Bob Kingsbury

To the editor,

Numerous news articles tell us that global warming is a problem and that global warming comes from carbon dioxide in the air. (The "greening" response to global warming is highly beneficial to the public and should be continued, but not the carbon dioxide part.)

Reportedly, carbon dioxide is the main cause of global warming. Manufacturing is the main producer of carbon dioxide; therefore eliminating carbon dioxide will require eliminating almost all of our manufacturing. Most of the goods that make life comfortable, from heat in the winter to air conditioning in the summer, to a roof over one's head, to clothes on one's back to transportation to and from work, to food on the table; all of that comes from manufactured goods. All manufacturing requires power. Almost all power comes from burning either coal or oil, the burning of which puts carbon dioxide in the air.

So, let us look at the numbers. Air weighs about 29-grams per cubic meter. Water vapor is often a major component in air. Water vapor weighs about 14-grams per cubic meter, or much less than air itself. Therefore wage vapor rises until it gets cold enough to start condensing into droplets of water, at which point the condensed water vapor forms easily visible clouds. When the clouds get big enough the droplets of water congeal to form rain (or snow, or sleet, or hail). Solid water being heavier than air, the rain, etc. falls to earth. By comparison to water vapor; carbon dioxide is much heavier than air. Carbon dioxide weighs about 44-grams per cubic meter, or about half again more than air's 29. Just as water vapor must go up, carbon dioxide must go down, towards the ground.

Carbon dioxide is soluble in water at the rate of 171.3-grams per 100-cubic-centimeters. The amount of carbon dioxide that can dissolve in water depends on the surface of the water area. Rain drops form so small a sphere that rain drops have an enormously large surface area. Therefore, a small amount of rain can dissolve a large quantity of carbon dioxide from the air. All carbon dioxide that is dissolved in rain falls to the earth with the rain and is productively used by vegetation for plant growth.

Based on my "back of the envelope" understanding of the chemistry of water and air, carbon dioxide cannot be causing "global warming".

Bob Kingsbury

Laconia