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Stephen Eakman

May 18, 2015
11:07

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Can anyone explain why global temperature has been stable for 17 years while carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have almost doubled? And how can the Supreme Court (what science credentials) declare carbon dioxide a pollutant when ever tree and plant on earth would die without it?

Haley Davis

Jun 10, 2015
01:32

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Weather Underground has an article about why too much carbon dioxide is considered a pollution and is harmful to our planet. I have added a short paragraph from the article, but you can find the entire article at http://www.wunderground.com/resources/climate/cei.asp?MR=1 "Is Carbon Dioxide a Pollutant? By Jeffrey Masters, Ph.D. — Director of Meteorology, Weather Underground, Inc. Is Carbon Dioxide a pollutant? The fossil fuel industry points out in their ads that carbon dioxide it essential for both plant life and human life. Is it wrong, then, to label carbon dioxide as a pollutant? The definition of pollution in Webster's dictionary is "to make physically impure or unclean: Befoul, dirty." By that definition, carbon dioxide is not pollution. However, Webster's also has the definition: "to contaminate (an environment) esp. with man-made waste." Carbon dioxide is a waste gas produced by fossil fuel combustion, so can be classified as man-made waste. One can also make the case that carbon dioxide is contaminating the environment, since increased CO2 from burning fossil fuels has already harmed sea life. Carbon dioxide, when dissolved in sea water, is deadly to shell-building microorganisms that form an important part of the food chain in some cold ocean regions. The extra CO2 lowers the pH and make the water too acidic for these organisms to build their shells. As I reported in my blog on Acidifying the Oceans, the observed increase in acidity of 0.1 pH units during the past century due to fossil fuel burning, and expected continued acidification in the coming decades, could cause a massive die off of marine life and collapse of the food chain in these ocean areas. Based on these arguments, the fossil fuel industry's slogan, "Carbon dioxide: they call it pollution, we call it life!" could just as truthfully be phrased, "Carbon dioxide. We call it pollution, and we call it death." One need only look at our sister planet, Venus, to see that too much "life" can be a bad thing. There, an atmosphere of 96% carbon dioxide has created a hellish greenhouse effect. The temperatures of 860 F at the surface are hot enough to melt lead. There's not too much life there!"

Bill Ferree

Jul 2, 2015
08:35

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Another analogy. Suppose somebody in your favorite Italian restaurant doubled the salt content in the marinara sauce. Would you eat it? Salt is a totally necessary ingredient in the right proportions but a poison if in excess.