A recent study finds that one chemical’s emissions are four times more common in the atmosphere than previously thought, and thousands of times more effective at trapping heat than Carbon Dioxide.
What is this mystery gas?
Nitrogen trifluoride. Nitrogen trifluoride is one of several gases used during the manufacture of certain computer and television screens, and also in thin-film photovoltaic cells.
Oh my. Once again we run into the old dilemma: the manufacturing of the very thing meant to solve a crisis, is actually adding to the crisis.
Many industries used Nitrogen triflouride as a replacement for perfluorocarbons, another type of potent greenhouse gas. At the time it was thought that only about 2 percent of the nitrogen trifluoride used in manufacturing, escaped into the atmosphere.
Nitrogen trifluoride is about 17,000 times more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. However, emissions of the gas currently add up to only about 0.15 percent of the total human-produced global warming effect. It is estimated that the amount of this gas in the atmosphere is increasing by about 11 percent per year.
Carbon Dioxide is still, however, the main gas contributing to global warming.
Using new technology, a research team in California funded by Nasa, discovered that there are thousands more metric tons of the chemical in the atmosphere, than was previously thought.
Because the gas is used so frequently, and it’s dangers are not that well known, scientists have now recommended adding nitrogen trifluoride to the greenhouse gases regulated by the Kyoto Protocol.
Source: LiveScience
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Cleaning up the environment was a good idea 30 years ago, but now it is far too late. The changes in the environment are already beginning and as Dr. James Lovelock says in his book, The Revenge of
Ghia, "billions of people will die". Not a popular senario but an accurate one. The best thing any of us can do now is to learn and teach our children the survival skills they will need, then hopefully a few of them will. The change in climate is only the symptom. The problem is over population.
Eve, Stuart – glad to see someone else realises that over-population is the biggest problem. Most of the population growth here in Australia is from immigration. We can look at NF3 as a greenhouse gas, but it doesn't change the fact that there's nothing unusual in our climate, if people and scientists will just look past the last 150 years. As you say, for the past 10 years it's been cooling, despite a 5% increase in CO2.
I think greed is the biggest problem. The economic model we are working with assumes limitless growth and infinite resources, not to mention an infinite capacity for the planet to absorb our excesses, as described here:
http://www.green-planet-solar-energy.com/what-is-…
These assumptions are conveniently made so that greedy people can go on grabbing more wealth without having to consider the consequences of their actions.
I am not a religious person, but there is truth in the saying "the love of money is the root of all evil".
I love when the global warming idiots have to pick a new gas because it is cooling while C02 increases. I agree it is 30 years too late because it is no longer warming, it is cooling. Not that we humans have an say in the planet’s temperature.
I also agree that the problem is overpopulation. Its not China, they have a 1 child law. All the western countries except the US are under a reproduction rate of 2. I wonder why the US is over.
And why do we keep allowing imigrants here when they have already overpopulated their own counties?
“Carbon Dioxide is still, however, the main gas contributing to global warming.”
The myth of CO2 being THE greenhouse gas is strengthened once again here. It IS NOT; water vapor (yes, it is a gas) is what really stores and releases heat in our atmosphere, and does it to a degree that excludes effects from CO2 having any serious role.
See the paper at http://www.biocab.org/Heat_Stored.html for the science behind dismissing CO2 as a bug-a-boo in the global recovery from what has been a world-wide cold spell.
Now, is this newest gas another problem? It could well be, but let’s do this with science, not hype. Panic-mode is not for making decisions.
I’m going to get a sledge hammer and smash my TV and computer, then I’m going to blow up my car. Next, I’m going to find a coal-fired power plant and sabotage it, because Al Gore wants us to commit acts of civil disobedience against those dirty, evil, polluting fiends. Hopefully enough people will sabotage enough coal-powered power plants to end this destruction of the planet and save the polar bears. Next I plan to suffocate myself because I’m emitting CO2 every time I exhale. “Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.” – Carl Sagan