A few days ago I tried to get my head around the concept of 385 parts per million (here). Relating it to tangible things I can measure I calculated that it is equivalent to one drop of wine out of a 75cl bottle or a single 14-point letter "O" on a sheet of A4 paper. These are very very small proportions and, in my final substantive paragraph, I suggested that it casts doubt on the AGW Armageddon theory. As well as providing me a prime supporting role in the antipodes (here), my efforts also elicited comments from some of those who seem to have no difficulty in the concept of disaster springing from tiny increases in the already tiny quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I am not a one to dismiss an argument without careful consideration, so I thought I should weigh their views and see whether they appear to have merit.
Nice Mr O'Dwyer observed that very small quantities of cyanide and polonium-210 are fatally toxic, presumably to illustrate that it is not the quantity per se that matters but the effect that quantity has on the things it affects. A perfectly fair point, as I would always expect from Mr O'Dwyer. But we must keep apples and oranges in their respective places or we will probably be in breach of an EU fruit purity directive. I have no difficulty with the concept of a tiny pinch of cyanide being enough to render my flabby frame lifeless and fit only to be turned into soap. The reason I can accept that concept is not because I have any scientific knowledge about what cyanide is or how it works, but because Agatha Christie said so many times. Equally, I don't need to understand the science in order to accept that ingestion of any substance in sufficient quantities can be fatal. The first rule of toxicology, or so I understand, is that it's all about the dose. Even apparently harmless substances can become deadly if consumed in bulk. Take my pint of choice, Gaymer's Olde English Cider. Three pints won't touch me, four and I'm ready for a drink, after five it starts to take effect, nine's a fair evening out and fourteen are likely to reappear all over the back seat of a taxi on the way home from the Dog and Duck. Yet put a sherry glass full in a baby's bottle and you're off to the big house for a well-deserved life sentence.
I'm no scientist, but I can be reasonably sure that even the nuttiest doomsayer does not rely on toxicology for his hysteria about atmospheric carbon dioxide. The case that is put is one of physics rather than chemistry. It is said that 280 parts per million by volume was good and natural and pure, whereas 385 places us on the verge of an abyss and 500 will result in world-wide disaster. It is said that this additional minuscule quantity will kick-start an unstoppable physical chain-reaction. My first question when faced with a physical argument like this is whether I can envisage such a physical (rather than chemical) reaction. That requires me to look at the actual stuff involved, including the quantity of it.
Another commenter, Mr W, suggested I might be helped by envisaging splattering 35 litres of paint around my kitchen (here). I initially thought the relevant quantity was actually 350 litres, but he has pointed out my error so I am happy to accept it is 35. In any event it does not matter to me because I cannot envisage the effect of either 35 or 350 litres of paint being sprayed more-or-less evenly throughout the air in my kitchen. He then added that I might find it useful to think of adding 15 litres of strong dye to a 40,000 litres swimming pool (here). The problem with both these suggestions is that they give rise to exactly the conceptual difficulty I was seeking to eliminate. I do not have the faintest idea what 15 litres of dye would do to a 40,000 litre swimming pool. Not only do I not have a swimming pool of that or any other size but I have no way of assessing the visual impact 15 litres of dye would make because the whole exercise is far outside my personal experience. If he spoke of one bladder of used cider emptied in a municipal pool, it would be easier but that probably wouldn't help much either.
Interestingly, the two examples Mr W gave illustrate not only the conceptual difficulty I was trying to overcome but also the misleading nature in which the proportion 385:1,000,000 can be expressed. 35 litres of paint! Oh my ears and whiskers! That's an awful lot of paint, imagine that being thrown around my kitchen, what a horror. Strong dye in a swimming pool! Sheer vandalism and a breach of goodness knows how many health and safety edicts. They appear to be nasty things because they are suggested for use in a manner for which they are not designed. Talk of 35 litres of paint when the bare plaster walls of a room need two coats of duck-egg blue emulsion and the nastiness disappears; as it does when 15 litres of black dye are used in a fabric factory.
The reason I tried to illustrate what 385 parts per million means in real things we can actually get our heads around was to eliminate hysteria and shock. As I said the other day, by my calculations it is one drop of Rioja out of a standard bottle. To ensure no one, especially Mr W, would be offended by my refusal to spray paint the air in my kitchen with emulsion and throw a couple of buckets of black gunge into the local swimming pool during pensioners' hour; I decided to experiment using the measures I find useful. So I took 75cl of water and put it in a clear jug, then I added a drop of Rioja (wasteful I know, but it's all in the name of science) and stirred well. My eyes are particularly astute where fine wine is concerned and you know what? The addition of 385 parts per million of deep purple wine to the water was completely unnoticeable. Not the teeniest hint of purple could be seen because the quantity was just so small. No doubt it would be detectable by a finely tuned scientific instrument but in real terms, terms understandable by even the cerebrally-challenged like me, it's not 35 litres of paint or two buckets of threatening black dye; it's a tiny tiny speck, a speck so small I cannot even see it when it is mixed into the bulk.
