GORE: CIGARETTE SMOKING 'SIGNIFICANT' CONTRIBUTOR TO GLOBAL WARMING
Fri Sep 29 2006 09:04:05 ET
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore warned hundreds of U.N. diplomats and staff on Thursday evening about the perils of climate change, claiming: Cigarette smoking is a "significant contributor to global warming!"
Gore, who was introduced by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said the world faces a "full-scale climate emergency that threatens the future of civilization on earth."
Gore showed computer-generated projections of ocean water rushing in to submerge the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, parts of China, India and other nations, should ice shelves in Antarctica or Greenland melt and slip into the sea.
"The planet itself will do nicely, thank you very much what is at risk is human civilization," Gore said. After a series of Q& A with the audience, which had little to do with global warming and more about his political future, Annan bid "adios" to Gore.
Then, Gore had his staff opened a stack of cardboard boxes to begin selling his new book, "An Inconvenient Truth, The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It," $19.95, to the U.N. diplomats.
Developing...
[Sigh!] Another reason to slap an extra 50-cent tax on a pack of cigarettes. If the erstwhile veep says it's significant, then that's good enough for me!
I just wish that he'd do the math. I mean, if he's showing a "computer-generated projection" of San Francisco being submerged by "rushing water" from melting glaciers, that would mean that it happened suddenly. Now, anybody that puts an ice cube in a drink knows that the ice melts slowly. Why did he even show a video of water "rushing" into San Francisco when it simply can't happen? The temperature rise that the global warmists point to has occured over the space of an entire century...and it's just one degree, not 100, not 10...one degree.
Lets do a little math, shall we? Lets take Mr. Gore's computer simulation of a submerging San Francisco at face value. How much ice would have to plunk into the ocean for the sea level to rise, say, five feet? Here are rough numbers:
Portion of the earth that is covered by water: 70%
Surface area of the earth: 196,935,000 square miles
70% of earth's area: 137,854,500 square miles
Volume of water required to raise the level of the oceans by five feet: 130,544 cubic miles
Portion of a glacier that's under water: 92%
Volume of ice required to create a five foot rise in ocean level: 141,896 cubic miles
Area of Greenland: 840,00 square miles
Portion of Greenland covered by ice: 81%
Depth of Greenland ice that makes 141,896 cubic miles: 1,100 feet
So, if a slab of ice 680,000 square miles in extent and 1100 feet deep covering the entire surface of Greenland that is normally ice-covered somehow detached itself and slid into the sea, the resulting water displacement would raise the level of the sea by five feet world-wide, thus making enough water to "submerge" San Francisco.
Mr. Gore should have done this exercise before making that video.
No comments:
Post a Comment