Guest post by Steve Goreham, Climate Science Coalition of America
In an address to Green Mountain College on May 15, Carol Browner, Director of Energy and Climate Change Policy, stated “The sooner the U.S. puts a cap on our dangerous carbon pollution, the sooner we can create a new generation of clean energy jobs here in America…” In July, 2009, President Obama lauded the “Cash for Clunkers” program, stating that the initiative “gives consumers a break, reduces dangerous carbon pollution, and our dependence on foreign oil…”
Unfortunately, our President is misinformed about carbon pollution.
The phrase “dangerous carbon pollution” has become standard propaganda from environmental groups.
An example is a May, 2010 press release from the World Wildlife Fund that called for “a science-based limit on dangerous carbon pollution that will send a strong signal to the private sector.” Environmentalists have successfully painted a picture of black particle emissions into the atmosphere. This misconception is being used to drive efforts for Cap & Trade legislation, renewable energy, and every sort of restriction on our light bulbs, vehicles, and houses—all in the misguided attempt to stop climate change.
Carbon is integral to our skin, our muscles, our bones, and throughout the body of each person. Carbon forms more than 20% of the human body by weight. We are full of this “dangerous carbon pollution” by natural metabolic processes.
It’s true that incomplete combustion emits carbon particles that can cause smoke and smog. But this particulate carbon pollution is well controlled by the Clean Air Act of 1970 and many other federal and state statutes.
According to Environmental Protection Agency data, U.S. air quality today is significantly better than it was in 1980. Since 1980, airborne concentration of carbon monoxide is down 79%, lead is down 92%, nitrogen dioxide is down 46%, ozone is down 25%, and sulfur dioxide is down 71%. Carbon particulates have been tracked for fewer years, but PM10 particulates are down 31% since 1990 and PM2.5 particulates are down 19% since 2000. Over the same period, electricity consumption from coal-fired power plants rose 72% and vehicle miles driven are up 91%. We do not need Cap & Trade, Renewable Portfolio Standards, or the California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32), to reduce carbon particulates.
Climatism! Science, Common Sense, and the 21st Century’s Hottest Topic, Figure 78, data from EPA, 2006
The target of “dirty carbon pollution” propaganda is carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is an invisible, odorless, harmless gas. It does not cause smog or smoke. Humans breathe out 100 times the CO2 we breathe in, created as our body uses sugars. But since it’s tough to call an invisible gas “dirty,” Climatists use “carbon” instead. It’s as wrong as calling water “hydrogen” or salt “chlorine.” Compounds have totally different properties than their composing elements.
Not only is carbon dioxide not a pollutant, it’s essential for life. As pointed out by geologist Leighton Steward, carbon dioxide is green! Carbon dioxide is plant food. Increased atmospheric CO2 causes plants and trees to grow faster and larger, increase their root systems, and improve their resistance to drought, as documented by hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific papers. Carbon dioxide is the best compound that mankind could put into the atmosphere to grow the biosphere.
This “carbon pollution” nonsense is driven by Climatism, the belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth’s climate. In a debate at the Global Warming Forum at Purdue University on September 27, Dr. Susan Avery, President of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, was asked “What is the strongest empirical evidence that global warming is caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions rather than natural causes?” Neither Dr. Avery nor Dr. Robert Socolow of Princeton, who also presented, could provide an answer, except the ambiguous “There is lots of evidence.” In fact, Climatism is based largely on computer model projections. There is no empirical evidence that man-made greenhouse gases are the primary cause of global warming. According to Dr. Frederick Seitz, past President of the National Academy of Sciences, “Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful.”
As Joanne Nova, Australian author, points out: “Everything on your dinner table—the meat, cheese, salad, bread, and soft drink—requires carbon dioxide to be there. For those of you who believe carbon dioxide is a pollutant, we have a special diet: water and salt.” So the next time you drink a beer or eat a meal, beware of that “dangerous carbon pollution.”
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of Climatism! Science, Common Sense, and the 21st Century’s Hottest Topic.
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For millions of years our climate has been subject to change. The fatal flaw in the AGW hypothesis is that we have no way of knowing how the climate would have behaved without human intervention. The CO2 effects are not quantifiable with any degree of precision. Clearly there will be significant regional effects due to land use changes such as urbanisation, deforestation, irrigation etc. It is hardly scientific to say that we can’t think of anything else so it must be anthropogenic.
