Carbonated Beverages and Atmospheric CO2

    One of my previous essays discussed the National Research Council's (NRC) position on global warming or climate change. The NRC wants to fix something that's not broken. There Is no established relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and climate change.
    An ancillary essay dressed the question of whether carbonated beverages make a significant contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. While we are previously decided that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is unrelated to global warming or climate change, I addressed the question as though a relationship existed the answer was that even over 10 years, the release of carbon dioxide from carbonated beverages had no significant contribution to the total concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.
    We now have a third opinion from one of our political associates. I will make no comment and only repeat what he he has had to say as follows:
   

   "Since plants process CO2 as their primary metabolic gas, much as animal kingdom beings process O2, we will see a significant change in plant growth if CO2 levels truly do increase.  This has been demonstrated time and again in basic botanical experiments where a plant is grown in a high CO2 environment.  The plants 'sequester' the Carbon and release O2 as a byproduct.   This is a basic demonstrable scientific fact. " 

      "Where the rub comes is that the robber barons want to tax everyone for this natural process.  They argue that they are going to plant the plants that will sequester all this extra carbon gas.  This is just a ploy to redistribute wealth.  The claim is to 2nd and mostly 3rd world economies.  The reality is that the people at the top will skim, and then the despots of the UN will skim and then the dictates of the 3rd world will sop up what gravy trickles to them and very very few 'plantings' will be accomplished."  

     "However the CO2 rate of increase will have been "stabilized". Their claim will be due to the glorious actions of these skim balls, the truth will be due to the naturally occurring processes already in play in our environment." 

     "Our dear leaders are claiming that the risk to the planet is greater than the risk of any war.  Famine and floods will happen, which they always have, and there will be much suffering, which there has always been, because of yours and my use of atmosphere.  We are getting played like fools on this, and if successful the carbon tax will change lifestyles on the earth forever.  Suffering will increase, progress will decrease, what a bunch of fools we are if we let this come to pass."

Carbonated Beverages and Atmospheric CO2

I recently issued an essay concerning the position of the National Research Council (NRC) on global warming, or if it's rather cold, climate change.
The NRC says there is too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and that such excessive amount causes global warming or climate change. There are a couple of difficulties with that position. First of all, there is no clear connection between atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and climate. We know that the total presence of atmospheric gases tends to equalize temperatures between night and day on the Earth surface, so that Earth is livable. However, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is only 0.05%, which does not make a significant contribution to the total.
The other question is "how much is too much"? The NRC ignores that, but touches lightly on it in mentioning photosynthesis.
The new factor is that after issuing my essay, one of our political constituents asked whether carbonated beverages have an effect.
First of all, I claim that any concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere below say 10% will have no effect on climate. Although not normally considered climate, the difference between night and day Earth surface temperatures is a very significant portion of climate and is controlled mainly by the major gasses of the atmosphere, which are nitrogen and oxygen.
But for discussion, let's say I am wrong and carbon dioxide has unusual properties in affecting climate. Starting from that basis, let's take a look at the contribution of carbonated beverages.
Annual world production of carbonated beverages is 188 billion liters. A 12-ounce (355 millititers) can of Coca-Cola contains 2.2 g of CO2. That 6.2 g of CO2 per liter of carbonated drink or 1166 billion grams of CO2 in the annual world production. That is also 2.6 x 10^6 US tons (i.e. 1.17 X 10^12 / 1 X 10^6 X 2.2) of CO2.
The mass of the Earth's atmosphere is 5.6 x 10^17 US tons. At 0.05% CO2, the atmospheric mass of CO2 is 2.8  X 10^14 US tons.
Let's assume that all CO2 content of the annual world production is lost to the atmosphere through opening the containers and belching. Therefore, the annual addition of CO2 to the atmosphere from carbonated beverages is 2.6 x10^6 / 2.8 x 10^14 x 100 = 0.000001%. After 10 years, the addition of CO2 to the atmosphere would have been 0.00001%.
For those who want to have skipped the calculations, and assume that I have made no mathematical errors, the answer to the political associate's question of whether carbon dioxide in carbonated beverages makes a significant difference to the CO2 content of the atmosphere, the answer is "no".

