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Author Topic: Free Lunches  (Read 16232 times)

jfirneno

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #40 on: September 25, 2016, 10:07:38 am »

One of the problems with the whole global warming discussion is the synthetic pessimism that has been injected into by those who would use the science as an ideological weapon.

Very cogently said.  There's never an upside to anything.  For instance how is it possible that enormous areas of Siberia and Canada becoming temperate and therefore better for farming would not be a boon to food production for all those hungry people I'm always being reminded of? 

On a personal and more tongue in cheek note maybe we could move some mega-fauna like the rhinos and elephants to the veldt around Montana and voila extreme eco-tourism comes to North America.  Then we could finally find out if grizzly bears are really all that tough.  I'd like to see them mess with a bull elephant.
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Rob C

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #41 on: September 25, 2016, 10:53:12 am »

Not sure I am able to accept this as negative, based-on-nonsense thinking.

The changes in life wrought by changes in climate are already clear here in Mallorca. Maybe some live too far removed from the soil.

We used to get amazingly good potatoes here, many from imported Scottish seed; some varieties were perfect for making chips (French fries) and yet others quite different, and ideal for the making of old-fashioned gnocchi. Today, finding good spuds is a matter of good luck: many come complete with built-in worm holes, and the supermarkets mainly avoid the problem by selling those dreadful whitish ones that always stay moist and are very hard to dry after boiling. Onions? I have to throw away about half of the ones I buy, and garlic seems to come with rotten cloves in every complete one. Fruit? I have a cherry tree outside the office window that once bore fruit: it has remained barren for several years - blossoms come but no fruit.



Rain? In the 80s we used to get real thunderstorms and lots of rain with, sometimes, snow at sea level. Hail we get every year, and I have never had a car here that doesn't eventually bear witness to flying ice. The mountain reservoirs were mainly sufficient to cope with the needs of the island; now we face crisis every summer. During the 1800s there used to be snow-houses built up in the mountains, the purpose of which was to store snow, compact it and then mule it down to Palma as ice. Snow still falls most winters, but only lasts a day or two other than on high mountains like Puig Mayor, 1445 metres. No way people could make a business of transporting snow today! All that remain are fallen stone walls and pits.



Oh yeah, climate change is real all right; all that can be debated is what it's going to do to us.

(Please, don't let the existing wolf spiders and rats grow any larger!)

Rob

« Last Edit: September 25, 2016, 10:56:34 am by Rob C »
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N80

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #42 on: September 25, 2016, 01:50:05 pm »

Oh yeah, climate change is real all right; all that can be debated is what it's going to do to us.

Of course it is real. The climate has always changed and always will. What it is going to do with us is that it is going to change us. But to even suggest that all of those changes will be bad is patently unscientific.

And what you have described in your local region is what has been going on forever. Talk to any old farmer. Things change. The only thing that doesn't change is change.

And I think it is valuable for the Chicken-Littles of the world to do a little reading about the Little Ice Age. Far greater and more sudden change than what we are experiencing now. Massive amounts of global suffering, turmoil, political and social upheaval as well as population movement. And yet, many of the net outcomes resulted in the modern west we know now (with all of its ills and benefits but which we often myopically hold as some sort of 'norm" that must not be altered).
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George

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Rob C

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #43 on: September 25, 2016, 04:24:47 pm »

1.  Of course it is real. The climate has always changed and always will. What it is going to do with us is that it is going to change us. But to even suggest that all of those changes will be bad is patently unscientific.

And what you have described in your local region is what has been going on forever. Talk to any old farmer. Things change. The only thing that doesn't change is change.

2.  And I think it is valuable for the Chicken-Littles of the world to do a little reading about the Little Ice Age. Far greater and more sudden change than what we are experiencing now. Massive amounts of global suffering, turmoil, political and social upheaval as well as population movement. And yet, many of the net outcomes resulted in the modern west we know now (with all of its ills and benefits but which we often myopically hold as some sort of 'norm" that must not be altered).


1.  I can't quite get how, if what we have now is considered as good as it ever got, with the parts of the world without it trying their best to get a piece of it, any change will be for the better. Too many people, too few remaining resources; employment likely to fall rapidly due to robots and computers, food production areas shrinking. None of that seems to augur a happy future unless we kill even more people to ensure a better share for the survivors. Maybe that's what's really going down in the U.N. when they say they can't fix the Middle East beyond doing their best to flatten it...

