By Steve Goreham — September 5, 2023
“Labeling carbon dioxide ‘carbon’ is as foolish as calling salt ‘chlorine.’ Carbon and carbon dioxide (CO2) are completely different substances…. Suppose we start calling CO2 ‘carbon dioxide’ and quit referring to it as a pollutant?”
Political and business leaders, educators, and the news media endlessly talk about “carbon.” Newscasters repeatedly warn about “carbon emissions” and “carbon pollution.” States and provinces announce “zero carbon” goals. The United Nations and environmental groups push for a “low-carbon” and a “carbon-neutral” society. But instead, they should all be talking about “carbon dioxide,” not carbon.
Labeling carbon dioxide “carbon” is as foolish as calling salt “chlorine.” Carbon and carbon dioxide (CO2) are completely different substances. The term “carbon” conveys an image of black pencil lead or soot, but CO2 is an invisible gas. It appears that CO2 is deliberately being misnamed to convey a negative image.
Emissions of carbon dioxide by industry are blamed for enhancing Earth’s greenhouse effect and causing dangerous global warming. As a result, leaders across the world talk about “carbon pollution.” Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said,
“I view climate as a pollution problem. It is, in my words, carbon pollution. It’s just like every other pollutant.”
Ms. McCarthy and others should be using the term “carbon dioxide.” But in addition, the idea that carbon dioxide is pollution is one of the greatest misconceptions of our time.
Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It’s an odorless, harmless, invisible gas. It doesn’t cause smoke or smog. The white cloud rising from the cooling tower of a power plant (above photo) isn’t carbon dioxide, it’s condensing water vapor. You can’t see carbon dioxide.
We inhale only a trace of CO2, but as we burn sugars in our bodies, we continuously produce carbon dioxide. Every time each one of us exhales, we exhaust air with 100 times the carbon dioxide concentration that is in the atmosphere. The average person exhales about two pounds (0.9 kilograms) of CO2 per day.
Climate scientists agree that Earth’s dominant greenhouse gas is not carbon dioxide or methane, but water vapor. Water vapor and clouds are responsible for between 70 percent and 90 percent of Earth’s greenhouse effect.
High school chemistry teaches that the equation for combustion is:
Fuel + O2 + Heat → CO2 + H2O
For example, when natural gas is burned, two water vapor molecules are exhausted for each molecule of carbon dioxide produced. If we label carbon dioxide a pollutant because it is emitted by industry and enhances Earth’s greenhouse effect, then sensible logic requires us to also call water a pollutant, a bizarre result.
As a matter of fact, CO2 is green! Carbon dioxide is plant food. Hundreds of peer-reviewed studies show that CO2 makes plants grow bigger and faster. Plants grow larger fruits, larger vegetables, thicker stems, and bigger root systems, and they are more resistant to drought with higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Studies show that all 45 of the crops that provide 95 percent of the world’s total food production grow significantly larger with increased levels of CO2. Carbon dioxide joins water and oxygen as one of the three essential substances for life on Earth. Yet many companies and most universities now foolishly measure their “carbon footprint” and strive to reduce CO2 emissions.
The term “carbon footprint” is meant to describe the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by persons or groups due to the combustion of hydrocarbon fuels. But everything we do in modern society emits carbon dioxide. The manufacture, transportation, and construction of wind turbines, solar cells, heat pumps, and electric vehicles all produce CO2 emissions, just like most every other activity in modern society.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is another mislabeled remedy proposed to try to halt global warming. But no carbon is captured, only carbon dioxide gas. In addition, 72 percent of the gas captured is oxygen by molecular weight. It would be more accurate to call CCS “oxygen capture and storage.”
Suppose we start calling CO2 “carbon dioxide” and quit referring to it as a pollutant?
__________
Steve Goreham is a speaker on energy, the environment, and public policy. His most recent book, just published, is Green Breakdown: The Coming Renewable Energy Failure. (see synopsis here). His previous posts at MasterResource can be viewed here.
If it was indeed carbon in the atmosphere, and not CO2, then we would be in one hell of a mess.