The misuse of language for propaganda and to further a political cause is straight out of 1984.
One commenter in a prior post made the observation that “CO2 is biodegradable”. Actually, it is just the reverse–“CO2 is bioconstructable”.
An excerpt from the FDA’s portion of the Code of Federal Regulations listing chemicals which are GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe):
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=184.1240
If greentards don’t like CO2, let them not eat anything which feeds on carbon dioxide, nor even drink soft drinks, which are bubbly owing to being carbonated using carbonic acid (H2C03) which is the dissolved-in-water sate of carbon dioxide. Let them go fly their CO2-filled Hindenbergs held airborne solely by their lofty Splattergate genocidal convictions off into the sunset of oblivion and ignominy.
“gives consumers a break, reduces dangerous carbon pollution, and our dependence on foreign oil…”
——————————————————————————————————–
Even the “giving consumers a break” part is backwards. Unless paying consumers with their own money they have yet to earn constitutes a break. The entire statement is magic thinking.
BTW, Mr. Watts, there is a Website out there, [snip – don’t want to encourage a war]
REPLY: I’ll have a look. Thanks – Anthony
Cooking to avoid ‘dangerous carbon pollution’ – and in support of 10:10 too. What a prat this guy is.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/09/climate-friendly-recipes-fearnley-whittingstall
Joanne Nova points out: “Everything on your dinner table—the meat, cheese, salad, bread, and soft drink—requires carbon dioxide to be there.
Joanne Nova fails to point out that these agricultural benefits only occur at higher latitudes and that carbon dioxide still is a greenhouse gas. A little bit of common sense will tell you that we just can’t continue putting that stuff (30 billions tons a year!) in our atmosphere without messing things up.
Just look at the carbon dioxide levels measured in Taylor Dome, Law Dome and Mauna Loa. This measured (not modeled) increase in CO2 is unprecedented.
Why not ban chickens, goats, drinking water, oxygen etc.?
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Co2 is not a pollutant! C02 is an essential plant nutrient!
But Franny can have a nice ‘sustainable’ holiday without too many guilty pleasures
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/geoffrey-lean/8051913/Soneva-Fushi-resort-in-the-Maldives-luxury-with-a-conscience-at-a-price.html
Flavio says:
October 9, 2010 at 10:16 am
One person’s “common sense” may be another’s “non sense”. How commonsensical is quantum physics or the behavior of complex, chaotic systems? So let’s stick to science and scientific observation and eschew to subjective “common sense”.
Our children have been taught that CO2 is “dangerous” since pre-school. They actually believe it as a matter of course. Anyone attempting to say it isn’t “dangerous” is seen by them as someone who is uneducated or some kind of “hick”.
The school library has several “climate change” or “global warming” or “save the planet” books on display at any given time. The kids are being indoctrinated in this drivel from the time they are old enough to read.
REPLY:
Evidence please Flavio
See this Flavio
Flavio here is the link
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
Not to be an industrial carbon dioxide bore, but it might do to have a gander at the Compressed Gas Association’s website at http://www.cganet.com/ At present, the US industrial community manufactures approximately 200 million metric tonnes (yes, that is tonnes) of high-grade carbon dioxide for such applications outside the food business for shielded arc welding, fire extinguishers, low-temperature chilling to make antiobiotics and for general medical and process refrigeration, plastics and fertilizer manufacture, lubricants manufacture, and even (surprise, surprise) biofuels manufacture.
CO2 is routinely recycled to make fuel in iron-reducing, steelmaking and steel recycling plants through directing steam-propelled and steam-mixed CO2 at the 2800 degree Celsius molten surface of metal in the sealed crucibles. It breaks down into CO and H2, which are then drawn off and fed back into the crucible burners themselves along with the natural gas. The Midrex and HYL IV processes are variations on this 150 year old steel mill trick for promoting competitive fuel economy.
From the 1800’s to the 1920’s, water gas or producer gas, the forerunner to today’s mined natural gas, used for city lighting was produced by this method, if not by partial combustion of municipal waste mixed with coal in coal gasifiers as manufactured by Allis Chalmers, by Case, and by McCormick of hydroturbine, tractor and wheat reaper fame respectively.