2.  If it took all of that to get to where we are now, do we really need to loose it all all over again, just to start up once more from zero? Doesn't strike me as something to look forward to at all! And, as we are already at a state of the game with pretty much all the useful areas known and divided out, can we pretend to go back to the days before civilization mapped out the modern world? I think what you are describing is actually a post-apocalypse scenario that isn't somewhere I think many would choose to go, and the principal reason why many want to halt some new 'scientific' advantages that carry as many dangers as they offer solutions. A bit like some medicines, when I come to think of it.

;-)

Rob

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #44 on: September 25, 2016, 04:35:34 pm »

I fully agree that politicizing climate science was a huge mistake. Once you inject advocacy into the process of gathering data and analyzing evidence you undermine your credibility as an information provider. The radioactive result is what we see. Far better to turn over your findings to policymakers and let them make of it what they will. They'll do so anyway. Trying to impose solutions on people from a position of assumed authority doesn't work, even when the solutions are reasonable and free of ideological taint (not the case here). The act of imposing all by itself creates resistance. Leave it to the people who've been granted authority…even if you think the process by which they've been granted authority is idiotic, that they themselves are idiots and that their idiocy is potentially world-threatening.

I'm not as pessimistic about energy issues as some of you. The stuff we have our shorts in a knot about today will fade with time and, hopefully, better & smarter tech. We have the ability not only to adapt to change but to create change. Given that we're human we could turn it all pear shaped, of course. But IMO we're at our best when we have clear-cut challenges to deal with. (Just look at what happens to us in periods of relative calm, like now. Ugh.) The depletion of fossil fuels, whenever that happens, will be one such challenge.

-Dave-

Addendum: Rob, I think starting over again from zero is a non-starter.  ;)  We've used up too much of our easy-to-access energy resources. A future rebuild wouldn't have the juice to rebuild with. This is our shot at sustaining anything beyond hunter/gatherer and small-scale agricultural societies.
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FabienP

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #45 on: September 25, 2016, 05:23:54 pm »

I fully agree that politicizing climate science was a huge mistake. Once you inject advocacy into the process of gathering data and analyzing evidence you undermine your credibility as an information provider. The radioactive result is what we see. Far better to turn over your findings to policymakers and let them make of it what they will. They'll do so anyway. Trying to impose solutions on people from a position of assumed authority doesn't work, even when the solutions are reasonable and free of ideological taint (not the case here). The act of imposing all by itself creates resistance. Leave it to the people who've been granted authority…even if you think the process by which they've been granted authority is idiotic, that they themselves are idiots and that their idiocy is potentially world-threatening.

(...)

Given the fact that policymakers are almost only concerned about urgent and important matters, making sure that a given concern appears in this category of the Eisenhower matrix is essential in ensuring that something will be made to address the case. This, however, should not have been made by scientists observing the process, as you suggest.

Maybe they thought that it was too important not to act immediately?

Cheers,

Fabien
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BJL

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Future fosil fuel reduction options: batteries, solar, less children, less meat
« Reply #46 on: September 25, 2016, 07:05:43 pm »

Now it is less obvious to figure out to what extend, if at all, electric car result in a more efficient usage of available energy. It is complex because it depends on the mix of energy sources that depends on the location.

I would be interested in any link pointing to a scientific comparison, but my guess is that overall electric cars may not be efficient today in terms of fossil energy usage compated to gasoline cars. I would love to be proven wrong.
Bernard,
I do not have a source to link to, but my recollection is that even if the extra electricity used to charge an electric car's battery comes from coal, the emissions from the coal plant are significantly less than from burning gasoline in an internal combustion engineering  — large scale power plants are just far more efficient than the rapidly fluctuating on-demand operation of an ICE.  It gets better when the extra load of battery charging is met with gas-burning plants, and even moreso if adequately safe fission or fusion generation becomes viable.

On the other hand, what if the car uses cleaner fuels like propane or compressed natural gas? Or if the car improves efficiency with "kinetic energy recycling", as in a hybrid?

My fantasy is storing energy from all kinds of sources by generating and transporting hydrogen, pumping water up-hill in hydroelectric schemes, and so on — and moving away from amazingly energy inefficient food sources like beef, and making children more expensive to raise and less of an economically exploitable asset to their parents, so that we are motivated to have less of them ...

