CATs actually reduce "harmful" emissions such as CO (which can kill you quite easily) to less harmful (to humans anyway) CO2. That is all they do. All engines allow some unburned fuel through in the form of hydrocarbons, so using that argument for having/not haing cats does not wash.
If you want to complain about something, then it should be the fact that lead was removed and benzene put in. Benzene is far more harmful to people and animals than lead ever was.
Jon
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I was always under the impression that c02 was one of the main greenhouse gases that will eventually cause us all to die and that no proof excists of harm caused by lead and benzene causes cancer,you could go on forever I suppose with plus and minus.
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CO2 is a vital trace gas and this nonsense about it killing the planet is just that: nonsense designed to bring about tax increases and social change by tranferring wealth from rich to poor countries. Whether we think that is good or bad is another matter.
The major greenhouse gas is water vapour which comprises 95% of the vital greenhouse effect which keeps the Earth warm. Without the greenhouse effect we would be at minus 18 degreees C.
Man puts around 6 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels whilst nature puts out 200 billion tonnes via the entirely natural carbon cycle.
Scientists believe that fossil fuels, (oil, gas and coal) were formed millions of years ago and all the energy came from the Sun. Plants used the Suns energy
to produce sugars and oxygen from CO2 and water. during photosynthesis. Animals ate the plants and the enegy was transferred to their bodies.
Over million of years these animals and plants decayed to produce the fossil fuels we now burn: all we are doing is returning CO2 back to the atmosphere from whence it came.
The ice caps are not melting, sea levels are not rising, the planet is not warming. All this is verified by actual temperature readings. Radio sondes on weather balloons and MSU units aboard satellites have been measuring the atmospheric temperature 16,000 times per day for the last 22 years and there is no warming trend whatsoever. Tide gauges the world over show no rising trend.
Cheers
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Yes, I've heard this argument many times but nobody wants to listen. Least of all the greenies, since this is the smokescreen (neat metaphor, huh?) they use for more sinister political agendas, and definitely not the beanies, whose sole purpose in life is to get their little rocks off finding new ways to invent dumb rules and oppressive taxes.
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Andy has a good point with lean burn. The Carina E was clean enough at launch to not need a CAT, but the law said one had to be fitted. Am I mistaken about CO2, I thought we planted a load of trees to produce this? And another point, do aeroplanes have emissions legislation.? They seem to deposit their ozone zapping gasses right on the money at 36,000 ft!
Mike
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You planted the trees to absorb c02 not to emit it as the balance of c02 in the atmosphere is reason why the gulf stream works, out of balance then we either freeze or burn .
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Thanks Andy, wrong way round, but I knew the trees had something to do with it! Perhaps they ought to ban Coke. How much CO2 is emitted everytime a can is opened x millions?
Mike
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Hi Mike,
CFC's were blamed for zapping the ozone layer but it has now been shown that CFC's are heavier than air and in fact fall to the ground to be eaten up by soil microbes.
Funny how this all surfaced ( no pun etc.) when the patent for the refrigerant then in use was about to run out!!!!!!!
The replacement the green lobby demanded was 5 times the cost. Odd or timely?
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Mike Harvey
I think that trees ABSORB CO2 and GIVE Off oxygen - that is why we want trees - to mop up the CO2, which they synthesise with sunlight to make sugar and oxygen. Science school from 50 years ago so I may be wrong!
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Nick Ireland wrote:
>
> Mike Harvey
>
> I think that trees ABSORB CO2 and GIVE Off oxygen -
> that is why we want trees - to mop up the CO2, which they
> synthesise with sunlight to make sugar and oxygen. Science
> school from 50 years ago so I may be wrong!
And at night, they absorb oxygen and give off CO2, minus the carbon they use for growth (not much in any given year). There is a net intake of CO2 during the tree's life, but when it dies the CO2 is released again. Also when the leaves fall in autumn CO2 is released. On top of that they do nothing for about five months every year in this country. When a tree reaches maturity (fifty years or so in most cases) it effectively has its own weight, minus the water content, in carbon locked away, but that's it. You'd need a lot of new trees (not the existing ones), and a species that never dies or drops leaves to absorb all the CO2 we release from fossil fuels, because there's millions of years' worth of trees in a metre thick seam of coal. Even George "I'm real clever, me" Bush has now admitted he was wrong on this one.
