[Speed Gibson,
Monday February 6, 2006 at 10:05am]
Doing the Math
Mayor Chris Coleman and Council will soon be adopting the Kyoto protocol for St. Paul. As the Night Writer observed, the only real way to do this is to evacuate the city, the Smoking Ban being an excellent first start.
I did a little arithmetic. Given the size of St. Paul and the average wind speed, St. Paul typically gets a complete air change once an hour, and the Earth has hundreds of years of supply to provide them. Given how air is mixed, naturally polluted, naturally cleansed, and otherwise affected by civilization, the effect of Coleman's policy simply cannot be measured for thousands of years, if ever.
I did a little arithmetic. Given the size of St. Paul and the average wind speed, St. Paul typically gets a complete air change once an hour, and the Earth has hundreds of years of supply to provide them. Given how air is mixed, naturally polluted, naturally cleansed, and otherwise affected by civilization, the effect of Coleman's policy simply cannot be measured for thousands of years, if ever.
Next time I'm in St. Paul, I'm going to eat a big plate of beans.