Meanwhile, I am happy with the very local use of solar power, as in my roof-top photo-voltaic system with nett metering, where the surplus output is put back onto the grid, for credit against drawing from the grid at night-time and in the dark days of winter. More practical than the massive battery needed to go off the grid.
« Last Edit: September 25, 2016, 07:11:11 pm by BJL »
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Ray

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #47 on: September 26, 2016, 06:51:20 am »

In a real and statistical sense the probability that all consequences of global warming, regardless of the cause, are going to cause bad things for all of even most species is astronomically low. In a real and statistical sense the probability that the consequences of global warming in the balance are going to cause more bad things than good is also highly if not astronomically improbable. We are talking about a planet and its myriad species and daily we hear prognostications that all is lost due to several degrees of global temperature change. This is possibly the greatest nonsense that has ever been foisted on a presumably educated public.

That's an excellent point and very insightful. Many years ago, I assumed that the dangers of increased CO2 levels were based upon sound scientific evidence, as a result of the media all singing the same tune. I was very perplexed why governments were not taking immediate action, such as legislating to phase out the current coal-fired power stations and banning the construction of new coal-fired power stations, and encouraging investment in electric vehicles, and so on.

However, when I began delving into the subject, reading contrary evidence-supported opinions on the internet, and books written by Professors in Geology who attempted to place the current slight warming in a geological context, I began to appreciate how biased and one-sided the  manic alarmism about anthropogenic climate change appears to be.

One issue I found particularly significant, and beyond doubt, because the effect can be demonstrated in real time, is the effect that increased CO2 levels have on plant growth.
Apparently, it's been a common practice for many years for certain farmers to pump CO2 into greenhouses in order to increase plant growth.

As I understand, most plants, including edible crops as well as grasses and trees in rainforests, tend to grow more vigorously in elevated levels of atmospheric CO2, in the same soils with the same amount of water.
Apparently, the pores (or stomata) in the plants' leaves shrink in elevated levels of CO2, resulting in less evaporation.

The following site, or pdf, provides details.
http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/foodsecurity/GlobalFoodProductionEstimates2050.pdf

Since this is a photographic forum, I've attached an image of page 12 of the pdf. Notice how symmetrical  and meaningful the composition is.  ;D


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Rob C

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #48 on: September 26, 2016, 08:54:27 am »

That's an excellent point and very insightful. Many years ago, I assumed that the dangers of increased CO2 levels were based upon sound scientific evidence, as a result of the media all singing the same tune. I was very perplexed why governments were not taking immediate action, such as legislating to phase out the current coal-fired power stations and banning the construction of new coal-fired power stations, and encouraging investment in electric vehicles, and so on.

However, when I began delving into the subject, reading contrary evidence-supported opinions on the internet, and books written by Professors in Geology who attempted to place the current slight warming in a geological context, I began to appreciate how biased and one-sided the  manic alarmism about anthropogenic climate change appears to be.

One issue I found particularly significant, and beyond doubt, because the effect can be demonstrated in real time, is the effect that increased CO2 levels have on plant growth.
Apparently, it's been a common practice for many years for certain farmers to pump CO2 into greenhouses in order to increase plant growth.

As I understand, most plants, including edible crops as well as grasses and trees in rainforests, tend to grow more vigorously in elevated levels of atmospheric CO2, in the same soils with the same amount of water.
Apparently, the pores (or stomata) in the plants' leaves shrink in elevated levels of CO2, resulting in less evaporation.

The following site, or pdf, provides details.
http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/foodsecurity/GlobalFoodProductionEstimates2050.pdf

Since this is a photographic forum, I've attached an image of page 12 of the pdf. Notice how symmetrical  and meaningful the composition is.  ;D


And yes, trees are supposedly the lungs of Earth, taking in our excess carbon emissions and giving us the oxygen that we need in kind return.

So let's deforest the Amazon at an even faster rate and create more freed carbon gasses and less oxygen! Astounding equilibrium - why didn't I think of that first? Soon, the world will be totally green and blue, and not an O-dependent animal will be left to scratch at it for sustenance. Perfection.

