With sub-zero wind chills and mounds of snow all around us,
it is not uncommon to hear someone sing praises to global warming. Obviously, occasional cold temperatures do
not necessarily mean the warming of the atmosphere is a left-wing farce. Climate change happens. It always has. Up for debate is the role man plays in the
cycle.
Environmentalists have lobbied the government to impose
increasingly strict limitations on emissions.
Industry spends billions of dollars adding pollution controls to clean and
monitor what they release to the atmosphere.
While we certainly have a responsibility to protect our environment, I
believe many of the fear mongers overestimate the power man has over God’s
creation.
I grew up in a small town in the 1950’s where four
intersecting railroads were just beginning to transition from coal-burning
steam locomotives to diesel. Many of the
homes had coal furnaces. There were no
precipitators or pollution controls of any kind. Black smoke belched from smokestacks and
chimneys. Those who did not burn coal
usually heated with fuel oil or kerosene.
We had no natural gas available to us.
The air was dirtier, but we didn’t seem to notice. Smoke was just smoke. Is it possible the earth is warming because
we have cleaned the air too much? Did
the dust in the atmosphere reflect the suns radiation, keeping the earth cooler?
Scientists blame global warming on carbon dioxide emissions
now. If we inhale oxygen and exhale
carbon dioxide, and if plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen, why do
carbon dioxide levels increase, and oxygen levels remain constant? As far as I know, our atmosphere pretty much
remains about 20.9 percent oxygen. And,
if carbon dioxide is heavier than air, what is it doing floating around in the
atmosphere? Why doesn’t it sink to the
ground? I am sure some environmentalist
will give me an answer. (Sorry if I am
starting to sound like Andy Rooney.)
Most every time an environmental protection story appears on
the television news, it is accompanied by video of a smokestack spewing a white
plume into the air. Oh my, look at all
that stuff polluting the air that we breathe!
What they do not explain is this.
The white plume is water vapor, a by-product of government-mandated scrubbers
cleaning the effluent before it leaves the stack. Look
at the following example.
Here are four smokestacks.
All four are in operation emitting product from coal-fired boilers. The difference is that two of them have
scrubbers removing sulfur dioxide from the effluent. Two of them do not.
First question: Which
smokestacks have the scrubbers? Most
people might say the two on the right look cleaner, but if you answered the two
on the left, you would be correct. The
process is called flue gas desulfurization where emissions pass through a lime
slurry that neutralizes the acidity before it is released into the air. The effluent picks up moisture in the process
and what you see coming from the stack is simply water vapor. At the time this photo was taken, the two
stacks on the right did not yet have scrubbers installed.
Second question:
Which of the stacks will you likely see on a television news report
about environmental concerns? Probably
not the ones on the right without scrubbers because what they release into the
air is practically invisible. I believe
the general public, and the lawmakers that represent them, have become more
vigilant about air quality from seeing what they perceive to be pollutants that
are actually harmless by-products of mandated pollution controls.
While we have a moral obligation to respect our environment,
let us not forget that God gave us these resources to use. Because God creates through wisdom, his
creation is ordered. God willed creation
as a gift addressed to man, an inheritance destined for and entrusted to him.
(CCC299) Our secular society believes it
is the only one in charge, a very naïve approach. Yes, we need to keep our environment clean,
as we would our own personal hygiene, but do not let it become an unrealistic
obsession to the point where we forget who is really in control.
