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Does termite killer worsen global warming?
January 21st, 2009, 3:20 pm · 13 Comments · posted by Pat Brennan, science, environment editor
A pesticide widely used to kill termites appears to be a potent greenhouse gas — far more potent than previously thought, according to UC Irvine climate scientists.
New measurements show that sulfuryl fluoride, often used when homes are tented for termite control, lingers in the atmosphere for at least 30 to 40 years — and perhaps as long as a century, according to the UCI team that includes Nobel laureate F. Sherwood Rowland. Scientists had thought the gas vanished within about five years. (Tented home pictured above; all photos courtesy UC Irvine.)
Levels of the pesticide in the atmosphere have nearly doubled in the past six years, the scientists say, and could rise; use of the compound might well grow as an alternative to methyl bromide, a pesticide that was phased out after studies showed it depletes the earth’s protective ozone layer.
“The tendency would be toward using more and more sulfuryl fluoride,” said Rowland (right), one of the new study’s authors who won the Nobel in 1995 for connecting chloro-fluorocarbons, or CFCs, to ozone depletion. “That would go in the direction of being a more important greenhouse gas and one that ought to be investigated.”
Today the compound is believed to make up only a small percentage of the mix of greenhouse gases emitted by human civilization that scientists say are warming the planet. Carbon dioxide remains the most important of these emissions, followed by methane.
But with continued use, the role of sulfuryl fluoride could expand to a significant amount — especially with a far longer life in the atmosphere than previously assumed.
“This is sort of a warning, a lift of the finger, and saying, ‘OK, be careful,’” said Mads Sulbaek Andersen (left), a UCI postdoctoral researcher and also an author of the study.
In California, the effects of the pesticide is equal to the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by a million vehicles in a year. The state also accounts for roughly 60 percent of the entire world’s use of the pesticide, the scientists said.
Even worse, sulfuryl fluoride and carbon dioxide block different wavelengths of heat as it attempts to escape the planet. The pesticide can reduce the heat’s ability to escape in the region of wavelengths unblocked by carbon dioxide.
The pesticide is also about 4,000 times more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.
The scientists involved in the study say the state should consider whether to replace the pesticide in coming years with a less harmful alternative.
The study, also authored by chemistry professor Don Blake, was published online Wednesday by the journal, Environmental Science and Technology.
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Wooo-weee!!! Here we go again with this so-called “global warming” sirens going after anything with complete lack of supporting evidence folks!! I wish ya’ll could see how much I was rolling my eyes and giggling when I read this “important” and “scientific” article about the “global crisis” … Geeeeez Lousie, enuff already with this hysteria! I started considering “Global Warming” a religious cult about November or December. They have their own high priests, dogma, worship criteria and of course.. millions of rabid zealots promoting their one-sided “scientific” end-of-world senerio. Very entertaining, yet sad and pathetic at the same time.
“The wavelength carbon dioxide doesn’t block, now the only escape hatch for the earth’s heat”
That’s got to be one of the more scientifically illiterate sentences I’ve seen in a long time.
Carbon dioxide only “blocks” (not really the right term) infrared energy being radiated away from the earth on a small number of frequencies — which is why, incidentally, there’s only so much warming you can get with just CO2; once there’s enough CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb all the energy being radiated at those frequencies, adding further CO2 to the atmosphere causes little additional warming. (It wouldn’t cause any additional warming at all, except that CO2′s absorption wavelengths expand slightly when CO2 concentrations increase.) This is one of the reasons that catastrophic global warming theorists have to assume dramatic positive feedback effects; the effects of CO2 alone simply can’t provide enough warming to make much of a difference.
It’s absolutely not true, as your sentence suggests, that CO2 absorbs infrared at all wavelengths but one, which the pesticide in question absorbs. I don’t know what the absorption wavelength of the pesticide is, but it certainly doesn’t “block” every “escape hatch” wavelength that CO2 doesn’t.
Not to mention the slaughter if billions upon billions of innocent termites!
Stop this scourge on humanity NOW!
Please call your congressman an insist this be part of the new Obama stimulus $$$.
Termite contractors are no different than Nazi’s gassing innocent people.
i will be contacting the local Peta branch. termites have feelings too!
Thanks to reader for pointing out problem in sentence on wavelengths. Adjustments made after checking with scientist.
Good update, Pat, and please pardon my spazzy response.
Did you ask Al Gore? The people in the Midwest and East might have an opinion too.
When I was trying to eat an ice cream cone the other day it started melting. Finally I understand why this happens, its global warming!!!!!!!
I want to know what the next chicken little sky is falling myth will be for the mentally deranged liberals.
Another panic alert based on speculation.
Of course we don’t want to tell the story of how termite flatulence emits large amounts of methane.
Typical…
Now that study after study and research after research shows the global warming theory is debunked, it’s time to go after another idea…Termite killer. Give me a break.
I think if there is global warming it’s because those enviromentalists won’t keep their mouth shut with all the hot air they are blowing.
Do your research…temps are NOT on a steady increase. They go up and they go down. Stop the alarming people.
I’m amazed that California supposedly uses 60% of the sufuryl fluoride used in the world. While it is true that California does more fumigations than Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Georgia, Texas and the few other states with drywood termites and/or woodboring beetles, bedbugs, or the other insects that require fumigation to eradicate them in a structure; sulfuryl fluoride is also widely used in several other countries as well. Is it possible the scientist or the reporter mistook US usage for world usage to raise the alarmist quotient of the article?
“Yes, yes it does cause global warming, Virginia.”
Folks: Mr. Global Warming Big Al knows how to burn the juice:
-J
The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh — more than 20 times the national average……….
Just for 2 people living in the house. Termites ain’t got a chance……