Rob

N80

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #49 on: September 26, 2016, 09:13:21 am »

The Amazon represents a relatively small percentage of O2 production by trees. The Taiga in Russia and other northern coniferous forests make up the largest percent of O2 production. They are currently in no significant jeopardy. Not advocating any abuses of the Amazon. Just pointing out how hot topic items aren't always what the media and advocacy groups make them out to be.
« Last Edit: September 26, 2016, 07:37:15 pm by N80 »
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George

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #50 on: September 26, 2016, 05:18:38 pm »

To a point more CO2 offers benefits, but you have to take advantage of them. Too much, however, as in all things is too much. This is why people working outside the realm of politics & polemic are looking not only at ways to make use of extra CO2 but also at ways to capture and sequester it.

As a wine aficianado I've noticed over the past few years that some continental European vintners have been investing in English land to grow their grapes on. Due to climatic changes over the past century or so you can now cultivate very fine champagne grapes in Sussex. Who'da thunk that?! Here in the US Napa Valley grape growers are setting up outposts in Oregon for similar reasons.

It's likely that our industrial activity has interrupted the cycle of ice ages the Earth has seen in (relatively) recent history. For some species of life, including we humans, this is a good thing. For others not so much. Being a human I tend to prefer the good for us outcomes. But good for us also means not greenhousing ourselves into becoming a second Venus. If we do it right we could have a planet with less extreme hot & cold zones and thus ultimately less extreme weather. At the same time we'll have to deal with formerly tropical & isolated pests, and the diseases they carry, spreading across more of the globe. Hello, Zika & friends!

Any attempt at creating a static planet with a fixed ecosystem will be skated off the rink by the passage of time. Yet we can choose to be smarter rather than dumber in our relationship with the planet.

-Dave-
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Rob C

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #51 on: September 27, 2016, 04:16:05 am »

To a point more CO2 offers benefits, but you have to take advantage of them. Too much, however, as in all things is too much. This is why people working outside the realm of politics & polemic are looking not only at ways to make use of extra CO2 but also at ways to capture and sequester it.

As a wine aficianado I've noticed over the past few years that some continental European vintners have been investing in English land to grow their grapes on. Due to climatic changes over the past century or so you can now cultivate very fine champagne grapes in Sussex. Who'da thunk that?! Here in the US Napa Valley grape growers are setting up outposts in Oregon for similar reasons.

It's likely that our industrial activity has interrupted the cycle of ice ages the Earth has seen in (relatively) recent history. For some species of life, including we humans, this is a good thing. For others not so much. Being a human I tend to prefer the good for us outcomes. But good for us also means not greenhousing ourselves into becoming a second Venus. If we do it right we could have a planet with less extreme hot & cold zones and thus ultimately less extreme weather. At the same time we'll have to deal with formerly tropical & isolated pests, and the diseases they carry, spreading across more of the globe. Hello, Zika & friends!

Any attempt at creating a static planet with a fixed ecosystem will be skated off the rink by the passage of time. Yet we can choose to be smarter rather than dumber in our relationship with the planet.

-Dave-


I could vote for you, Dave; fancy running in either the UK or Spanish political scene?

Rob

tom b

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #52 on: September 27, 2016, 04:40:58 am »

"To a point more CO2 offers benefits"…

Unless you are in a car in a garage!

Cheers,
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Tom Brown

Rob C

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #53 on: September 27, 2016, 05:39:04 am »

"To a point more CO2 offers benefits"…

Unless you are in a car in a garage!

Cheers,

Or waiting to get off the Palma - Barcelona ferry.

Regarding the garage - may be exactly what one was looking to find.

Rob

Ray

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #54 on: September 27, 2016, 09:36:56 am »


And yes, trees are supposedly the lungs of Earth, taking in our excess carbon emissions and giving us the oxygen that we need in kind return.

So let's deforest the Amazon at an even faster rate and create more freed carbon gasses and less oxygen! Astounding equilibrium - why didn't I think of that first? Soon, the world will be totally green and blue, and not an O-dependent animal will be left to scratch at it for sustenance. Perfection.

Rob

You should try not to confuse issues, Rob.  ;)

Taking care of our environment, disposing of toxic waste in a responsible manner, reducing and hopefully eliminating the atmospheric pollution from vehicles and coal-fired power stations, and reducing the amount of deforestation that is taking place continuously in many areas, is sensible and desirable.

However, describing CO2 as a pollutant and imagining we can turn down CO2 levels, like operating a control knob to change our climate for the better, might be plain fanciful.

Nevertheless, any effective and efficient change in energy supply methods which can reduce environmental and atmospheric pollution is welcome. My only concern is that we might be wasting huge sums of money through a misidentification of the real problem, which is probably not CO2, a clean and odourless gas essential for all life.

