Science

The forensic takedown of this climate change sceptic is today’s most satisfying thing

Here’s a rather fabulous deconstruction of a climate sceptic who reckoned volcanoes were more to blame for climate change than anything humans are doing.

It was shared in the corner of Reddit called ‘facepalm’ by ObjectEnvironmental5 who said: ’80k people choose to belive this without any kind of evidence and then they’ll call themselves free thinkers.’

We’re not sure how thoroughly they ‘double checked’ because someone else ran the numbers on Reddit – someone who knows a lot more about this sort of thing than we do – and what a fabulous (and depressing) read it is too.

‘Humans released 37.2 billion tons of CO2 in 2021.

‘The volcano in Greece they are referring to is the Kolumbo submarine volcano which does continuously offgas.

‘This volcano is 3km wide but realistically it’s just a bunch of hydrothermal vents across that area, not one big opening, but we’re playing pretend so let’s play pretend and say that this is a massive 3km wide chimney just spewing CO2.

‘This tweet claims all CO2 ever released by man in under 1 day, but let’s just do 2021 in 1 day.
For a release to the atmosphere across a 7km² opening in a single day of 37.2 billion tons, or 1.55 trillion kg per hour.

‘At atmospheric pressure and 20°C, CO2 is 1.85kg/m³ which means 837 billion m³/hr. Across a 7km² opening means the CO2 would have to be rushing past at 119,691m/hr or 75 miles per hour. A vent 17x the size of the Vatican spewing CO2 at hurricane speeds, and that is just the CO2 for only 2021.

‘Let’s pump these numbers up to the numbers of the tweet now:

‘Humans have released roughly 2000 billion tons of CO2 since 1870. So our 1 day model needs to be multiplied by 54.

‘So what is that a strong hurricane? Lol no.

‘That’s 4020 miles per hour or mach 5.2.

‘This dude is claiming that he did the math and claimed that volcano, that is larger than the blast radius of both of the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan combined is spewing out a solid column of CO2 rushing past at Mach 5.2?

‘And that’s assuming everything is atmospheric pressure. Ffs.’
Theleming

No more questions, your honour!

‘People who really do the math always amaze me. It shows the complete lack of understanding that people who make these types of claims have. It’s truly bizarre how you can just deny something while not even understanding the bare bones basics of it all.

‘R’amen to you dude.’
Snow_Walrus4679

‘People who really do the math also tend to show their work too. Smart people realize that it’s never enough to simply say “this is what I know”. If you want people to believe you, you have to say “this is how I know what I know.”
the_great_zyzogg

‘I doubled checked what I know. It’s right.’
CarrytheLabelGuy

‘Even went and confirmed it with myself.’
asdfasfq34rfqff

And just in case you still had doubts …

‘Of course they believe him, he did the math! Don’t ask to see it though, or ask what figures he used, or anything like that. You don’t have to because he already did the math! Hell you don’t even need to form an opinion, he did the math!

‘ThE mAtH cHeCkS oUt.’
NihilisticThrill

Source Reddit u/ObjectEnvironmental5