You can’t see carbon dioxide.
Greta can see CO2
This is a silly post. People talk about carbon because it is the carbon atoms that are conserved, and you can do accountancy on them. They may take the form of CO₂, HCO₃⁻ or whatever. But if you burn fuel with a Gton of C, that is a Gton of C that you have put into the environment.
Incidentally, people don’t call salt chlorine, but it is often characterised as sodium. Look in the dietary contents of any cereal, etc. They don’t of course contain metallic sodium. But it is the sodium content that matters physiologically.
.
It annoys the hell out of me. As would calling Fe2O3 iron.
If you sell a shipload of iron ore, they won’t ask how many tons of Fe₂O₃. They will ask how many tons of Fe.
> “…how many tons of Fe.”
Indeed. Every industry standardizes and agrees upon on usable content. Paper makers get trainloads of pulp and fiber. The lab chemists crawl into the train cars and pulls samples and determines moisture content where the third significant digit means thousands of dollars either “weigh.”
Now that we agree. Never refer to CO2 or carbon dioxide without making clear that any numbers need to be adjusted for carbon content only. Thank you for reducing any existential threat by two thirds.
To keep my Pedant Points [TM] up, it’s eight elevenths rather than two thirds 🙂
Carbon weighs 12.011
Oxygen weighs 15.999 (x2 31.998)
CO2 Molecule weighs 44.009
Carbon percentage of CO2
44.009/12.011 = 0.2729214479 (27.3%)
So only 27% of CO2 is Carbon
Alright, you get more Pedant Points [TM] 🙂
😎
Yeah, it would be closer to the truth to call it oxygen!
Do scientists not refer to gigatons of carbon?
You’ve just made my point for me.
Nobody calls the cargo anything except Iron Ore.
In your attempt to argue black is white, you’ve just argued black is black.
Nick,
We used to sell iron ore from Robe River, therefore experience.
I can assure you unequivocally that the weight of oxide was always used in engineering and commerce. When a ship is being loaded, it is weight of oxide ore that affects the draft. People did not sit around with calculators converting iron oxide weight to iron metal weight.
The accurate conversion was laboratory based because iron ore can contain minerals with various balances of oxygen as in Fe2O3, FeO, Fe3O4 and more as well as varying degrees of hydration and water of crystallisation and simple water as from rainfall H2O.
Geoff S
Agreed Geoff…same thing with ‘uranium’ and UO2 from Kakadu.
Geoff,
Of course the weight of the cargo is important. But what did your customers pay for? Not for so much Fe₂O₃ , so much Fe₃O₄. They paid for the Fe. They cartainly put their calculators to work, and expected you to as well.
Spot on sherr01, I also worked in that industry (different firm) as a laboratory assistant doing the assays. We tested for iron % of the ore of course in sample drill cores, blast jhole cores and train load samples but it was noo,000 tones of ore that was measured as loaded onto the train and then later shipped. 70% iron was pure Fe2O3. I imagine the buyers asked for the test data but the miners and shippers paid per tonne of iron ore especialley the latter.
Its all right though on this one though. I think Nick has just missed his meds today. Again.
That’s because the Fe anions in iron ore is generally reversibly conserved. You can reduce it back to metallic form. Not the same for carbon cations, which are not generally reversibly conserved. The carbon in sedimentary rocks (shale, marble etc) is not readily returned to the atmosphere.
Oops, please reverse my ions: anion <=> cation :-]
If I order x tons of Fe and some joker tries to palm me off with x tons of Fe2O3 then someone’s head will roll, possibly several someone’s! Precision is necessary; approximations, rough estimates or woolly thinking needs to be stopped in its tracks before it leads to major problems. Carbon dioxide is not carbon.
How could someone be so dumb as to not recognise the difference between ingots or blocks of metallic iron and a pile of rusty looking gravel. Eyes would roll long before heads.
A corrosion proof gray film of Fe3O4 supported by a steel frame becomes a steam boiler. Jess Beecher creator of Beecher’s rules.
