Climate Change Fraud - Because the debate is not over - Oxygen Scarcity Threatens Humankind

Oxygen Scarcity Threatens Humankind

Written by Science and Public Policy Institute

Monday, 18 August 2008

The scare: As the peer-reviewed literature is filled with a growing proportion of learned papers demolishing the imagined "consensus" that anthropogenic "global warming" will prove "catastrophic", the less serious newspapers are looking for new scares to peddle to the feeble-minded. In mid-August 2008, The Guardian, Britain’s silliest newspaper, printed an article by Peter Tatchell suggesting that the world’s oxygen is running out because of humankind’s use of fossil fuels. Atmospheric oxygen trend from Cape Grim, Tasmania. Tatchell says: “Little or no attention is being paid to the long-term fall in oxygen concentrations and its knock-on effects. Compared to prehistoric times, the level of oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere has declined by over a third and in polluted cities the decline may be more than 50%. … Much of this recent, accelerated change is down to human activity, notably the industrial revolution and the burning of fossil fuels. … This change in the makeup of the air we breathe has potentially serious implications for our health. Indeed, it could ultimately threaten the survival of human life on earth. …”

The truth: Dr. Roy Spencer, of the University of Alabama at Huntsville, says: “The O2 concentration of the atmosphere has been measured off and on for about 100 years now, and the concentration, at 20.95%, has not varied within the accuracy of the measurements. Only in recent years have more precise measurement techniques been developed, and the tiny decrease in O2 with increasing CO2 has been actually measured. But I believe the O2 concentration is still close to 20.95%. There is so much O2 in the atmosphere, it is believed not to be substantially affected by vegetation, but it is the result of geochemistry in deep-ocean sediments. No one really knows for sure. Since too much O2 is not good for humans, the human body keeps O2 concentrations down to around 5% in our major organs. Extra O2 can give you a burst of energy, but it will harm you (or kill you) if the exposure is too long. It has been estimated that global wildfire risk would increase greatly if O2 concentrations were much more than they are now. To say that there is an impending ‘oxygen crisis’ on Earth is the epitome of fear- mongering.”

Professor Roy Watts, of www.wattsupwiththat.com, adds: “This is the sort of story I would expect in the supermarket tabloids next to a picture of Bat Boy. For the UK Guardian to say there is a ‘oxygen crisis’, is not only ignorant of the facts, but simple fear-mongering riding on the coat-tails of the ‘CO2 crisis’. … I really wish the media would do a better job of researching and reporting science stories. This example from the Guardian shows how bad science and bad reporting combine to create fear- mongering.”

Dr. Lubos Motl, a physicist, has posted a detailed comment on the Tatchell article on his blog. He says:

“The reality is, of course, that the oxygen percentage in the atmosphere has been 20.94 or 20.95 percent for thousands of years and probably much longer than that. The amount of oxygen in the atmosphere is so huge that the biosphere (and fossil fuels which used to belong to the biosphere as well) is completely unable to change this amount significantly.

”It may be useful to mention that the oxygen is only 1/5 of the atmosphere and the atmosphere is just 1/1,200,000 of the mass of the Earth. However, the Earth is very heavy, 6 x 1024 kg, so the mass of the oxygen in the atmosphere is something like 1018 kilograms – about 150,000 tons per capita. We could not burn that much oxygen even if everyone in the world were using a private jet on a daily basis.

“There is a simpler way to see that man-made changes to the oxygen levels are trivial and we will look at it now. For a schoolboy who is not skipping his science classes at elementary school, it shouldn’t be difficult to see why we can’t significantly influence the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. How can he do it? Well, he must realize that virtually all processes related to life and human activity – breathing (by animals and plants) and burning (combustion) – exchange the atmospheric O2 molecules for CO2 molecules or vice versa. Sometimes one needs two O2 molecules and only produces one CO2 molecule, but this subtlety won’t change our final result significantly.

“Virtually all other compounds participating in the relevant chemical reactions are either liquids or solids, which is why they don’t influence the composition of the atmosphere and we can ignore them.

“When you realize what the words above mean, you will see that the man-made decrease of O2 is controlled by the increase of carbon dioxide: they’re inseparably linked to one another. The human activity has increased the CO2 concentration from 280 ppm two centuries ago to 385 ppm today (the schoolboy should have seen these elementary numbers during his ‘CO2 crisis’ classes). Because many people don’t know what the acronym ppm (parts per million) really means, even if they like to use it, let me tell you that it is the same thing as 0.0001%.

“So the carbon dioxide went from 0.028% to 0.038%: the difference is 0.01%, or one-ten-thousandth, of the volume of the atmosphere. Because O2 and CO2 molecules occupy the same volume at a given pressure and a given temperature (since pV = NkT), the decrease of O2 should be equal to the increase of CO2 if the molecules were exchanged for one another: the oxygen should drop by 0.01% of the volume of the atmosphere.

“As we have already mentioned, two oxygen molecules are replaced in typical "combustion" chemical reactions for one carbon dioxide molecule, so the oxygen drop might be 0.02% instead of 0.01%. However, in the long run, there exist other processes besides the combustion-like processes involving CO2 that we have considered – for example, processes involving deep ocean sediments – and these processes tend to restore the oxygen levels (as well as the CO2 levels).

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