The Worst Offenders for Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Posted on September 19, 2012 by bradleydibble

“I love Sweden. The entire world should be like Sweden. They all like to drink and get naked, and the women are hot. I can’t think of a better nation on the planet.”
—Drew Curtis

I wanted to review which countries were the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Most people know that China and the US are the top two offenders, but population size certainly plays a big part in that statistic. I was more interested on a per capita basis, and I’ve heard many times that Canada was one of the worst, although we generate less than two percent of global emissions due to a smaller population. To be fair I do think we have some excuses for a higher per capita emissions rate: we’re the second largest country in the world, typically with vast distances separating many of our cities, and we’re also in a colder environment. But just how do we compare to other countries out there?

I was surprised when I started to look around that the last up-to-date information I could find on how much GHG emissions each country generates was from 2008, with 2010 data only estimates. Perhaps it takes more time to compile this information accurately than I realized, but I certainly like to review the latest statistics if at all possible. (To that end, if any readers know where I can find more current information, please let me know.) Still, I expect that things haven’t changed too much since 2008, at least when comparing country to country, so I still found it a useful exercise nonetheless. Continue reading →

“Say No to Wind Turbines” – and Yes to Global Warming, I Suppose?

Posted on June 18, 2012 by bradleydibble

If I were to propose a new product for the marketplace to be used for human consumption, it would need to be rigourously assessed to confirm its safety first. If I described my new product as having the following properties, what do you think would be its chances of getting approved?

—it’s addictive, not just habit-forming
—it’s known to cause or aggravate the following health conditions: heart disease, oral cancer, lung cancer, esophageal cancer, bladder cancer, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, asthma, and low birth weights in children
—all of these occur when the product is used exactly as intended, not just when abused in excess. In addition, non-users who are exposed to it secondarily are also at increased risk for these same diseases

It’s no secret I’m describing cigarettes. Simply put, cigarettes have no redeeming features. My patients who smoke describe that it relaxes them, but that’s misleading. What they’re truly experiencing is going through nicotine withdrawal when they feel that relaxing effect, essentially getting their next “fix.” Nicotine is a stimulant, not a sedative. Anyone who’s addicted to a substance suffers when they go without it too long.

It’s fair to say that if cigarettes were introduced today, they’d never stand a chance of being approved for public use. But since they’ve been around for centuries, we’re stuck with them for now. There’s a certain degree of regulation (e.g. kids aren’t supposed to smoke them), but despite the jobs associated with the tobacco industry and the taxes generated from the sale of cigarettes, none of that will ever compensate for the costs to society in health care alone with so much death and disease that they cause. New products introduced into society are forced to prove their safety before they’re approved, even though other products out there are clearly unhealthy for us.

We face something similar with wind turbines. This weekend my family and I drove to Priceville, Ontario to get our new puppy. (You don’t know where Priceville is, you say? Well, it’s just on the other side of Flesherton!) On the way driving through Grey County, I was amazed at the number of signs protesting wind turbines. Most farms we drove by had signs on their properties urging people to “Say No to Wind Turbines.” They often had other comments too like “Foul Wind” and “Say Yes to Turbines, Say No to Visitors.” They all listed a website at the bottom of the signs for Wind Concerns Ontario.

I checked out the website when I got home. It’s amazing to see how many references they have listing how bad wind turbines are for society. I wanted to check some of the information out and given that I have some expertise in health care as a physician, I clicked on the health tab on the website’s home page to see what was listed there.

There were a number of categories for health concerns listed including noise, mental health, stress, and sleep disturbance. I checked out the first six links I could click on that were meant to elaborate on these topics and was surprised to see that none of them worked. They all had “Error 404 – page not found” errors. The next two links worked but both went to the same slide show and without the words of the speaker to go along with the slides, it didn’t provide much useful information.

