Linoleum example gives perspective

 Joseph D'Aleo, first director of meteorology on the Weather Channel, says, "If the atmosphere was a 100-story building, our annual anthropogenic (man-made) carbon dioxide contribution today would be equivalent to the linoleum on the first floor."

  Politicians of seven western states, including Arizona, and four Canadian provinces plan to reduce the thickness of that linoleum by 10 percent using "cap and trade" instead of sandpaper.

  But let's check the D'Aleo numbers: A 100-story building, if each story is eight feet, would be 800 feet tall. If this represents the atmosphere, nitrogen, which is 79 percent, would be represented by 79 stories and oxygen (20 percent) would be 20 stories.

  This leaves one story representing all the greenhouse gases (one percent), eight feet, or 96 inches. Since water vapor or clouds is 98 percent of the greenhouse gases, 98 percent of 96 inches equals 94 inches which would be filled with water, leaving at most, only two inches as carbon dioxide. Annual anthropogenic carbon dioxide is 5 percent of the total, so 5 percent of the two inches equals 1/10 of an inch (linoleum thickness).

  Eleven states and provinces plan to reduce this 1/10 of an inch (representation) by 10 percent, or .01 of total carbon dioxide. Hardly worth the effort.

  Nuclear energy, with no carbon dioxide emissions, might be a better solution.

STUART H. JONES
Yuma