And only the “hyper” call CO2 “carbon”.
Why not call it “Oxygen Pollution”. There’s twice as many oxygen molecules in the compound CO2.
Why call it ‘Pollution at all. As we all happily breathe out CO2 all day long.
Wrong Nick.
It is specifically CARBON DIOXIDE that is “meant” to be causing the non-problem.
I would have thought that someone as anal and self-righteous as you, would want to see correct terms used
You are apparently not Nick-Picking enough . !
Yes of course he doesn’t he’s a leftist in all likelihood and loves to see the destruction of society in front of him.
“Gton of C that you have put into the environment.”
Neither C nor CO2 is a pollutant, Nick. Get over it.
Additionally, that Gton of C originally came from the environment in the first place, it wasn’t manufactured out of nothing. It will all eventually go back to where it came from and nothing could be more natural.
The Conservation of Matter During Physical and Chemical Changes Matter makes up all visible objects in the universe, and it can be neither created nor destroyed. Grades 3 – 12
Guess Nicki missed Grades 3-12 and hasn’t been edgumakted on the subject.
edumak8ted!
Got to get the spellerating rite.
Nah, he just believes shat Satan whispers in his ear.
The Carbon atom is basically the lego block of all life on the planet ( and other ‘eaerth like’ planets as well I assume) so how it gets trashed as being a pollutant is utterly bizarre.
Satan got away with a doozy with the ‘free apples’ scam back in the day but gee, has he lifted his game since then or what? The basis of all life on the planet, now that it no longer lives in Paradise, is a pollutant.
Hey Nick, give my regards to your boss when you get back home, mate.
Nick, are you listening? You are not only being silly, but also foolish. Address the substance of the article – or do you believe that indeed Carbon and Carbon Dioxide are the same?
So what is the substance? The title is “Carbon Language in Global Error”
Look on your cereal packet. It will say so many mg sodium. That would make it tasty.
So you admit to being silly and foolish.
You forgot trite.
His PDH is preventing him from noticing the difference between C2 and CO2 and why it is a big deal in the world since policy makers run on these errors as they make error filled decisions based on errors presented that cost TRILLIONS and hurt a lot of people.
While plebes like me knows that CO2 is a CRITICAL Molecule for life on earth thus impossible to be a pollutant which is another error Stokes will defend because he wants to be an apologist hope he didn’t forget to make a selfie over it.
And Banal
Just because mindless cereal companies don’t use correct language doesn’t mean climate scientists, journalists, and politicians shouldn’t speak of carbon based molecules correctly.
It isn’t the cereal companies; they are following a government requirement. As are sports drinks, sellers of anything to be ingested. That is because people concerned with sodium content are concerned with just that; not whether it is NaCl or NaHCO₃ or whatever.
Look at a packet of fertiliser. It will tell you how much K, P and N. It doesn’t contain K, P or N. But they are telling gardeners what they wany to know.
So Nick,
What is your take on the product from the company advertising “Carbon-free sugar”?
BTW, we differ re fertilizer. It absolutely DOES contain N, P and K, whether you comprehend 100 years of convention or not.
You seem to want a ban on the use of the elemental symbols in the periodic table.
Geoff S
Geoff,
I think you’ve switched sides here. The OP wants to ban C.
No, just asking that folks use the correct terms. Science is about precision of expression, among other things.
But, as the author noted, carbon sounds so much scarier.
No, Nick,
I use CO2 an assemblage of elemental symbols that conveys meanings known to the educated chemist – not “Carbon” to imply the same substance.
CO2 is a molecule with properties like interaction with photons that carbon does not have. Carbon connotes coal, diamond, organic chemistry, the Meaning of Life. CO2 invokes breathing, benefit to biologic growth, rock creation, combustion product, fire extinguisher.
Others might have different mental links.
“Carbon” does not describe “CO2.”
Geoff S
The KPN are for readily dissociated compounds that provide K, P, N directly.
They are the important elements of the fertilizer.
Carbon is NOT the important thing for the AGW scam…, CO2 is.