The next ten references were to articles in a peer-reviewed journal, the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society (August 2011 31 issue). In fact, every one of them referenced this particular issue. As someone well-versed in science, I can tell you that having some variety in scientific references is a much more robust way to support an argument rather than having everything coming from one particular issue of one particular publication. But I guess they have to get their sources where they can and this particular journal does it for them. (According to the webpage, it seems the current issue is from December 2011. I don’t know if that means they’re on hiatus or only publish intermittently. I’d never heard of this journal before so I’m not sure.)

There may well be some health concerns with wind turbines, and I appreciate that further study will be helpful to elaborate those further. But can they really argue that the health concerns from using fossil fuels aren’t a problem? (Later this week I’ll have a blog post dedicated to this very topic, so stay tuned.)

Even if we ignored global warming and the future climate crisis we’re destined to experience if we continue with business-as-usual, do they not realize that smog, pollution, acid rain, and ozone depletion create havoc with our environment and our health? Many of the diseases caused or aggravated by these problems are cardiovascular so as a cardiologist, perhaps I’m more sensitive to the issue than other physicians might be.

The health concerns about wind turbines are on par with the health concerns about any new product being introduced into the market today. They’re like a new pharmaceutical agent that could prevent heart attacks and strokes. But if that new agent leads to an increase in liver cancer, for example—even a small one—it might not make it to market. It’s often a forest-for-the-trees situation.

I started out this post by describing how cigarettes would never be approved for use if introduced into society today, but because they’ve been around for centuries, they’ve gotten away with it. Fossil fuels are like cigarettes in our society. Long-entrenched, they’ve been in use for hundreds of years. So despite the known health concerns with fossil fuels, they’re too much a part of our civilization to do away with very easily.

I guarantee you if both wind energy and fossil fuels were being introduced today, wind energy would win out over fossil fuels. Fossil fuels have the advantage of having been introduced long before regulations would ever explore their risks, or anyone ever expressed safety concerns associated with them. And now it’s too late to do so, and yet safer options like wind turbines will have a lot of people protesting against them.

These protestors simply can’t see the forest for the trees. It’s a fact those who argue against wind energy conveniently forget.

The Origin of Coal, Oil and Natural Gas: Fossil Fuels or Something Else?

Posted on April 29, 2012 by bradleydibble

“I’m not sure I believe in global warming. I read something written by a scientist arguing that these facts are still open to debate.”

I hear comments like this all the time. You can’t put yourself out there as a mainstream believer in the zeitgeist of the scientific community and not receive some arguments from the fringes. As I like to point out, scientific theory is always open to debate. This is why ongoing research and experimentation are always underway. Further information either enhances, modifies, or refutes the current concepts we believe to be the proper understanding of the ways of the universe.

The last time I heard this sentiment was at my book-signing at a local bookstore on Earth Day. It surprised me a little bit because the skeptic admitted to being a grade eight science teacher, and I would hope that people teaching science would be a little more on board with what the majority of today’s scientists consider to be fact rather than adhere to an extremist minority opinion.

The gentleman and I had a long discussion about various aspects of the science and I pointed out that my book was written specifically to help clarify the facts and fill in the gaps for those with an open mind who were keen to understand the current thinking on these topics. Despite our conversation, he decided not to buy the book. (In retrospect, I should have offered him a money-back guarantee if he felt it didn’t answer his questions once he was finished it. Hindsight is always 20/20.)

But he raised one interesting point: he questioned whether oil was even a fossil fuel. He’d read an article about the abiotic synthesis of oil; that is, the formation of the hydrocarbons found in petroleum deposits without them having to come from fossilized plants. If this theory was correct, they could replenish indefinitely from the natural carbon found in the Earth’s crust, essentially a renewable energy source.

I find this a common theme among the more die-hard skeptics: that if they doubt one concept, they will often doubt others. Thus, all of their beliefs will be from the fringe rather than the mainstream. For such extreme perspectives to have any stability, they typically can’t incorporate other well-established facts, but have to use other extreme ideas. So if someone is doubtful of the concepts of global warming and climate change, it helps to doubt the whole concept of fossil fuels having a finite supply. It’s easier to sleep at night. (Although combustion of fossil fuels still adds 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year, regardless of their origin. I never asked him how he reconciles that fact with his beliefs.)