Lastly, hydrocarbon engineering processes as practiced today in large part derive from the application of such things as the Fischer-Tropsch and Claus and other methods. Any edition of Perry’s Chemical Engineering Handbook provides dozens of examples of the manifold uses in past and modern life for CO2. You might like to have a look at what is on offer at http://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com
My site at http://www.transactionsmagazine.com is devoted to the recycling of CO2 and its associated processes and economics, not because I am concerned about CO2 as a source of AGW, but because as long as so much money and energy have been devoted to this folly, someone needs to come up with a graceful exit strategy which pays for itself and does not result in massive global conflict over, literally, hot air. Seen war, been there, done that, and am therefore only looking after my own interests. See especially the “Tools” page.
From the article:
Here is Carol Browner.
The stock and trade of propaganda and sophistry has always been the half truth, loaded words and phrases combined with the distortion of language. It is an ancient and venerable tradition that is practiced with varying degrees of success by all sides in every controversy I have ever investigated. These things are invariably driven by ideology and faith. It is the stock and trade of political polarization and the politics of fear. Simply this type of activity is grounded on the philosophically bankrupt, political science concept, of the end justifying the means.
This also brings to mind the aphorisms, about living in glass houses and throwing stones and shoes fitting.
“increase in CO2 is unprecedented.” Oh here we go!
I could have so much fun with this, think I will leave the troll feeding to others for now.
Reminds me of that Star Trek film where a machine has been programmed to get rid of the dangerous carbon units infestation (us!!!).
I’ve learned to hate the word science. “We were trying to perform science with this mission. The science we learned from the probe crashing into the planet, will advance science.”
Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning “knowledge”)”
During the Plague era, the science was settled. Before the invention of the microscope, the science was settled. Many people became sick because of bad air (“malaria”). The science was settled. Milk maids never became sick from small pox, because the science was settled.
Water was safe to drink, even though no one ever drank it, because the science was settled. Immunology never existed because the science was settled.
The science (knowledge) was never settled.
It was always questioned.
I hate science now, because it is never questioned. It is a fact. Just like the fact the the earth is the center of the universe. I hate science now because it has turned into “I am a scientist, and you’re not. Phhhtttt.” Unfortunately, I can imagine a world where Dr. Shinobu Ihsihara never discovered color vision deficiency. After all, the science was settled.
When everything is known, what is the reason to explore, to expand the boundaries of science? To doubt, and try to prove why you are right?
Science has never been about consensus. It has never been about performing the same experiment to the letter, as published in a journal. It is about results, and falsification.
Science proves nothing, but it disproves much.
Science. No pressure.
Flavio says:
October 9, 2010 at 10:16 am
“latitudes and that carbon dioxide still is a greenhouse gas. A little bit of common sense will tell you that we just can’t continue putting that stuff (30 billions tons a year!) in our atmosphere without messing things up.”
and a little knowledge of mathematics, especially the nature of a logarithmic function, should tell you that the greenhouse effect of CO2 is already near saturation.
Re-calibrate your common sense accordingly.
The average concentration (of CO2) in a person’s home is 1000ppm, and the concentration in a conference room can be easily as high as 3000ppm. We have not had a problem with these conditions for the last 60 years, and can probably continue on in good health. Now VOCs, on the other hand?
This entire business of over the top, shove it down our throats, environmentalism smacks of “incremental gradualism”, a’la the Fabian Society (look them up), and it’s offspring American Progressiveism (sp).
I know that Anthony and many other posters here wish to keep these conversations non-political, but there is no escaping the fact that it IS political. To ignore that, is to surrender everything you value and become slaves to the State.
Jimbo says:
October 9, 2010 at 10:41 am
“…atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Early Carboniferous Period were approximately 1500 ppm (parts per million), but by the Middle Carboniferous had declined to about 350 ppm — comparable to average CO2 concentrations today!
Apart from the fact that it is ridiculous to compare the current world and climate to that of the Carboniferous, I didn’t point out that CO2 levels were very high. I was referring to the rate at which CO2 it is increasing… That rate is very high and unprecedented.