Guest post by Steve Goreham
Originally published in The Washington Times
December 7, 2009 is a date that will live in infamy. Not only in memory of the attack on Pearl Harbor, but the day the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared carbon dioxide to be a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.
The 52-page EPA Endangerment Finding can be summarized simply. The agency concluded that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases emitted by US industry and vehicles were causing dangerous global warming. The EPA stated that these gases “…threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.” The agency relied on studies by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations, the U.S. Global Climate Research Program, and the National Research Council.
That ruling is bizarre. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is an invisible, odorless, harmless gas. It does not cause smoke or smog. The rising visible plumes from the smokestacks of a power plant are not CO2. That’s condensing water vapor. We can’t see carbon dioxide.
The EPA ruling failed to include nature’s largest greenhouse gas, water vapor. Scientists estimate that 75 percent to 90 percent of Earth’s greenhouse effect is due to water vapor and clouds. As any eighth-grade chemistry student learns, burning hydrocarbon fuel produces both carbon dioxide and water vapor. When natural gas (methane) is burned, two water vapor molecules are produced for each carbon dioxide molecule. Since water vapor is a greenhouse gas produced by human industry, the EPA should declare water a pollutant by its own logic.
Rather than being a pollutant, CO2 is green! Carbon dioxide is plant food, a compound essential for plant photosynthesis. Hundreds of peer-reviewed studies show that higher levels of atmospheric CO2 cause plants to grow faster and larger. Wheat, orange trees, pine trees, hardwood trees, prairie grasses, and even poison ivy thrive in higher levels of CO2.
Plants grow larger root systems, produce more seeds and vegetables, and bloom larger flowers with more CO2. Tree wood density increases. Plants grow better in poor soil and drought conditions with higher levels of atmospheric CO2. In fact, if we wanted to put one compound into the atmosphere that would be great for the biosphere, carbon dioxide is that compound. Yet, almost every university and company now tracks the size of its “carbon footprint” and tries to reduce carbon emissions.
But isn’t it true that too much of anything can be bad for the environment? Yes in the case of real pollutants such as carbon monoxide or lead, but carbon dioxide is a harmless compound that is common in nature. The 2007 IPCC Carbon Cycle Model estimated that the atmosphere contained 750 billion tons of carbon in the form of CO2 with an additional 38,000 billion tons of carbon dissolved in the oceans. Mankind adds a comparably small 6 billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere each year.
The current atmospheric level of 394 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide is actually somewhat on the low side. Dr. William Happer of Princeton University points out that atmospheric CO2 reached several thousand ppm in past ages. Geological evidence shows that life flourished during those past times of high CO2.
Over 190 nations are currently gathered in Doha, Qatar, attempting to negotiate a global treaty to restrict carbon dioxide emissions. Future generations will regard the early 20th century as an age of climate foolishness.
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the new book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.
the early 20th century as an age of climate foolishness.
21st century?
They, the EPA get away with that because the general public is…..need I say….FN ignorant! And who to point the finger better than ourselves for allowing our education system to fail. Not sure the universities can be turned around as they are bought and paid for by progressives. Further, the K-12 system is amazingly broken. I dare any you to substitute teach one day to see the atrocity we face here in the good ol’ US of A. Sounding cynical, you bet I am.
“Future generations will regard the early 20th century as an age of climate foolishness.”
Perhaps the late 20th and early 21st centuries…
Actually, this is completely wrong on the history. It was the Supreme Court that concluded that CO2 was a pollutant under the terms of the Clean Air Act and forced the EPA to act. And that was on April 2nd 2007. How infamous was that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_v._Environmental_Protection_Agenc
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/washington/03scotus.html
will regard the early 20th century as an age of climate foolishness.
21st
I’m in it for the genus now. The species sapiens appears not so wise these days, this being its 3rd interglacial so far. Only in the 3rd did sapiens demonstrate written language…..
It may not be all that bad, you know, stripping the heathen devil gas from the late Holocene/Anthropocene atmosphere.
Consider that although we are at an eccentricity minima, maybe, maybe not, poised on the abrupt climate bluff to the next glacial, is the present iteration of the genus Homo all that wise?
Knowing that:
“An examination of the fossil record indicates that the key junctures in hominin evolution reported nowadays at 2.6, 1.8 and 1 Ma coincide with 400 kyr eccentricity maxima, which suggests that periods with enhanced speciation and extinction events coincided with periods of maximum climate variability on high moisture levels” (http://www.manfredmudelsee.com/publ/pdf/Trends-rhythms-and-events-in-Plio-Pleistocene-African-climate.pdf)
What would you do 200kyrs (2 glacials and 2 interglacials) before our next, potential, hardware upgrade? Strip the late Holocene prognosticated climate security blanket from the atmosphere?
