Hydrocarbons are organic compounds formed from various lengths or chains of carbon and hydrogen. Hydrocarbons are most prolifically associated with crude oil. As we all know from our grade school science classes, coal and crude oil were formed when long ago carbon-based organic matter was buried within the earth...the original carbon sequestration scheme.
If scientists were to attempt to invent an abundant, concentrated, user-friendly source of energy, they could do little better than to invent coal and crude oil. What a happy coincidence that these raw materials are prevalent within our reach in the earth's crust. The use of coal and crude oil enhance our daily lives, make them easier, provide energy and products that extend our lives, or mitigate other issues that arise as a result of modern life. While there are other sources of energy currently in use, meeting the world's energy demand now and into the foreseeable future is contingent upon the beneficial use of these carbon sources. With the exception of nuclear energy, the non-carbon based energy sources are currently, at best, boutique sources of energy...trendy and expensive.
Our President's perspective on carbon-based energy is a bit different than others' perspectives. From the June 25, 2013 Fact Sheet: President Obama's Climate Action Plan, we learn that:
"In 2012, U.S. carbon pollution from the energy sector fell to the lowest level in two decades...To build on this progress, the Obama Administration is putting in place tough new rules to cut carbon pollution – just like we have for other toxins like mercury and arsenic."
Most bizarre in the President's Action Plan is that in his world-view, our "carbon pollution" is akin to toxic metals, like mercury and arsenic. Additionally, even though the Action Plan indicates that we have significantly reduced "carbon pollution," we still have not yet achieved sufficient reduction of this "pollutant" to satisfy the President. The coal/energy industry mostly, but also the oil industry must continue to be made to suffer to satisfy the President's desires. Economic pain caused to these industries is ultimately realized in every consumer's wallet, by an increase in the cost of just about every one of the goods and services we use daily, because all rely directly or indirectly on these industries.
The President and his eco-activist cohorts seem to believe that the United States can or should bear a significant burden to reduce world-wide carbon emissions. In the past decade, global carbon dioxide emissions rose by over 8 billion tons. Over that time frame, our country's carbon dioxide emissions were dramatically reduced as stated in the President's Action Plan, but could have been zero and global carbon dioxide emissions would still have increased, due in large part to the ongoing industrialization of China and India. Short of all Americans sitting in the cold and dark, the President's self-inflicted crusade over carbon emissions is ridiculous in the face of world-wide carbon energy demand now and into the future.
Global carbon dioxide emissions will continue to increase to satisfy the world energy needs. Nearly all future increasing energy demands will be in developing countries. As a matter of cost and benefit, the vast majority of the increasing global energy demands will be met with carbon / hydrocarbon sources, regardless of how President Obama feels about this subject. Hopefully, the United States will not be caused to suffer the penance that the President and his eco-activist allies apparently believe we so rightly deserve, as he continues to crusade against carbon "pollution."
There is virtually no activity that man engages in that doesn't in some manner involve the use of these carbon energy sources. Movement of people, raw materials and finished goods; energy to power, light, cool, or heat our homes, offices, grocery stores and factories; energy to propagate crops and animals, to power our technologies...ad infinitum. This doesn't even consider the vast multitude of products and by-products directly derived from these carbon-based sources... to name just a few, everything from fertilizers, to shampoo additives and industrial chemicals derived from coal; and the plasticizers, waxes, pharmaceuticals, gases, and fuels and oils made possible from refining crude oil.
Carbon is the building block of life for plants and animals. Each of us humans exhales approximately 0.3 to 0.5 tons of carbon dioxide each year, not to mention other similarly-respiring critters. Our exhaled carbon dioxide is used by plants for growth and in return these plants provide us a source of oxygen to breathe and food to eat, or feed for tasty animals first before we consume them. What mortal could conceive of developing such an ingenious, natural process.
When the carbon scare-mongers throw about large carbon dioxide emission numbers, just remember your local football team exhales over 5 tons per year of carbon dioxide...you can do the math for the tons per year for your household, street, town, state, etc. Keep in mind that the big number spin of carbon dioxide emissions by the eco-activists is to frighten, it is not to inform. It is hard for many to conceive that a gas could be emitted in a quantity of tons per year, and that is why the large numbers are used...to appear overwhelming and frightening.
Scientifically known facts are that the atmosphere is comprised of approximately 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 0.04% carbon dioxide, with the remaining various trace gases. Logically considered then is that the vilified concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is a very, very small proportion of the gases present in the atmosphere.
Human activity (according to NASA data) accounts for less than 4% of global carbon dioxide emissions; that is 4% of the 0.04% of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; a virtually insignificant amount. According to the purveyors of man-induced global climate change, carbon dioxide itself accounts for only 10% to 20% of the greenhouse effect. Since the most prevalent greenhouse gas is water vapor, which accounts for almost 75% of the atmosphere's greenhouse effect, tagging carbon dioxide as the contaminant of concern is logically absurd, but necessary on their behalf, lest everyone realize the insanity of climate control regulations. We have become asphyxiated by our sense of omnipotence, the notion that we can cause, or as an antonymous act, un-cause the earth to warm based on our use of carbon-based energy.
As thoroughly discussed in the media, the issues associated with regulating such a ubiquitous compound as carbon dioxide pose many problems. Carbon dioxide's overwhelming contribution is by natural sources, it is well mixed in the atmosphere, it permeates the entire globe, and it is inherently linked to our modern world.
To have control over carbon is to control all of man's activities. It is curious that those with a centralized, command and control frame of thinking were able to find that the building block of life, the integral component of our world energy needs, the component of the very breath we exhale and a threshold requirement for plant growth is now nothing more than a contaminant, akin to toxic metals, that must be regulated, managed and controlled by....you guessed it...them... what a coincidence.
Unfortunately, on the way to realizing their dream of omnipotence, the climate has not cooperated. First, it was man/carbon-induced global cooling... the next ice age was imminently upon us in the 1970's. Then it was global warming... droughts, severe weather events, sea level rises and all other manner of global tragedy were alleged to be upon us in the 1990's and early 2000's. This was followed by global climate change and now the term of art appears to be global climate chaos...the chaotic aspect apparently being the fact that the purveyors of man-induced global doom cannot accurately guess or model what has and will happen with the climate. In lay terms, the climate chaos is in the minds of the warmers, who have been consistently wrong in their dire forecasts and modeling to this point. Since their predictions and modeling to this point have yet to come true, continuing to assert their theory no longer qualifies as science, by definition.
Thus far, common sense has prevailed over the man-induced climate change scare mongers. Even with all of the political activity, liberal social and media support, most understand the regulation of carbon-based energy is simply a power play by those who wish to control other's lives. Unfortunately, the carbon game is still in play, and we must all continue to diligently resist the self-inflicted economic pain and loss of freedom as we try to hide our carbon from the Chicago grifter and his eco-activist shills. 
Robert T. Smith is an environmental scientist who spends his days enjoying life and the pursuit of happiness with his family. He confesses to cling to his liberty, guns and religion, with antipathy toward the arrogant ruling elites throughout the country.