And in all this we must bear in mind that it is not the 35 litres of paint, the 15 litres of dye or the drop of fermented Tempranillo grapes that is the threat. We know this because 280 parts per million is good and wholesome, it is natural and pure and untouched by filthy human hand. Only when we get above that arbitrary, once in a world-time, number are problems said to arise. Assuming we blame naughty people for the whole of the next 105 parts per million (which, as I understand it, is not the position anyway); we find that the air in my kitchen is permeated by 25.6 litres of paint that is fine and good and only about 10 litres need to be added to represent human wickedness. We also find that the pristine swimming pool is already enjoying the benefit of 11 litres of black dye and suffering nothing but pleasure, all we have done is add 4 more. My jug of water already has almost two-third of a drop of Rioja in it and the result is unquestionably wonderful because it was added by Bacchus and not by me, only the remainder of the drop is tainted.
When asking what 385 parts per million is, I find it useful to equate it to quantities I can actually understand by relating them to real life - hence one drop of wine out of a bottle of wine and a 14-point letter "O" on a sheet of A4. Then, when asking how this tiny quantity, and/or an increase of up to one-third in this tiny quantity, can cause a physical reaction of unimaginable nastiness I find I need more than a little persuasion. That is not to say the AGW Armageddon theory is necessary bunkum, but it helps to explain why I find it unconvincing.
Addendum
Mr W left another very helpful comment (here). He questioned my Rioja and water experiment because only a small part of the wine has a colouring effect. That, of course, is true and might mean I wasted a whole drop for absolutely no benefit whatsoever. Nonetheless, my central point remains undisturbed, namely that 385 parts per million is a tiny weeny proportion of the whole and that trying to make it sound a lot is potentially misleading. Whether it is one drop of Rioja or eight drops of water, out of the total volume of a wine bottle it is minuscule.
How we little people approach a subject on which we have no technical knowledge is almost bound to be affected by how the subject is presented to us. In an area where radical politics and science overlap it is particularly important, in my view, to put things in terms the little people can understand. Tell people that humans release so-many giga-tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year and it sounds a daunting quantity, it is quite natural for people to consider that worrying and potentially dangerous because it can seem such a vast quantity that we infer it must cause a massive shift in the balance of the atmosphere as a whole. Tell them that the total volume of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is equivalent to roughly one-twentieth of a level teaspoon in a volume of one pint and they might look at it differently. Then tell them that current annual human-induced emissions are equivalent in volume to just a few percent of that one-twentieth of a teaspoon and the whole game changes. Suddenly our emissions are so extraordinarily small that it is hard to see why there is any fuss at all.
Perhaps it is no more fair to play down emissions by reference to a tiny proportion of a small everyday measure of volume than it is to hype them by reference to incomprehensibly large multiples of big everyday measures of weight. If, in fact, they are causing a major problem it matters not that they are a small percentage by volume. However, for so long as the supposed problem is measured in parts per million by volume I think it is relevant to have a comprehensible reference point for the measurements because the little people still have the final say (at least in theory).
Nice Mr O'Dwyer observed that very small quantities of cyanide and polonium-210 are fatally toxic, presumably to illustrate that it is not the quantity per se that matters but the effect that quantity has on the things it affects. A perfectly fair point, as I would always expect from Mr O'Dwyer. But we must keep apples and oranges in their respective places or we will probably be in breach of an EU fruit purity directive. I have no difficulty with the concept of a tiny pinch of cyanide being enough to render my flabby frame lifeless and fit only to be turned into soap. The reason I can accept that concept is not because I have any scientific knowledge about what cyanide is or how it works, but because Agatha Christie said so many times. Equally, I don't need to understand the science in order to accept that ingestion of any substance in sufficient quantities can be fatal. The first rule of toxicology, or so I understand, is that it's all about the dose. Even apparently harmless substances can become deadly if consumed in bulk. Take my pint of choice, Gaymer's Olde English Cider. Three pints won't touch me, four and I'm ready for a drink, after five it starts to take effect, nine's a fair evening out and fourteen are likely to reappear all over the back seat of a taxi on the way home from the Dog and Duck. Yet put a sherry glass full in a baby's bottle and you're off to the big house for a well-deserved life sentence.
I'm no scientist, but I can be reasonably sure that even the nuttiest doomsayer does not rely on toxicology for his hysteria about atmospheric carbon dioxide. The case that is put is one of physics rather than chemistry. It is said that 280 parts per million by volume was good and natural and pure, whereas 385 places us on the verge of an abyss and 500 will result in world-wide disaster. It is said that this additional minuscule quantity will kick-start an unstoppable physical chain-reaction. My first question when faced with a physical argument like this is whether I can envisage such a physical (rather than chemical) reaction. That requires me to look at the actual stuff involved, including the quantity of it.
Another commenter, Mr W, suggested I might be helped by envisaging splattering 35 litres of paint around my kitchen (here). I initially thought the relevant quantity was actually 350 litres, but he has pointed out my error so I am happy to accept it is 35. In any event it does not matter to me because I cannot envisage the effect of either 35 or 350 litres of paint being sprayed more-or-less evenly throughout the air in my kitchen. He then added that I might find it useful to think of adding 15 litres of strong dye to a 40,000 litres swimming pool (here). The problem with both these suggestions is that they give rise to exactly the conceptual difficulty I was seeking to eliminate. I do not have the faintest idea what 15 litres of dye would do to a 40,000 litre swimming pool. Not only do I not have a swimming pool of that or any other size but I have no way of assessing the visual impact 15 litres of dye would make because the whole exercise is far outside my personal experience. If he spoke of one bladder of used cider emptied in a municipal pool, it would be easier but that probably wouldn't help much either.