Recent extreme glacials have proven to be rather prone to selection of the fittest. In your mind, would this be a bad thing? I mean with terminal morraine as far south as Kansas recently (in NA nomenclature pre-1990), could surviving the loss of Chicago actually be a bad thing.
Just sayin……..
Very interesting! I’ve sometimes made the argument that it’s at least conceivable that it might be more dangerous to share an air space with two metabolically (and potentially disease-sharing) nonsmokers might be more “dangerous” than sharing one with a single smoker. However, I had never considered CO2 production as being part of the “pollution” coming from those nonsmokers — somehow I had missed that initial announcement three years ago or it just skimmed by one of the smoother surfaces in my brain! Does anyone know how does CO2 measurement compares to the EPA’s five or six “Signal Pollutants” (Ozone, Particulates, Sulfur Dioxide etc)? Would it be as reasonable to argue that a room with a higher reading of CO2 than normal had a higher level of “air pollution” in the same sense that a room with a higher measurement of O3 or SO2 or Particulates could be so claimed?
😕
MJM, who has a long-standing sci-fi-styel short story titled “Breathers” that will be getting published as part of a collection of works in 2013 at some point. Note: I am NOT a card-carrying member of VHEMT! ;>
IIRC, the SC ruled that it was within the EPA’s jurisdiction to rule that CO2 was a pollutant if it chose to do so. It didn’t force the EPA to act.
blah blah blah.
might as well blame nixon – no reasonable reading of the clean air act would have allowed them to avoid declaring co2 a pollutant.
iirc, the finding they made was the mildest outcome they had available.
Gary, it just goes to show how the Law is an ass.
The Supremes have no idea whether GHGs have an important effect on temperatures or not.
This is indeed bizarre. Make that scarey. The time is rapidly approaching that the federal governments and their supported institutions will no longer be respected as valid enterprises. The results may be shocking to all. This is really scarey.
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 8, 2012 at 5:55 pm
will regard the early 20th century as an age of climate foolishness.
21st
=============
Nice catch Leif (and others), I could do the same without a PHd.
Pretty low hanging fruit.
Or did we want to improve the post ?
Keeps circling back to this, CAGW blamed upon co2 is an orchestrated attack on reason, freedom and private wealth.
Orchestrated by agencies of our governments. Funded by. Accepted by. Promoted by.
Every check and balance our ancestors built into civil government, with the intent of limiting the damage caused by the periodic waves of public hysteria, has been corrupted.
The people we pay to protect our interests are the activists here.
Policy proposed & enacted, science NOT archived in the policy papers.
Civil servants actively pushing enviro-ideology. Not fired.Public proclamations of certainty, by science policy advisors miss-citing the IPCC-FAR.
Bottom line, ask your govt,at any level, with respect to any CAGW/CC mitigation policy
“Please supply me with the science, that supports this policy”.
“Or please direct me to the archive of science, you (The Agency) are using to support this policy”.
Your opinion of your government & its minions will never be higher than it is today.
michaeljmcfadden says:
December 8, 2012 at 5:58 pm
While your at it you might want to reconsider crawling into one of those rebreather airline cabins; never enter without heavy doses of neosporin applied to the inner sanctuary of your nose. 🙂 Also, no CO2 scrubbers. How we survive…amazing.
Ask the UN, in their line of thinking, CO2 from Europe is bad, CO2 from the USA is bad, and CO2 from China, the number producer of CO2, is OK. Any chance I can get a multimillion dollar research grant to prove that rising CO2 levels cause brain dead Zombies in the EPA and the UN?
I have a challenge for the blog.
Find one thing that you possess, use, or consume that does not have some type of linkage to fossil fuel.
Really, take a look around and find one!
Can you?
The EPA’s Endangerment finding is exactly that,,,, A Pearl Harbor,,,,,,,,,, but focused on your standard of living, and nothing more.
Does it matter?????
You decide in the end.
We humans, all 7 billion+ of us, exhale CO2 while breathing. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And our government wants us to believe that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant. That would be hilarious if it wasn’t pathetic.
@Juan Slayton & others:
As we’re only a dozen years into the 21st century, and most of the AGW Insanity was promulgated and pushed in the 20th century, I think it’s fair to say “20th Century” was the insanity phase. Personally, I’m expecting a cold plunge in the next 10 to 20 years that will likely end once and for all the foolishness (one way or another… either by economic and social collapse or by a ‘chastening’ from a sane electorate “focusing the mind”…)
So I think it’s a mite too early to call the whole 21st Century a loss…
@highflight56433:
Or any modern building…..
I once upon a time was Facilities Director of a 110,000 square foot facility (3 floors). As in most growing high tech companies, we had new-ish carpet and were adding “furniture” periodically to fill out the space. (Think ‘cubicles’). Some folks had a touch of “sick building syndrome” – one being me. Seems I’m a bit sensitive to “it”, whatever “it” is.
