There is no such thing as a free lunch. If there is, you might get food poisoning.

 

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Source: Brian Ettling, with assistance from friend, Katy Bichsel

Notes: In my personal powerpoint program, 'Let's Have Fun Getting Serious about climate change,' I explain that global warming is about a basic understanding of physics.  As Sir Isaac Newton wrote in 1687 in his third law of basic motion, "To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

Everything we do has consequences.  According to CO2Now.org, carbon dioxide emissions are roughly 33.4 billion metric tons a year. Throwing this much carbon dioxide into our atmosphere is really no different than lighting up a cigarette in a confined room. Even more, imagine that you were swimming in a beautiful Olympic size swimming pool. Then you saw someone continuously peeing into the pool. At what point would you yell at the top of your lungs, "STOP PEEING IN THE POOL!"

The atmosphere that surrounds us on the planet is far thinner than it appears.   Renowned scientist Carl Sagan used to say "If you had a globe covered with a coat of varnish, the thickness of that varnish would be about the same as the thickness of the earth's atmosphere compared to the earth itself."

I am skeptical that humans can throw this much carbon dioxide into our atmosphere annually without nasty consequences.  As the 1970s Chiffon Margarine commercials warned, "It's not nice to fool (with) Mother Nature!"

Image Source: gotsole.wordpress.com