A Canadian Scientist Trashes Kyoto Jude Wanniski October 16, 2002

Memo To: Jean Chretien, Prime Minister of Canada
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: Please Hear Dr. Tsyrkine, a Montreal Wise Man

Dear Mr. Prime Minister:

I’m an American who lives in Morristown, N.J., who has several good friends who are Canadian, a number of whom live in Montreal. One is Efim Tsyrkine, a Russian emigre who came to Canada more than a decade ago after a distinguished career as head of the Marketing Department in the All Russian Petrochemical Research Institute in St. Petersburg. He is now semi-retired, working as a philatelist, which is how I came to meet him, as I collect Russian stamps. He recently wrote me about his frustration with the Canadian government’s enthusiastic support of the Kyoto Treaty, which embraces the idea that mankind contributes significantly to the warming of the planet – and that something must be done about it. He asked if he could write to me and I would try to get through to you by this indirect method. I’ve been a longtime opponent of the Treaty and of the very idea that mankind contributes to global warming, if in fact the planet is warming and not cooling. In his analytic piece meant for you, Dr. Tsyrkine told me things I never thought about. Each one of us, for example, produces 11.04 TONS of carbon dioxide each year, just by breathing. I send it on with enthusiasm and hope you contact him for personal discussions on this important matter.

Kyoto Protocol - What is it really?

Recently, we have heard a lot about the Kyoto Protocol. For the moment let us forget all the rhetoric about "protection of nature," "environment" and so on. Instead, let us focus on the scientific background of the subject. Unfortunately, there were many words written about The Greenhouse Effect, worldwide climate warming and other terrible things, which could be the result thereof. But there are NO proven results of solid scientific researches based on the long time monitoring of the dynamic of carbon dioxide concentrations – in different parts of the Earth and during the four seasons, with simultaneous fixation on most important climate tests such as temperature of air and of ocean water, humidity, sun radiation, etc. Yet this is the only way to establish the approximate functionality between, say, average year temperature worldwide, or regionally, and the concentration of carbon dioxide and other gas pollutions. It is possible to make well-founded conclusions only when you have dependable statistics of a minimum of 30-40 years. There is nothing of the sort mentioned in the Summary of the Kyoto Document.

The famous Russian scientist Academician V.Vernadski , the President of Soviet Academy of Science in 1922-1945 was one of the first ecologists in the world and the founder of the theory of NOOSPHERE. It is a very important definition because noosphere is the area of all Earth which nature processes. One of these processes, according to Vernadski, is the circuit of oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon and other elements, which creates the life on Earth. Let us see what happens with carbon in nature. Carbon creates carbon dioxide as a final product of many biochemical life processes and of the burning of oil, gas, coal, etc. Thus, there are two ways of utilization of carbon dioxide in nature 1) Plants use it for photosynthesis, which produces organic molecules, the basic material of life on Earth. All plant life contains 15-20% of carbon from dioxide. 2) Direction of carbon circuit is that carbon dioxide dissolves in sea water, which covers more than 70% of the Earth's surface.

This process is very active. The quantity of dissolved carbon dioxide is proportional to its concentration in air above the sea surface. The more concentration there is the more carbon dioxide goes from air to water. Nobody can change this physico-chemical law! When carbon dioxide dissolves, it converts partly into carbon acid and then dissociates to kation and anion. Anion is a part of carbon acid and it reacts with metal kations like calcium, magnesium, and silicon. These metals are always presented in sea water. As a result, calcium carbonate, magnesium carbonate and other insoluble salts are created. They drop down to the bottom of the sea as nodules. There are already billions of tons of different substances collected there. Thus, this is the natural method to liquidate the abundance of carbon dioxide in atmosphere. And it is a grave mistake to say that the abundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the result solely of human activity.