Calling it “carbon” is PART OF THE SCAM.
I suspect that you are well aware of that.
I hope they aren’t putting K and P in my garden. And N would just dimerise and float away.
What a moronically stupid comment .. even from you !
You didn’t even comprehend what I said, did you.
You never make sense.
Poor Nick… You are putting yourself on the same level of negative comprehension as moosh.
You continue to ramble mindless empty nothings.
Your comments are of no purpose..
The K,P,N available in the fertilzer is all important.
The end product of uranium mining is uranium.
Carbon, has absolutely nothing to do with the atmosphere.
Basic comprehension is really not your thing, is it Nick.
Too busy eating your socks. !
You’re supposed to P on lemon trees. They like the urea.
Then eventually you WILL see soils deficiency of those elements which is why fertilizer exist to prevent it especially in crop rotations.
Depending on soils Potassium can be easily available or not due to the exchangeability rate of ions in the soil by type such as clay holds onto the element strongly while Potash is normally less available which is why supplemental fertilization is needed on occasion for crop rotation less important for lawns which recycle some of it.
Nitrogen applications are important since the soil do not hold them for long as they are weakly attached to soil ions thus can be flushed downward over time which is why small amounts biweekly is more effective than two three large applications during the growing season can be a big waste as they move downward out of the root zone or volatilize in sunlight.
That’s the key factor. The Nitrogen, Phosphorus (the P in NPK fertilisers confusingly refers to the phosphate rather than elemental phosphorus) and Potassium compounds readily dissociate in aqua.
Individual N, P and K based fertilisers for agriculture are usually sold as the compound of interest, such as urea or anhydrous ammonia.
Oxidation of carbon compounds is exothermic, with the result that CO2 is quite stable, and its reduction is moderately endothermic.
Dear Old Cocky,
When I went to school (the other one), N was N, P was P and K was K (percent by weight).
But that was possibly before your time!
All the best
Dr Bill Johnston,
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
You may well be right about the percentage P by weight, Bill.
We only ever used urea, and only on the older country before starting the pulse rotation regime.
The black soil plains are quite rich.
The N stands for %N, P for the equivalent % of phosphate, and K for the equivalent % of K2O.
That’s 2 people who have corrected my error.
It’s much better to feel a little embarrassed than to spread misconceptions, so thanks for setting me straight.
The difference between sodium in cereal and carbon in its various forms in the atmosphere is that sodium in cereal IS the primary concern and not necessarily the forms it comes in. Same thing with fertilizer, the concern is how much of the various elements are available to the plants (N usually coming in the form of NO3 as N2 only works if there is some nitrogen fixating bacteria present). With carbon, the concerns are almost wholly carbon in the form of CO2, though carbon soot and methane can be cause for concern.
Well, P and N are never in their elemental form, just as C in the air isn’t. But the thing is, once you now how much C is in the air, and you know it is all as CO₂, you can work out how muh CO₂. Same with feriliser, you can work out from N how much NO₃⁻⁻ is formed (even if you applied urea). Or HPO₄⁻⁻ from P. It’s just about tracking and accounting.
But not for iron ore.
Geoff S
Yes… The important part is the P, N, K… and how much there is available of each.
The important part (according to the AGW scammers) is CO2, not the carbon in it.
That is the thing the AGW scammer track and account for.
You have failed, yet again, in your petty attempts at distraction.
No, Nick, to be nit-picky, some of the C in the air is soot.
The N can be either oxidized or reduced. Both are present, or can be.
One of the most common is ammonium nitrate.
Nick,
Are you encouraging consumers to be non-discerning about what follows Na in chemical notation and so drink NaOH? Or NaCN?
Geoff S
No
Yeah right, when are you going to correct the cereal manufacturers error……
The trouble with YOU is that you try so hard to convince people on how smart you are when too often you divert from the point of the article due to your drive to correct everything else in the world.
This article is showing how widespread the error is made,
What YOU do here is be an apologist for their widespread long running error thus YOU are the one who is defending it.
