Today, Global warming a religion for environmentalists.  They defend it with the same zeal as a true believer in Christianity.  And they have just as much 'proof' that they're right in their beliefs too.

Most of the people who buy into the theory aren't bad people.  They're just mis informed and take alot of things on faith.  Again, just like Christians do with their preachers and preists.  They 'know' that scientists wouldn't lie, so they have no reason to disbelieve anything.

One thing I like to remind the environmetnalists is the FACT that Greenland was once inhabitable and supported agriculture.  Those glaciers that everyone is so up in arms over are NOT permanent.  They advance, they recede. They fluctuate, just like the rest of the planet and its climate.  Is the Arctic ice sheet receding? Yes.  Is it caused by man, not hardly.  Because all the while that the northern hemisphere is showing signs of warming and melting glaciers, the antarctic ice sheet has nearly doubled since the 1990's.

Another thing I like to point out is that nature is the biggest polluter of the planet. Not man.  In a single volcanic eruption, more 'greenhouse gasses' are relased into the atmosphere than if every car on the planet were to sit at idle for 100 years!  Yet I don't see environmentalists screaming for pollution controls on volcanoes.

I'm all for keeping the planet clean.  I choose to do it responsibly and without all the hype and zeal that others choose.  Things are better when they're clean.  But we don't need regulations to keep things that way..

skrapiron -FSO wrote on 02/18/08 at 08:37:52:


Wow, that is a killer statistic

Where did you hear that? (Its not that I don't believe you, it's just that hearing it from a book etc. is more convincing to others than from a forum).

Well, being one that professes to be concerned about global warming, I'm suprised that you would want to contribute more 'greenhouse gasses' by modifying your bike to use a catalytic converter.

Check it out for yourself.  Beginning in 1975, all US automobiles were required by law to have one.  Since then, the atomspheric CO2 concentration has done nothing but go up?  Why?  It has everything to do with what  a catalytic converter does. (A side note for clarity:  Total atmospheric CO2 saturation has risen from 317ppm to 370ppm since 1975 (which represents the steepest increase in the history of the planet).  However, CO2 is the SECOND largest contributor to the 'greenhouse effect'.  When factored in with the other total gasses, CO2 contributes just 3.618% to the total 'greenhouse effect', of whuch human contribution makes up just 0.28% The largest cuprit in the phenomenon is in fact WATER VAPOR, which is repsonsible for 95% of the 'greenhouse effect'.  This fact is conveniently omitted from the data used to support the theory of global warming, since it is nothing that man can control or regulate and its hard to make water into the bad guy since it comprises 90% of the planets make up.   )

The converters is intended to reduce the toxicity of emissions from the internal combustion engine.  It does so first by converting Nitrogenoxide into O2 and N2. (which exist diatomically in nature).  The free oxygen that is created is then used for the oxidation of other toxic gasses as well as unburned hydrocarbons. The N2 is released unbonded in a diatomic state where it will eventually be converted into breathable atmosphere (which is 70% nitrogen)

The second reaction in the catalyzation process is the oxidation of Carbonmonoxide into Carbondioxide using a percentage of the seperated O2 created in the first catalyst reaction.  That CO2 (which did not exist prior to the oxidation process) is then exhausted into the atmosphere.

The third reaction is the oxidation of unburned hydrocarbons  (HC) into water (H2O) and, yes, even more Carbondioxide.  This conversion was intended to reduce ground level pollutants (commonly referred to as smog). Instead it created its own new set of problems.

The unforseen drawbacks to the catalytic conversion process are, one the creation of tons of 'greenhouse gasses' through the catalyzation process, and two the contribution to ground level ozone pollution (which is created when the unused diatomically bonded O2 molecules are ionized by solar energy and create the compound O3.)  Not to mention the sulfuric acid that is created when the sulfurdioxide in the exhaust gas is mixed with the water created in the hydrocarbon conversion. That sulfuric acid drips from every tail pipe on the road and finds its way into every aquifer.  

Its another case where man kinds best effort to clean up one problem,  creates another, larger problem.


And this does qualify as a technical discussion, since the original question is about the catalytic converter and it is important to understand what a catalytic converter is intended to do, before we can discuss the application of said converter.  This has nothing to do with politics or beliefs.  It is what it is...