The abiotic synthesis of oil was something I had heard snippets about previously, but admittedly knew very little about. So I decided to explore the subject further to make sure my own “gaps were filled.”

In chapter two of my book, I describe how fossil fuels were formed. Briefly, oil and natural gas were synthesized from the remains of dead plants such as algae and plankton in ancient oceans and seas. These remains would fall to the bottom and form sediments. Over geologic time scales of many millions of years, these sediments became buried deep inside the Earth through the movements of tectonic plates. The high temperatures and pressures deep inside our planet’s crust, along with the anaerobic conditions present during their decomposition, would lead to the formation of the various hydrocarbons found in the oil deposits of today.

Coal is likewise formed from anaerobic decomposition but of terrestrial plants that are buried deep in bogs. They go through a process known as coalification first forming lignite, then bitumen and ultimately anthracite, the purest form of coal.

This biogenic theory of the formation of fossil fuels was first put forward by Georgius Agricola in the 16th century, and the majority of geologists today still consider it to be the most correct theory. Thus, fossil fuels are not a renewable resource because we’re consuming them at a far quicker rate than can ever be replaced.

The abiotic theory for the formation of oil is an alternative theory to the biological origin described above. It suggests that petroleum was formed from deep carbon deposits dating back to the formation of Earth and was first proposed as a hypothesis in the 19th century by Alexander von Humboldt. it received support from some notable scientists including Dimitri Mendeleev who created the current version of the periodic table. The theory was largely forgotten after it was first introduced although gained some popularity in the late 20th century in the Soviet Union. In the English-speaking world, Thomas Gold (1920-2004) was its biggest supporter, and wrote a book in 1998 entitled “The Deep Hot Biosphere” on the topic.

The theory suggests that the biology found on our planet followed the oil deposits and not the other way around. One argument supporters use is that methane has been found on Saturn’s moon Titan, and obviously wouldn’t come from fossilized lifeforms there.

The abiotic theory is controversial and has a number of flaws, however. For one, it doesn’t predict deposits of oil as well as the biogenic theory does. Oil deposits are typically found close to fault lines because that’s where two tectonic plates meet, and ocean sediments can be more easily buried in those regions. Also, oil deposits usually have biomarkers, little telltale signs of life. For the abiotic theory to work, those markers have to be explained somehow; it fills in that hole by suggesting microbes must have been feeding on the petroleum. The biogenic theory easily explains why such evidence of life would be present, however, given that they originated from the remains of once-living plants.

Most of the world’s geologists generally disregard the abiotic theory and it doesn’t have much support in mainstream scientific journals today. Although hydrocarbons with a low carbon:hydrogen ratio such as methane can be produced from abiotic mechanisms—explaining why methane is indeed found on Titan—longer chain hydrocarbons such as octane found in Earth’s oil deposits can only be adequately explained if they are fossil fuels.

When the grade eight science teacher supported his skepticism of global warming by bringing up this abiotic theory of petroleum formation, I realized I wasn’t going to win him over with the facts. I can educate a skeptic who is open-minded and needs some gaps of knowledge to be filled. However, many of those who doubt mainstream science are often suspicious; some even hold onto conspiracy theories, believing people like me have hidden agendas when we try to argue that a change toward renewable energy sources is needed to reduce our carbon footprints. These skeptics will often hold onto any nugget of “science” that can support their position and frequently try to refute the mainstream opinions held by the scientific community.

A tough group to win over indeed, but I appreciated the opportunity to discuss the subject because it led me to learn more about this alternative notion on the origin of fossil fuels. I’m happy to report that further study has only solidified my belief that the mainstream scientific community has once again prevailed. The more ammunition I have to argue against such fallacious arguments, the better I can do my job.