On the theory it had something to do with the “stuff” coming into the building (since I’ve never had a problem with concrete and steel…) I tried 2 experiments.
1) In our smallish isolated area for Facilities and I.T. (I was also Director of I.T.) I tried treating the carpet that was new. Sprinkled it with two alternating solutions. First, a dilute ammonia solution. Then waited 20 minutes. Then a dilute vinegar solution. (You can use either order, depending on if you want to ‘finish’ with a medicinal smell or a Cesar Salad smell 😉 The theory is that any acids and bases will react with one or the other. (It works. Removes tobacco smells too. I first developed this when ‘on the road’ and coping with tobacco stink rooms prior to their being ‘non-smoking’ rooms. It’s based on a toned down version of military chemical decontamination protocols.) That drastically cut symptoms “for a while”…
Then I found that the ‘incoming’ air was ‘not fresh’. Seems that on the large A/C units on the roof there’s a ‘percent to recycle’ setting. For “energy savings” it us usually set to have 10% to 20% (if you are lucky) ‘make up air’. The rest is cycled over and over and over and…
2) At the next A/C filter replacement / tune up I had the A/C guys crank the “make up air” dampers wide open. I think it was about 50% “make up air”. Suddenly nobody had symptoms. Heck, overall energy and wellbeing in the whole building went up near as I could tell. The place just felt “fresh and energized”. Even folks who had no idea what I’d done noticed.
Yes, energy costs went up some. Not much at all, though. Then again, being as we were in the San Francisco Bay Area where it’s got “natural air conditioning”, it’s not like we had much in the way of heating or cooling costs anyway. ( I suspect that given the number of computers in the building that just doing air turnover reduced our cooling costs more than it increased our winter heating costs… but “things changed” before I could gather and inspect over a years worth of data).
So if you are worried about ‘breathing in what the other guy breathed out’, you need to avoid any building with central A/C and closed windows…
Per the EPA and CO2:
Folks sometimes accuse me of being a Right Wing Republican. Other folks get mad at me when I say Republicans are as bad as Democrats. ( In reality, I’m more of a libertarian leaning sort). As an example of just why, one need look no further than Tricky Dick Nixon and the EPA. (Though I’d toss in the Bush Presidents as big “talk a good line and keep on spending” sorts… Read My Lips, I’m Raising Taxes was followed by “Ok, I’ll cut taxes but we’ll keep on spending full tilt”.)
What we really need is to go through each “presidential legacy” and toss them out, one at a time in reverse order, deconstructing the Central Planning Machine one Legacy at a time. We don’t need Central Planning Medical care. We don’t need Central Planning Mortgages. We don’t need Central Planning Education (thanks to Carter… folks forget we had perfectly fine Public Education BEFORE there was any Federal Dept of Education…) etc. etc. right on back through Tricky Dick Nixon and Johnson’s “Great Society” programs and all.
Devolve the power and authority back to “the States and the People, respectively”… We just don’t need a Federal EPA. (We certainly don’t need BOTH a Federal and a California one duplicating and ‘one-upping’ each other…)
u,k.(us): Or did we want to improve the post ?
Well, as a matter of fact yes, although I would favor a convention that as such minor errors are corrected, the flagging comments get deleted.
It is not like we didn’t know this was coming. The only reason this has been allowed to happen is the political opposition has spent all its capital and leadership tilting at economic windmills. Now we will see a real tax increase that is beyond the control of the buffoons that populate the Congress. Those buffoons are all of them party affiliation aside.
juanslayton says:
December 8, 2012 at 9:29 pm
================
Tell me about conventions.
Carl says:
December 8, 2012 at 9:04 pm
We humans, all 7 billion+ of us, exhale CO2 while breathing. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And our government wants us to believe that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant. That would be hilarious if it wasn’t pathetic.
————————————————————————————————————————
But CO2 _is_ a dangerous pollutant. That’s why we (and all other animals) exhale it …
@ur momisugly E.M.Smith
Yeah, on the spending side. Obama is one of the best Republicans they could ask for.
http://zfacts.com/p/318.html
I just hope anarchy doesn’t get really worse. It won’t be too long before governments have enough of that.
I am getting a bit tired of these articles (not only here) that pick up on a one-dimensional view of what a pollutant is and then somehow believe they scored a victory.
Yes, I get it – CO2 is not a ‘dirty’, sooty or (generally) toxic substance etc., it is all harmless in and by itself. Now what? Could it be that the DEFINITION of pollutant that is being applied here must then obviously be one to include substances that are harmful beyond the above definition of something directly toxic/harmful. — Say, like harmful effects through global warming…?
In that light, the CO2-is-not-a-pollutant meme is getting a bit boring, other than missing the point completely.
Oh, and bonus points for “We can’t see carbon dioxide.” Yeah right, and I can’t see the ebola virus either, so I guess it will be alright then….