For example, as a consequence of misidentifying the problem, a country might reject the option of building the more efficient and less polluting 'Ultra Supercritical coal-fired power stations', (which reduce to negligible levels the real and hazardous pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide, various nitrogen oxides, heavy metals, dust, particulate carbon, and so on) simply because such advanced power stations are still not able to significantly reduce CO2 emissions which, on balance, might turn out to be beneficial for mankind at current and future increased levels.
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Rob C

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #55 on: September 27, 2016, 03:16:30 pm »

You should try not to confuse issues, Rob.  ;)

Taking care of our environment, disposing of toxic waste in a responsible manner, reducing and hopefully eliminating the atmospheric pollution from vehicles and coal-fired power stations, and reducing the amount of deforestation that is taking place continuously in many areas, is sensible and desirable.

However, describing CO2 as a pollutant and imagining we can turn down CO2 levels, like operating a control knob to change our climate for the better, might be plain fanciful.

Nevertheless, any effective and efficient change in energy supply methods which can reduce environmental and atmospheric pollution is welcome. My only concern is that we might be wasting huge sums of money through a misidentification of the real problem, which is probably not CO2, a clean and odourless gas essential for all life.

For example, as a consequence of misidentifying the problem, a country might reject the option of building the more efficient and less polluting 'Ultra Supercritical coal-fired power stations', (which reduce to negligible levels the real and hazardous pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide, various nitrogen oxides, heavy metals, dust, particulate carbon, and so on) simply because such advanced power stations are still not able to significantly reduce CO2 emissions which, on balance, might turn out to be beneficial for mankind at current and future increased levels.


Confuse... but Ray, it's equally futile pretending that they can be separated. The big problem is that none happens in its own space: it all goes down at the same time and becomes/is an inextricable part of the same whole. There is no effective isolation or distinction of effects: the best we can do, have we but incentive enough, is to attack the little bits that we can deal with, and do them first; a step at a time or, as they said at school: slowly, slowly catchy monkey.

Rob

Ray

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #56 on: September 27, 2016, 04:51:39 pm »

"To a point more CO2 offers benefits"…

Unless you are in a car in a garage!

Cheers,

In those circumstances it would be Carbon Monoxide (CO) that would be far more dangerous than the CO2 emissions.  ;)
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Telecaster

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #57 on: September 27, 2016, 05:42:47 pm »

I could vote for you, Dave; fancy running in either the UK or Spanish political scene?

I'd rather be eaten alive by hyenas.

I'd also rather not have us become overly enamored of CO2. We know with good accuracy what levels were like at various times in the past, and we can see that higher-than-current levels didn't lead to catastrophe. T-Rex (not Marc Bolan but the dudes he copied) and her pals managed fine with what we now deem high CO2 levels for well over 100 million years. So IMO no need to freak out over current or even near-future projected levels. Some things will change with overall warmer temps, but we can deal with that. (Could be messy for awhile.) But consider water. We need water to survive. To a point drinking more of it is good for you. But past that point it becomes toxic. The deal is similar with sodium or glucose. Or, when it comes to atmospheric health, carbon dioxide. Best to be careful while we get a better handle on where the CO2 toxicity tipping point actually is.

Politicos and ideologues tend not to deal well with anything that rubs up against their worldviews. Thus, when it comes to energy and climate issues, the dual phenomena of panic and denial. Two sides of the same coin really. Hopefully we'll muddle through.

-Dave-
« Last Edit: September 28, 2016, 03:02:33 pm by Telecaster »
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N80

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #58 on: September 28, 2016, 08:36:37 pm »


Politicos and ideologues tend not to deal well with anything that rubs up against their worldviews. Thus, when it comes to energy and climate issues, the dual phenomena of panic and denial. Two sides of the same coin really. Hopefully we'll muddle through.

-Dave-

Panic and denial, to me, are the benign side of what politicos and ideologues do with the issue. Manipulation is where it becomes concerning.
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George

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Rob C

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Re: Free Lunches
« Reply #59 on: September 29, 2016, 04:22:42 am »

In those circumstances it would be Carbon Monoxide (CO) that would be far more dangerous than the CO2 emissions.  ;)


Oh Ray, what's an atom, more or less, here or there!

;-)

Rob
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