You know that is for MARKETING purposes, don’t you Nick.
Just like referring to CO2 as “carbon”, (even though it contains more oxygen than it does carbon).
It is a MARKETING ploy !
Thanks for bring that point up, Nick.
Foot tasty ?
This is disingenuous at best. It is not carbon they want to tax, eliminate, or vilify.
You maybe adding C to the atmosphere, but you are also removing O from use by people. But neither of that matters because we have vegetation that gives us food and the oxygen back.
CO2 can’t cause warming so why do any of this.
It is not a silly post it is called indoctrination and And being ill-informed and scientifically inept to control the masses, And since you cannot see the obvious thing right smack in front of you I have little Regard for any of your opinions posted here.
I’m kinda with Nick on this one even though I put up the post. I don’t necessarily agree with everything I post here.
Shorthand is shorthand.
This is just a useless nit to pick.
shorthand is fine for those idiot cereal companies but not for scientists, journalists and politicians, etc.
and the policies based on the errors of their own making including the howler, “CO2 is a pollutant” because they want to beat it down and control the people with it.
I don’t agree Charles.
While most of us here get the ‘shorthand’, the young and gullible don’t, and start thinking “carbon” in all its forms = “manmade pollution”.
That is one way for error to get propagated.
Confidence intervals anyone?
I disagree…we need to be correct and have some standards. It’s sloppy, emotive talk…like saying the oceans are becoming ‘acidic’. But we don’t want to start that debate again!
Yeah, I am not gonna get all in a huff over this one either.
Small potatoes.
We got bigger fish to fry.
The alarmists are not even fixated on global warming, but “the climate crisis”, which does not exist.
“Does not exist” I’m not too sure about that. Went down to the beach the other day and half the sea had already boiled away 🙂
I agree with Mr. Rotter to some extent. I also agree with Mr. Stokes to some extent. The fact that cereal companies–and many companies–express sodium compounds as just sodium is a problem. Not everyone is sensitive to salt. Forcing everyone to reduce their salt intake is foolish. It’s actually unhealthy. I have always thought that referring to carbon dioxide as just carbon is nonsense.
Nick correctly points out these errors but what he doesn’t seem to understand is how small those errors affect us since it isn’t a Trillion Dollar and controlling people situation that CO2 does provide to power hungry ignorant politicians who wants to abuse the meaning of the difference of C and CO2.
This is by GOVERNMENT MANDATE.
Don’t blame cereal companies. The Nanny State required the testing and the chart on the box, and told them WHAT must be listed.
Just another leftist requirement to do business.
Yes, stupid government mandates!!
Agreed. As Richard Linden has stated, scientific illiteracy in the general population is what enables climate hysteria.
“Carbon polution” is Orwellian doublespeak, and the average Joe isn’t sufficiently informed to see through it.
Except, it is a deliberate attempt to deceive the public into thinking in terms of pollution. Like Black sooty carbon. CO2 just isn’t that scary. As for the Oxygen component. I would love to hear the loonies try to demonise that.
Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide now or we all die!!!
The amount of sodium listed on food label ingredients is not just from sodium chloride but it also accounts for other chemical compounds found in foodstuffs, such as sodium bicarbonate (baking soda and baking powder), monosodium glutamate, sodium sulfide, sodium nitrate, and sodium citrate.
Exactly.
Huh? YOU are the one that posted, rather simplistically:
Perhaps you forgot?
No, you have given a list of things, which would include NaCl, which are characterised by their sodium content. Once ingested, there are other anions too. But the conserved quantity is sodium, and that is what they put on the packet.
So you are saying that the carbon on carbon dioxide is all that matters? If so, please provide scientific evidence.
In not on. Edit still not working.
No. I’m just saying that if you want to quantitatively follow what is happening, follow the C. It is conserved.
However, there is C in the atmosphere that is not in CO2, which is purportedly the cause of Climet Change. If you want to track the cause of CC, you have to track the CO2, not C.
“But the conserved quantity is sodium”
You have just admitted that CO2 in the atmosphere should NOT be called “carbon”.
