CO2 isn't a pollutant? Sure if we are considering that which comes from humans and animals, but let's say I put a running engine in your house and close all the windows...you still going to say CO2 is not a pollutant?
The biggest con in the world? It's either religion or the trump administration.
let's say I put a running engine in your house and close all the windows...you still going to say CO2 is not a pollutant?
Yes, I'll still say CO2 is not a pollutant.
You know what happens when you put a person in an environment with more CO2 than oxygen? They suffocate to death. Matter of fact, if you place 4 people in a sealed room with bunk beds and let them go to sleep, in the morning the people on the bottom bunk will be dead, while the people on the top bunk may still be alive. Why? CO2 is heavier than oxygen and displaces it, resulting in the person breathing the CO2 dying of asphyxiation.
Matter of fact, there have been several instances where scientists have proven this happens. One was a lake in Africa that killed a bunch of people and livestock.
Lake Nyos - Wikipedia
Lake Nyos is a crater lake in the Northwest Region of Cameroon, located about 315 km (196 mi) northwest of Yaoundé in Africa.[1] Nyos is a deep lake high on the flank of an inactive volcano in the Oku volcanic plain along the Cameroon line of volcanic activity. A volcanic dam impounds the lake waters.
A pocket of magma lies beneath the lake and leaks carbon dioxide (CO2) into the water, changing it into carbonic acid. Nyos is one of only three known exploding lakes to be saturated with carbon dioxide in this way, the others being Lake Monoun, also in Cameroon, and Lake Kivu in Democratic Republic of Congo.
In 1986, possibly as the result of a landslide, Lake Nyos suddenly emitted a large cloud of CO2, which suffocated 1,746 people[2] and 3,500 livestock in nearby towns and villages.[3][4] Though not completely unprecedented, it was the first known large-scale asphyxiation caused by a natural event. To prevent a recurrence, a degassing tube that siphons water from the bottom layers of water to the top allowing the carbon dioxide to leak in safe quantities was installed in 2001, and two additional tubes were installed in 2011.
What kind of a dimwit would call CO2 a pollutant based on that?
Then by your definition Oxygen is also a pollutant (as in poisonous) because breathing pure O2 will kill you as well.
Oxygen toxicity - Wikipedia
Severe cases can result in cell damage and death, with effects most often seen in the central nervous system, lungs and eyes.
Central nervous system toxicity is caused by short exposure to high partial pressures of oxygen at greater than atmospheric pressure. Pulmonary and ocular toxicity result from longer exposure to increased oxygen levels at normal pressure. Symptoms may include disorientation, breathing problems, and vision changes such as myopia. Prolonged exposure to above-normal oxygen partial pressures, or shorter exposures to very high partial pressures, can cause
oxidative damage to
cell membranes, collapse of the
alveoli in the lungs,
retinal detachment, and
seizures
And btw how would you survive if we were to get rid of all the CO2 and every plant that uses it disappears ?
The US
Clean Air Act was incorporated into the United States Code of Federal Regulations, Title 42, Chapter 85. Its Title III,
Section 7602(g) defines an air pollutant:
The term “air pollutant” means any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical, biological, radioactive (including source material, special nuclear material, and byproduct material) substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air.
Clearly this is a very broad definition. More importantly, its Title 42,
Section 7408 states that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator must publish a list of certain air pollutants:
"emissions of which, in his judgment, cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare"
In
Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency (in 2007), the US Supreme Court held that the Clean Air Act gives the EPA the authority to regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases. Two years after the Supreme Court ruling, in 2009 the EPA issued an
endangerment finding concluding that
"greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may reasonably be anticipated both to endanger public health and to endanger public welfare....The major assessments by the U.S. Global Climate Research Program (USGCRP), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the National Research Council (NRC) serve as the primary scientific basis supporting the Administrator’s endangerment finding."Greenhouse gases including CO2 unquestionably fit the Clean Air Act's broad definition of "air pollutants," and must be listed and regulated by the EPA if it can be determined that they endanger public heath and/or welfare.
Alternatively, the definition of
"pollution" from Encyclopedia Brittanica is:
"the addition of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or any form of energy (such as heat, sound, or radioactivity) to the environment at a rate faster than it can be dispersed, diluted, decomposed, recycled, or stored in some harmless form."
Thus legally in the USA, CO2 is an air pollutant which must be regulated if it may endanger public health or welfare. And according to the encyclopedic definition, CO2 is a pollutant unless our emissions can be stored "harmlessly."