Chris
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Chris
The trick is, though, to either continue sequestering the carbon away for a good while longer by using the wood in a productive way eg house building or furniture, or to adopt a 'carbon neutral' approach and supplant fossil carbon by burning the tree in a process which uses the heat energy.
Not the total answer I know, but don't assume that nothing can be done to extend the carbon sequestering potential of trees once they reach maturity.
Regards
John
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John Slaughter wrote:
>
> The trick is, though, to either continue sequestering the
> carbon away for a good while longer by using the wood in a
> productive way eg house building or furniture, or to adopt a
> 'carbon neutral' approach and supplant fossil carbon by
> burning the tree in a process which uses the heat energy.
For sure, John, but by burning the tree, you release the CO2, and if the tree was planted to absorb "new" CO2 from fossil fuels, then you are back where you started. Burning wood for fuel certainly keeps the atmospheric carbon level neutral, but if the level is too high in the first place then it won't help. Building with wood, I grant you, keeps the CO2 in. My argument is simply that trees are a help, but not a magic bullet to save us. The only answer is to use less fossil fuel.
Chris
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Chris
Yes, you're right that fossil fuel use needs to decline to reduce overall levels, but provided the energy from burning the tree displaces fossil fuel, then it's a benefit.
Regards
John
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John Slaughter wrote:
> Yes, you're right that fossil fuel use needs to decline to
> reduce overall levels, but provided the energy from burning
> the tree displaces fossil fuel, then it's a benefit.
So is that why they sell sacks of chopped wood at the petrol stations round here? I was wondering. They even sell sticks in little bundles, which must be easier to squeeze into the filler. They also sell coal, but for older vehicles, you understand.
Chris
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Chris
Sounds like kindling for an open fire to me. I wonder how the greens can be so tough on cars and ignore open fires. Inefficient combustion, and a major source of all sorts of low-level pollution including particulates and the real nasties from incomplete combustion.
Despite all the propaganda to the contrary, air quality is better now than it has been for years. The major legislation was the Clean Air Act of the 1950's - it banned coal in urban areas and improved air quality dramatically. When did you last hear of smog?
Regards
john
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John Slaughter wrote:
>
> Chris
>
> Sounds like kindling for an open fire to me. I wonder how
> the greens can be so tough on cars and ignore open fires.
Phew, and I was thinking the idea was to start up on sticks then move on to the big logs when it was warm. Actually I have an open fire, and when we bought this house there was (at a rough estimate) three tonnes of coal in the coal shed. I hate using the stuff, but my mining family background tells me it was too hard-won to waste. I can't wait to go back to the all-wood regime of old - from a coppiced woodland, naturally. Now if that doesn't brand me a tree-hugger, I don't know what will. When my (southern) wife smells burning coal she says it smells like the north of England. But as you say, not any more.
Chris
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Thank you Alwyn,it saved me the bother!
But nobody will listen,they dont want the facts you see!
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We have all been conned by the CAT nonesense that manufacturers have plugged.
If I recall correctly, CATS not only use rare expensive metals but also use Selenium Oxide. The stuff that stinks when hot and gives off carcinogenic gasses. Photocopier manufacturers stopped using selenium years ago.
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When cats where first introduced I remember Peugeot (I think) claiming that they didn't want to bother with Cats because they felt they were a rather short term and short sighted solution to the problem. They got a lot of bad press about it and were forced to backtrack.
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Mike
To be fair, I don't think that car manufacturers have plugged cats. They simply responded to legislation.
The force behind the cat revolution were the Greens who objected to lead in petrol. They used the well known intolerance of cats to lead as the reason to bully goverments into legislating them into being. As has been shown this 'single issue' approach scuppered lean burn (once heavily promoted by one Mrs M Thatcher), and other economy techniques that would have had a beneficial effect on all other emissions, by simply reducing fuel burn. Instead we got saddled with poorly running, uneconomical cars a good few years, and lost many opportunities for new technology.
Had the government simply legislated in unleaded petrol, which actually needed damn all in technology changes and perhaps pushed for emission or fuel use reductions without specifying the blunt instrument of catalysts, who knows what might have happened.
Regards
john
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