The conserved molecule is Carbon Dioxide.
That is what the whole AGW scam is based on.
—-
Have you got any toes left.. or have you chewed them all. !
CO2 is certainly not conserved. On land it is reduced via photosynthesis and increased by respiration and combustion.. In the sea it is constantly switching into and out of bicarbonate. But in all this, the carbon atoms are conserved.
In the sea the vast majority of it remains as dissolved CO2 GAS!
No, it reacts with carbonate to produce bicarbonate.
Nicholas, in seawater, CO2 is only 1% of the inorganic carbon species, 90% is bicarbonates and 9% is carbonates.
Besides plant- en bio-life in seawater, one calculates everything back to carbon, as that is of importance for the mass balance, not in what form it resides…
You really are a moronic idiot, Nick
It is the atmospheric CO2 that the AGW cult is interested in.
What you have just done is shown categorically that CO2 IS NOT A PROBLEM.
It is the CARBON that is important, for plant growth.
And there needs to be more of it.
You have just destroyed the whole AGW scam in one post..
WELL DONE, 🙂
bnice, one uses “carbon” to calculate the carbon mass balance, whatever the form that the carbon is incorporated.
Of course CO2 is not a problem, that is only in the fantasy of the climate models, but in the scientific world they call it the carbon balance, the nitrogen balance, the phosphorus balance or whatever other element of interest, because that doesn’t change in total amount, no matter where it moves in or out or in what form it resides…
Yes, but tracking the carbon balance has little to do with Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change, AKA Climate Boiling, becuase, as we all know, CO2 (and methane, and nitrogen compounds) are the cause of the CACC. The form does matter.
For the global warming scam.. the only important molecule is CO2…
They are not the least bit interested in how much “carbon” is in the atmosphere
Using the word “carbon” instead of carbon dioxide, is a MAJOR part of the scam.
Nick knows that,
… you know that.
Everyone knows that.
bnice,
Sorry, but I have never met anyone who thinks that the carbon cycle means that elementary carbon is circulating through the atmosphere.
About everybody knows that it is in form of CO2 in the atmosphere.
But still it is the carbon cycle, not the CO2 cycle, as the main form of carbon in the atmosphere indeed is CO2, but that is not the case in the oceans or vegetation.
Skeptics make a ridicule of themselves to use thus as “argument”, while it is no argument at all.
“CO2 is certainly not conserved”
So it isn’t a problem
Thank Nick.
You really stuffed-up with that one.
Isn’t the O also conserved?
Bryan, yes… and that is used to calculate how much CO2 each year is absorbed by plants worldwide:
https://tildesites.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
Nicki – “But if you burn fuel with a Gton of C, that is a Gton of C that you have put into the environment.”
The Conservation of Matter During Physical and Chemical Changes. Matter makes up all visible objects in the universe, and it can be neither created nor destroyed. Grades 3 – 12
We didn’t put anything into the environment, that wasn’t already there. Just got a bunch of energy while it changed forms.
So you won’t mind if I decarbonise you Nick?
I’m forced to agree with Nick and reap the down votes. But I won’t agree totally. I do agree with the author that the idiot-stream press likes to talk carbon pollution precisely because it congers up filthy soot.
However, Nick is right in a that we talk about a carbon cycle. Carbon dioxide gets transformed into sugar (avert your gaze Peta) and cellulose, maybe gets fermented into some lovely ethanol, or some fragrant ketones or passes through a cow to make butter that goes bad to make butyric acid. The food and drink all get metabolized back to carbon dioxide. In the ocean the carbon dioxide dissolves and forms other molecules and ions. It’s not all about carbon dioxide. Many other carbon-based compounds are involved.
“reap the down votes”
Eschew self-censorship 🙂
It’s all (99.9999%) Carbon Based Life here on Earth.
Not many Horta boring around anymore
Nick,
Neither C nor CO2 are pollutants despite your reference to the conservation of carbon atoms when C is burned.