Interestingly, the two examples Mr W gave illustrate not only the conceptual difficulty I was trying to overcome but also the misleading nature in which the proportion 385:1,000,000 can be expressed. 35 litres of paint! Oh my ears and whiskers! That's an awful lot of paint, imagine that being thrown around my kitchen, what a horror. Strong dye in a swimming pool! Sheer vandalism and a breach of goodness knows how many health and safety edicts. They appear to be nasty things because they are suggested for use in a manner for which they are not designed. Talk of 35 litres of paint when the bare plaster walls of a room need two coats of duck-egg blue emulsion and the nastiness disappears; as it does when 15 litres of black dye are used in a fabric factory.
The reason I tried to illustrate what 385 parts per million means in real things we can actually get our heads around was to eliminate hysteria and shock. As I said the other day, by my calculations it is one drop of Rioja out of a standard bottle. To ensure no one, especially Mr W, would be offended by my refusal to spray paint the air in my kitchen with emulsion and throw a couple of buckets of black gunge into the local swimming pool during pensioners' hour; I decided to experiment using the measures I find useful. So I took 75cl of water and put it in a clear jug, then I added a drop of Rioja (wasteful I know, but it's all in the name of science) and stirred well. My eyes are particularly astute where fine wine is concerned and you know what? The addition of 385 parts per million of deep purple wine to the water was completely unnoticeable. Not the teeniest hint of purple could be seen because the quantity was just so small. No doubt it would be detectable by a finely tuned scientific instrument but in real terms, terms understandable by even the cerebrally-challenged like me, it's not 35 litres of paint or two buckets of threatening black dye; it's a tiny tiny speck, a speck so small I cannot even see it when it is mixed into the bulk.
And in all this we must bear in mind that it is not the 35 litres of paint, the 15 litres of dye or the drop of fermented Tempranillo grapes that is the threat. We know this because 280 parts per million is good and wholesome, it is natural and pure and untouched by filthy human hand. Only when we get above that arbitrary, once in a world-time, number are problems said to arise. Assuming we blame naughty people for the whole of the next 105 parts per million (which, as I understand it, is not the position anyway); we find that the air in my kitchen is permeated by 25.6 litres of paint that is fine and good and only about 10 litres need to be added to represent human wickedness. We also find that the pristine swimming pool is already enjoying the benefit of 11 litres of black dye and suffering nothing but pleasure, all we have done is add 4 more. My jug of water already has almost two-third of a drop of Rioja in it and the result is unquestionably wonderful because it was added by Bacchus and not by me, only the remainder of the drop is tainted.
When asking what 385 parts per million is, I find it useful to equate it to quantities I can actually understand by relating them to real life - hence one drop of wine out of a bottle of wine and a 14-point letter "O" on a sheet of A4. Then, when asking how this tiny quantity, and/or an increase of up to one-third in this tiny quantity, can cause a physical reaction of unimaginable nastiness I find I need more than a little persuasion. That is not to say the AGW Armageddon theory is necessary bunkum, but it helps to explain why I find it unconvincing.
Addendum
Mr W left another very helpful comment (here). He questioned my Rioja and water experiment because only a small part of the wine has a colouring effect. That, of course, is true and might mean I wasted a whole drop for absolutely no benefit whatsoever. Nonetheless, my central point remains undisturbed, namely that 385 parts per million is a tiny weeny proportion of the whole and that trying to make it sound a lot is potentially misleading. Whether it is one drop of Rioja or eight drops of water, out of the total volume of a wine bottle it is minuscule.
How we little people approach a subject on which we have no technical knowledge is almost bound to be affected by how the subject is presented to us. In an area where radical politics and science overlap it is particularly important, in my view, to put things in terms the little people can understand. Tell people that humans release so-many giga-tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year and it sounds a daunting quantity, it is quite natural for people to consider that worrying and potentially dangerous because it can seem such a vast quantity that we infer it must cause a massive shift in the balance of the atmosphere as a whole. Tell them that the total volume of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is equivalent to roughly one-twentieth of a level teaspoon in a volume of one pint and they might look at it differently. Then tell them that current annual human-induced emissions are equivalent in volume to just a few percent of that one-twentieth of a teaspoon and the whole game changes. Suddenly our emissions are so extraordinarily small that it is hard to see why there is any fuss at all.
Perhaps it is no more fair to play down emissions by reference to a tiny proportion of a small everyday measure of volume than it is to hype them by reference to incomprehensibly large multiples of big everyday measures of weight. If, in fact, they are causing a major problem it matters not that they are a small percentage by volume. However, for so long as the supposed problem is measured in parts per million by volume I think it is relevant to have a comprehensible reference point for the measurements because the little people still have the final say (at least in theory).
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