0.04% We can't tax Nitrogen, though. Water vapor is 1%, for comparison, and none of us are drowning by breathing in water.
I agree, instead we should spend that money fighting wars in the Middle East. Oil is much better than that silly wind stuff.
We agree again! Plus, after spending the last week and a half in Montana, I can tell you that the economy is booming there to the point they are trying to recruit engineers, people with business skills, and even roughnecks who can make $30/hour to Montana and N. Dakota.
My consulting work is through the roof working with Bakken companies. Plus, it's undeniable that asbestos is bad for you. It's been proven empirically in labs, unlike AGW. Any scientist with any credibility who says asbestos is good for you should be laughed out of any room. It's provable, and has been, via the scientific method. So, what were you saying again?
That the problem was dealt with too late because people ignored/overlooked the problem. You can get experts to say anything . . . including the dangers of asbestos.
I just went into a partnership with 3 good friends in college to buy a residential property that was spec built outside of Bismarck, ND. 85 units, and we're already charging $1200 for 2 beds/1 bath in apartments. It's a fucking boom, and it's the only one going on right now in this country.
Nobody was testing asbestos when it was being massively installed into buildings. I'm still wondering how CO2 is a poison, though, since vegetation needs it to expand its population.
We have CO2 in our blood. Otherwise we wouldn't be exhaling it. The air we breathe in is .04% CO2. The air we breathe out is 4%. Poison?
Pliny the Younger wrote in 61-114 AD that slaves who worked with the mineral asbestos became ill. Later in 1899 Dr. Montague Murray noted the negative health effects of asbestos. The first documented death related to asbestos was in 1906
So what's your point? We all know asbestos is bad. Making that claim about CO2, and people dying from CO2, is laughable. I assume you're arguing just to argue, because I know you're more intelligent than to bring up an asbestos argument. Asbestos was the primary insulation before any of us were born. Scientists agreed on the harm via observable data (NOT MODELS), and all but the unreasonable small minority agreed with it. I know asbestos is a poison. It's been proven in labs. What's your point?
Well you brought up Montana which immediately made me think of Libby Montana and what a tragedy that is. That the company minimized the risk of asbestos and used experts to justify their positions. Finally, and I can't believe how long it took (yr 2000 or something like that), action was taken. But obviously it was too late for hundreds. I believe one should error on the side of caution and if they had in Libby, Montana, the mines would have been shut down much earlier and thousands of lives might not have been negatively effected. Of course the mines were big business and employing many and paying well, so I'm sure anyone yelling about the risks ran into a lot of opposition. Money control a lot in our capitalist society so excuse me if I am skeptical about oil money being used for studies on the environment. If tl/dr then: Point-Throughout history there have been examples of big business putting profits ahead of the safety and welfare of people. Isn't it possible that information being put out by oil companies through experts do not have the welfare of people or the planet in mind.
There you go! The small amount of arsenic not killing us is like the small amount of CO2 in the air not hurting anything.
I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one Denny. The Nazis conducted careful experiments on just exactly how much arsenic it takes to kill someone. Like you've pointed out we don't have a duplicate earth that is sans humans to conduct experiments on. But we both agree that there is absolutely nothing that we silly humans can do to this planet that would make our existence on it more difficult. We're just passengers on this big blue marble. Everything is beyond our control.
papag; I assume that you know the story of Libby, Montana because you are investing in Montana and this town became a national story. But maybe that was a wrong assumption so I can see how me mentioning asbestos sounds out of the blue. It really is a sad story and a lesson the nation should learn by. If you don't know the story of Libby, Montana here is a short and not concise summary: Libby, Montana, is the story of a town discovering and then coping with toxic asbestos dust from the vermiculite mines that supplied jobs to more than 200 residents and helped Libby prosper for decades. Libby residents have suffered with asbestos-related diseases like mesothelioma, but their story is ongoing. Victims continue to surface. And there are Libby residents who realize they, too, may be in danger. The story can be traced back to 1919 when companies first started pulling vermiculite out of mines in Libby. Known commercially as Zonolite, vermiculite was used in a variety of construction materials including insulation for homes and buildings. Decades of mining the vermiculite exposed workers and residents to toxic asbestos dust. When W.R. Grace & Company took over operation of the mines in 1963, they knew the vermiculite was contaminated with asbestos and that it caused health complications. But they didn't warn anyone, so mining continued. As a result, hundreds of Libby residents have died and almost two thousand more are currently suffering illnesses related to asbestos exposure.
Again, I agree that asbestos is very harmful, as has been proven in controlled scientific settings. There are people who will say anything for money; I'm of the belief that the data manipulation from the AGW Believers illustrates this as a fact, just as some scientists could be paid to say asbestos isn't harmful. Money talks, and bullshit follows in this day and age. I didn't believe the scientists who said asbestos wasn't harmful to humans. Only idiots did, IMO. What this has to do with the increase of a tiny amount of CO2 levels, which I agree with (but not near the highest levels of CO2 in Earth's history) destroying earth, I think only you know at this point.