The contribution of metabolic heat to climate change.

[CraigD]

The math in my head is mostly asleep, but this information you're posting looks very useful. I might like to quote you on another forum if it would be ok. I'm not sure what the etiquette is for things like that.

Thanks for asking!

 

The etiquette is you may freely use any matterial from posts at hypography, so long as that material is not marked "Copyrighted" (which it almost never is, except for the occasional original graphic), in which case you must ask the copyright holder’s permission before using it.

 

Please feel free to quote my posts however and wherever you like. Better, provided it doesn’t violate the other forum’s rules, provide a link back to the post or thread – the more links are made to hypography, the higher it ranks in search engines and advertiser's statistics, which helps hypography pay its bills.

 

Note, however, that I’ve mostly just interpreted data provided at wikipedia, so any credit should be shared with them.

[Turtle]

I think we're probably doing more harm with our CO2 as well, but the debates I see about global warming in forum arguments tend to fly all over the place. The skeptics tend to pollute the issue with endless links and distractions. I'm attempting to make an ultra-simplified proof that we do in fact contribute to the heating of our environment.

 

Yes, we humans belch out x amount of CO2 per q time period at a measurable rate that I recall ol' Uncle Al calculated quite specifically. I was sure it was here in an old thread but haven't turned it up the last couple times I looked. Nonetheless, said Uncle Al had it a significant contribution to the mix, and I recall no one found fault with his numbers, only his solution. :phones: Oh, and then there's the methane we emit. Pardon me...stepped on a barking spider. :hyper:

[Turtle]

Yes, we humans belch out x amount of CO2 per q time period at a measurable rate that I recall ol' Uncle Al calculated quite specifically. I was sure it was here in an old thread but haven't turned it up the last couple times I looked. Nonetheless, said Uncle Al had it a significant contribution to the mix, and I recall no one found fault with his numbers, only his solution. :shrug: Oh, and then there's the methane we emit. :cup: Pardon me...stepped on a barking spider. :doh: :hyper:

 

Here's a source (of information, not carbon dioxide:hyper: ): They say no worries about the breathing, and it's a government source so go ahead and exhale. :hyper:

Q. Should we be concerned with human breathing as a source of CO2?

 

A. No. While people do exhale carbon dioxide (the rate is approximately 1 kg per day, and it depends strongly on the person's activity level), this carbon dioxide includes carbon that was originally taken out of the carbon dioxide in the air by plants through photosynthesis - whether you eat the plants directly or animals that eat the plants. Thus, there is a closed loop, with no net addition to the atmosphere. Of course, the agriculture, food processing, and marketing industries use energy (in many cases based on the combustion of fossil fuels), but their emissions of carbon dioxide are captured in our estimates as emissions from solid, liquid, or gaseous fuels. [RMC]

 

Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) - Frequently Asked Questions

 

So for 6.5 billion people that's 1 kilo * 6,500,000,000 = 6.5 billion kilos per day CO2 added to atmosphere daily by humans exhaling, 6.5 billion * 365 days = 23,725,000,000,000 kilos per year, or 6.5 billion * 2.2 lb per kilo / 2,000 lbs per ton = 26,097,500,000 tons per year. :)

[Shapedoctor]

Thanks for asking!

 

The etiquette is you may freely use any matterial from posts at hypography, so long as that material is not marked "Copyrighted" (which it almost never is, except for the occasional original graphic), in which case you must ask the copyright holder’s permission before using it.

 

Please feel free to quote my posts however and wherever you like. Better, provided it doesn’t violate the other forum’s rules, provide a link back to the post or thread – the more links are made to hypography, the higher it ranks in search engines and advertiser's statistics, which helps hypography pay its bills. :)

 

Note, however, that I’ve mostly just interpreted data provided at wikipedia, so any credit should be shared with them.

 

Thanks again for the help CraigD. If you honestly don't believe that .04% of something is significant then I would like to invite you to give me .04% of your annual income. Let me know if you want my paypal information.:)

[Shapedoctor]

Yes, we humans belch out x amount of CO2 per q time period at a measurable rate that I recall ol' Uncle Al calculated quite specifically. I was sure it was here in an old thread but haven't turned it up the last couple times I looked. Nonetheless, said Uncle Al had it a significant contribution to the mix, and I recall no one found fault with his numbers, only his solution. :) Oh, and then there's the methane we emit. :eek: Pardon me...stepped on a barking spider. :doh: ;)

 

Nice to meet you Turtle.:)

 

 

Here's a source (of information, not carbon dioxide:hyper: ): They say no worries about the breathing, and it's a government source so go ahead and exhale. :)

 

 

Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) - Frequently Asked Questions

 

So for 6.5 billion people that's 1 kilo * 6,500,000,000 = 6.5 billion kilos per day CO2 added to atmosphere daily by humans exhaling, 6.5 billion * 365 days = 23,725,000,000,000 kilos per year, or 6.5 billion * 2.2 lb per kilo / 2,000 lbs per ton = 26,097,500,000 tons per year. :)

 

Thanks for that link and information. That's a lot of CO2. I wouldn't worry about breathing at all if weren't for all the industrial CO2 we're producing on top of it.

[Shapedoctor]

The information at answers.com support the 100 watt figure for human beings.

 

100 W - BioMed: approximate average power used by the human body

 

And I saw this:

 

3 GW - Tech: approximate peak power generation of the world's largest nuclear reactor

 

Orders of magnitude: Information from Answers.com

 

At 660 GW the combined metabolisms of 6.5 billion human beings produces about 220 times as much heat-energy as the world's largest nuclear reactor.