In Australia we have the National Pollutants Inventory (NPI) which lists 93 compounds and elements that are prescribed pollutants ( see Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water).
Neither C nor CO2 appear on the NPI.
Carbon monoxide and Nitrous Oxide do appear by contrast.
The DCCEEW state “The NPI does NOT include greenhouse gas emissions”.(emphasis mine).
“The National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007-2023 which came into effect on 29 September 2007 establishes a comprehensive National scheme for the collection, reporting and dissemination of information related to greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption and production”.
That Act does not define as a pollutant CO2 which in Section 7A is listed among the greenhouse gases.
Interestingly Section 7A omits the premier greenhouse gas, water vapour, from its definition of greenhouse gases.
There they are listed as CO2, Méthane, Nitrous Oxide, Sulfur Hexafluoride, Hydrofluorocarbons, Perfluorocarbons, and Prescribed gases.
Importantly, none of the UN IPCC Assessment Reports describes CO2 as a pollutant.
Lastly, here is Dr.Alan Finkel,former Chief Scientist of Australia, writing in The Quarterly Essay in April 2021 in his article “Getting to Zero”-
“A brief digression on Carbon Dioxide: it is not a pollutant.
Calling it a pollutant runs the risk of trivialising the toxic effects of true pollutants. CO2 is not toxic.
It is a product of human metabolism and we exhale it at more than 100 times higher concentration than is found in the atmosphere.
In the reverse cycle plants absorb carbon dioxide to use as the food stock for photosynthesis.
Carbon dioxide is a fundamental part of our life cycle but it also happens to be a greenhouse gas”.
Steve Goreham’s point is valid.
CO2 is not a pollutant, and labelling CO2 as “carbon” is obfuscation.
Exactly Nick, as is standard practice in chemistry one conducts an elemental balance. In the case of sodium you have the additional factor that it’s usually in the form of ions rather than covalent compounds so in solution it is present as sodium ions.
Carbon is inert, it is simply a carrier.
Obviously the problem is not the carbon, its the oxygen.
The proof is in the fact NO2 is also a very potent GH gas, and O3 too, H2O the most potent GH gas of them all. None of those have any carbon at all, but Oxygen.
About the only GH gas that doesn’t prominently feature Oxygen is methane, CH4. And the carbon is outnumbered 4-1.
The greenhouse effect (GHE) is NOT A PROBLEM, it’s why we are able to survive on this planet.
The enhanced GHE from burning fossil fuels is also not a problem. It is giving us a slightly milder climate and greener biosphere that allows us to thrive a bit more. We can adapt to any minor negative impacts easily. It will always be net beneficial.
There is NO CLIMATE EMERGENCY!
Thank you Nick, the most intelligent post of yours ever. I would not have thought to compare carbon dioxide to sodium chloride, you are very clever.
Now, all the dorks are on about salt, specifically sodium, and we should all immediately stop eating salt, right? Right, Nick? Even though the sodium is absolutely essential for our digestive system, right, Nick?
So, Nick is right, carbon dioxide is exactly like salt, a essential substance needed for health and life, presented by a bunch of venal sciencers and opinion makers as an existential threat to their enjoyment of an earth overpopulated by deplorables, right, Nick?
But this accountancy is flawed because carbon is not always reversibly conserved. What if your process generates a ton of carbon ashes or insoluble carbonates (or cow poop). They are quickly buried or rendered harmless (or even helpful) to the environment. Carbon does not ionize like sodium anions, they don’t stay active forever.
Nick is correct here.
We sometimes call molecules by the metal or cation name, not the anion name. Hence NaCl is sometimes Sodium, never Chlorine. We don’t call Fe2O3 Oxygen, we call it Iron.
Sorry, I got my ions mixed up. But I think my point is still valid, that carbon is not always reversibly conserved, a good thing if (irrationally) we don’t want the carbon to come back as CO2. This happens when the carbon is transformed into carbonates, which are negative anions, right?
I knew one person who was fairly educated, an MS in Psych, who thought the issue with “carbon pollution” was about soot.
He was actually right. He just didn’t follow the magician’s hands.