National Research Council on Climate Change

In its February 16, 2015 issue of Chemical and Engineering News, Steven Gibb reports that the National Research Council (NRC) is underscoring the need to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide before exploring ways to modify Earth's climate. The NRC is said to have released two reports on February 10 and has three suggestions. Before going into the detail of those suggestions, let us take a look at who the NRC is.
The NRC was organized on June 19, 1916 by the National Academy of Sciences (a private organization), at the request of President Woodrow Wilson. The purpose of the NRC was in part to foster and encourage ..."the increased use of scientific research in the development of American industries...the employment of scientific methods in strengthening the national defense ...and such other applications of science as will promote the national security and welfare." Since its inception, the NRC has done much good work, but through the years has become more politicized. It has retained its private status, with the likelihood that is now a hotbed of leftist scientists, as leftist environmentalists have infiltrated the organization.
In 2001, the NRC Committee on the Science of Climate Change published Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions. The report explicitly endorsed the United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's findings as representing the view of the scientific community. The report has a quotation, "The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability. Human-induced warming and associated sea level rise are expected to continue through the 21st century... The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue."
Basically, the NRC has held the view that for at least the past 14 years, climate change is man-induced. However, it had weasel worded its position by the use of the terms "likely", "mostly", "cannot rule out", and "are expected to continue".
On July 1, 2005  Ralph J. Cicerone became the 21st president of the National Academy of Sciences and chairman of the NRC. This was four years after the NRC had stated its position with respect to man-induced climate change, and I strongly suspect that Cicerone would not have been appointed Chairman of the NRC, if he had in any way been opposed to the National Academy's position on global warming.
Three months after Dr. Cicerone was appointed NRC Chairman, Chemical and Engineering News published an interview with him. One comment Dr. Cicerone made at the interview was, "For example, what is the most effective way to limit carbon dioxide emissions? Would it be a carbon tax?" With that statement, he obviously believes, or at least finds it politically expedient to say, that man-generated carbon dioxide through burning of fossil fuels results in global warming. Notice that he had not bothered to put in the weasel words of the NRC position four years earlier.
With that questionable background on the reliability of NRC positions, let us take a look at its recommendations.
The first is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By the term "greenhouse gases", NRC primarily means carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels and possibly methane from accidental release in production of natural gas and from the intestinal activities of food animals and human beings. We have already embarked on that program of reducing CO2 emissions, even though there has not been any clearly established relationship between carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and global warming, or the recently modified term "climate change". In the Obama administration's promotion of solar and wind energy, and the EPA restrictions on use of coal as powerplant fuel, we have already spent many billions of dollars.
The second proposal is to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through carbon dioxide removal (CDR). This would involve efforts to increase photosynthesis, and ocean iron fertilization, both of which are absorption techniques. The third CDR technique would be to process all atmospheric air through a device to remove the carbon dioxide. Let's always keep in mind that all of these proposals are made on the basis that "maybe" carbon dioxide in the atmosphere contributes to global warming.
The third proposal is really far out. It involves so-called Solar Radiation Management (SRM). The theory is that if you restructure the atmosphere to reduce the amount of radiation received at the Earth's surface, global warming will automatically be reduced. It's a theory and probably a good one but basically impractical. The specific proposal would be to add sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere as a radiation insulator, but there's a catch; acid rain.
Acid rain was first recognized about 30 years ago. Power plants were burning coal contaminated with sulfur, which also burned to produce sulfur dioxide. The sulfur dioxide gas was emitted to the atmosphere where it then further reacted with atmospheric oxygen to produce sulfur trioxide. The sulfur trioxide gas in the atmosphere was water-soluble, picked up by falling rain and deposited to the Earth's surface as dilute sulfuric acid. The acidification of lakes, ponds, and other inland waterways negatively affected aquatic life. The solution was to extract the sulfur from the coal before burning and thereby eliminate sulfur dioxide in the stack gases. Perhaps 30 years post experience use it is too long a term for the NRC to remember. It is obviously illogical to use intentional addition of sulfur dioxide to the atmosphereit now to try to control global warming, which would also mean a return to acid rain.
What does all this mean? To me, it means that the whole process of irrationality begins when someone has a thought, which in more scientific consideration is generally called a theory. People latch onto the theory, accepting it as fact, rather than attempting to develop whether it has any validity. They then go on to expend tremendous amounts of money on suppositions. Many of these people are scientists, who should know better based upon their training, but for some reason or other seem to take an emotional approach to the extent of irrationality. In addition, these misguided scientists form into groups which then obtain a kind of political power and lead us down the road to destruction.
What is our defense? The answer is simple but requires work. First, be skeptical of everything you hear that does not seem to make sense. Trust no one based upon so-called credentials of education and power within organizations. I don't expect the average person to become an expert on global warming. There are too many of these so-called experts doing damage to our economy, but the average person needs to use common sense. Always ask the question of whether it is real or just somebody's thought or theory. Remember that these screwballs are looking for money. Deprive them of same and let's get on with the real threats of Islamic terrorism, uncontrolled national debt, nuclear weapons proliferation, and similar obvious problems, where we can have solutions. God or nature has set up this world with automatic climate controls far beyond the capabilities of man. Let's not be so egotistical as to think that we can play God. Our job is to cooperate with nature as best we can. Use an umbrella when it rains or stay indoors.