Perfluorotributylamine (PFTBA) is the latest greenhouse gas scare (GHGS). The media and web sites like
countercurrents.org are full of statements like “PFTBA is 7,100 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the Earth” according to University of Toronto scientists who claim to have found an average of 0.18 parts per trillion of PFTBA in the Toronto air samples.
What does it mean for you – or not?
Greenhouse Gas Theory
The Greenhouse Gas Theory (GHGT) which – please know, is nothing but a
theory – was invented 200 years ago and repudiated 100 years ago.
Al Gore and many non-governmental organizations use it regularly to tell you that we are all going to either (i) fry in hell, or (ii) freeze in the dark, and have to adjust our life styles of that of the Cro-Magnon or Neanderthal people, who lived a few ten-thousand years ago in caves.
Numbers in Perspective
In case you are not quite sure about the numbers and units of measurement (parts per trillion) touted, let me give you more useful and comparable information in the table below:
In simple terms, a trillion is a million millions (by North American counting) or, what I have previously termed it, an “
Illion-12.” As you can see from the table, when comparing the concentration of PFTBA in the air over Toronto to that of the major constituents, nitrogen and oxygen in the same parts per trillion units, it is miniscule. Even the “evil” carbon dioxide gas is 2,000,000,000 times more prevalent in the atmosphere. So, let’s go on to the claimed “greenhouse gas” effect.
PFTBA’s GHG Effect
The media reports say “PFTBA is 7,100 times more effective … than carbon dioxide
over a 100-year time frame.” That statement, of course, is meaningless. Why not look at it over a 1,000-year or 1,000,000-year time frame? What’s wrong with its effect that is has to be expressed in units of 100 times the (actual) effect?”
The calculated “radiative forcing” of PFTBA is 0.00015 W per square meter. That is approximately 1/100,000,000 of the energy received on the earth’s surface from the sun’s radiation in mid-summer when the sun is straight overhead on a cloudless day. In other words, that calculated forcing is equivalent to about 0.001 seconds of the strongest sunshine you could experience on earth.
Your guess is probably correct, PFTBA’s calculated effect is so miniscule that it would be difficult to determine experimentally. Even if the 7,100 (time-multiplied) factor were correct, the cumulative effect (if any) of other atmospheric constituents, such as CO2, would have to be multiplied by the same time factor.
Therefore, the claimed GHGT effect of PFTBA would only amount to 1/2,000,000,000 of that of the CO2 in the atmosphere. That’s unless the earth’s atmosphere were to experience a rapid loss of its CO2, which would mean that nearly all life on earth would also rapidly come to a screeching halt.
We should be thankful for the CO2 in our air. As to the effect of PFTBA, forget it.
