4BC Drive presenter Michael Smith [1] examines what’s in our atmosphere, and how much we’re polluting it.
Here’s a way to understand Mr Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
Imagine 1 kilometre of atmosphere that we want to rid of human carbon pollution. We’ll have a walk along it.
The first 770 metres are Nitrogen.
The next 210 metres are Oxygen.
That’s 980 metres of the 1 kilometre. 20 metres to go.
The next 10 metres are water vapour. 10 metres left.
9 metres are argon. Just 1 more metre.
A few gases make up the first bit of that last metre.
The last 38 centimetres of the kilometre – that’s carbon dioxide.
A bit over one foot.
97% of that is produced by Mother Nature. It’s natural.
Out of our journey of one kilometre, there are just 12 millimetres left. About half an inch. Just over a centimetre.
That’s the amount of carbon dioxide that global human activity puts into the atmosphere.
And of those 12 millimetres Australia puts in .18 of a millimetre.
Less than the thickness of a hair. Out of a kilometre.
And that, Mr. Rudd, is why an Emissions Trading Scheme is pointless, and why, Mr. Demetriou, your night games under lights with teams being flown all over the country, are not heating the planet.
(transcript courtesy of Andrew Bolt [2])
Samuel