Basic quantity of carbon dioxide is produced constantly on earth, in nature life activity and from other natural sources, including volcano and other geothermal activity. The following figures prove this fact. According to data published by British Petroleum, North America used 1050 million tons of oil in year 2000. By the way, the oil consumption in Europe was 950 million tons and in the rest of the word 1460 million tons. Thus, North America burns nearly 960 million tons of oil carbon yearly. The part of oil in total fuel consumption in North America is approximately 75%. This means the total quantity of carbon burned in North American engines and furnaces that year was 1,280 million tons. It produced 3500 million tons of carbon dioxide. Is this a considerable quantity, or not?

The surface of Earth is 512 million square kilometers. The surface of World Seas is 370 million square kilometers. So the WHOLE mass of North America's pollution worldwide is 3500:512=6.84 ton carbon dioxide per one square kilometer per year, or 18 kg per day. This quantity is ridiculously low! The Seawater dissolves carbon dioxide thousands times more! By the way, Canada's part in this pollution is 1.8 kg per day. But according to Kyoto protocol Canada has to decrease this kind of pollution not less than 10%. According to The Gazette editorial of October 5th, 2002 this means that Canada has to cut 200,000-450,000 jobs.

If the figures stated above are correct we are presented with an unprecedented political bluff. There are many thousands of functionaries, UN experts, politicians, journalists, and other mass media people who are feeding on the Kyoto topic. It is very interesting to note that among the 55 participants in the Kyoto protocol there are 39 European countries and 9 of them are "still moving to market economy" as is written there. But you cannot find Saudi Arabia there, which produces more than 350 million ton of oil, and half of it is used in Europe. Why so? Kuwait exports oil twice as much as Alberta does, but Alberta is punished and Kuwait isn't. How should we understand this? Where are the equal rights and justice?

And finally, the funniest facts.. An average human being makes 18 in- and exhalations per minute. As we were taught in school, oxygen from air converts in the human organism to carbon dioxide because of burning of the organic food inside. Its percentage in and exhalation is about 22%. The volume of one exhalation is 2.7 liters. So there is 0.6 liter of carbon dioxide in one exhalation, or, otherwise stated, it is 1.2 gram. It means, the average human being produces 1.2x18=21.6 gram per minute, or 0.021x60x24=30.24 kg per day, and 11.04 tons per year. It is frightening to say, but 30 millions Canadians exhale 340 millions tons of the “most harmful” carbon dioxide! And nearly the same quantity (350 million tons, see above) they put into the atmosphere with the exhaust gas of their cars, their power stations, their fireplaces, and their Bar BQ devices. It is a crime against nature, isn't it? May be the best way to decrease the pollution substantially is to stop breathing? And to ask our leadership to set us an example?

The most correct comparison we can use is that we are present in giant theatre of absurdity. And why does Mr. Chretien put the cart before the horse? It is utter nonsense for Canada to accept the requirements of the Kyoto protocol and decrease its economy voluntarily, while the USA does not accept the Kyoto demands? Where are all the sensible politicians hiding here in Canada?

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I am PhD in the area of Petroleum and Petrochemical economy. I was a head of Marketing Department in the All Russian Petrochemical Research institute, S. Petersburg. My scientific area was technological forecasting. It means I have to predict what kind of new technological processes in Oil and Gas Industry might be appeared and when, and why? It was important while we have to create the technical policy of our institute. I am the author of more than 150 publications, including 5 books and many articles in Russian popular journals like Chemistry and Life, Young Technician etc. By the way, the quantity of issue of these journals was more than million. My last book was called About Oil and Gas without the Formulas - specially for teenagers. Also I was a part-time lecturer in SPb Technological and Engineer-Economical Universities as well. I was the leader of 15 students, who successfully prepared PhD degree.

Errata (10/17/02)
Dr. Tryskine's calculations are way off and he is red-faced. I'm amazed at how many people wrote in to note the errors. I did not notice because I simply assumed he would get all this straight. He says the assumptions were supplied by an assistant. I will send him to a corner as punishment and have advised him that it is now clear why Russia lost the Cold War.
JW