That’s what most people think it’s about.
That is why photos of steam from cooling towers, etc., are composed to make it look black. It’s intentionally deceptive.
EVERYTHING about the climate scam is INTENTIONALLY DECEPTIVE. !!
Well, his degree was in psychology after all. He’d probably hurt himself with a screwdriver.
Her, but it was more of odd gaps in knowledge. Such as having no idea of how high standard doors are (80 inches, two meters and a bit, BTW).
Nit picking I know but
Fuel + O2 – > Heat + H2O + CO2
Also nit picking, I know, but that photo does not show cooling towers. Those are flue gas stacks, likely downstream of a scrubber. So the saturated flue gas forms a cloud immediately.
With you. Cooling towers spout steam, but they are those fat, vase-shaped things, not thin chimneys.
David, pure steam is invisible to the human eye. The photo shows condensed water vapour drops.
Geoff S
Agreed. That is what I mean by saying “the saturated flue gas forms a cloud immediately” as it exits the stack.
Not so. In this case the “fuel” must be a carbon hydride.
In the presence of oxygen the exothermic reaction produces H2O and CO2.
If the ‘fuel’ was carbon, the reaction would be C + O2 -> CO2 + heat (toss another lump of coal on the fire!)
Cheers,
Bill
For anthropogenic CO2, we supply the carbon, the atmosphere provides the oxygen. We can control the carbon, not the oxygen.
How much carbon is in an EV battery?
Is Man the only suppler of carbon?
PS All the “political-climate science” here isn’t about controlling “carbon”, it’s about controlling Mankind.
no we can’t methane CO4 is emitted from rotting plant life, swamp gas is methane, all those who make and used compose also makes CO4. Same chemistry happens on the sea floor. Here in WV methane has been leaking for who knows how long, the people who lived here long ago called it honey in the rock. They used their Zippo to set it on fire 😉
methane = CH4
It is product of compound carbon in the absence of oxygen.
Fred,
Methane is CH4, not CO4.
Possibly, you got it wrong because of emphasis in your mind on Carbon.
I am a Chemist. My training and experience says NOT to use shorthand labels if they are easily avoidable. Accuracy is the key. At uni, I had to repeat a failed year because I wrote of Inulin when the topic was Insulin. (It is pathetic. Just now, the spell corrector wrongly changed my Inulin to Insulin. See the problem?)
I accept shorthand when sensibly used, for example use of EDTA for the longer Ethylene Diamine Tetraacetic Acid, which itself is a short form of the defining nomenclature from IPCC, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.
The overall topic of shorthand in Chemistry is quite complicated, requires formal study and has dangers that should prohibit gifted amateurs from dabbling in it. Like, death from injecting a person with Inulin instead of Insulin.
Do not use “C” or “Carbon” as a substitute for “CO2” or “Carbon Dioxide.” It is professionally wrong, misleading, possibly dangerous, of no standing in legal disputes and a product of ignorance of how science works.
Geoff S
The classic take on that was Penn and Teller’s petition to ban DHMO, DiHydrogenMonOxide.
So Geoff, I believe you used to be involved in uranium mining. Did you mine uranium?
Again with the childish and petty Nick-picking
It is called a uranium mine, because that is the final product, with some copper, and zinc etc also extractable.
Different from the AGW scam that you are willing participant in, where CO2 is the final product… the molecule that is meant to be the problem.
Carbon is nothing to do with the atmosphere.
Girls don’t want diamine rings.
I assume you mean IUPAC, not IPCC -:)
Geoff, I am a chemist too, but in this case Nick Stokes is right: one speaks about the carbon balance in the same way as one speaks about the phosphor balance, sodium balance, nitrogen balance,… Because that makes the calculation of the balance of in- and outgoing streams easier.
In no way the carbon is a substitution for CO2 or any other form of carbon containing molecules, because in each compartment it is present in different forms. In the atmosphere mostly in the form of CO2.
It may be difficult to make the differentiation for the general public, so maybe one need more explanation to show what is meant, but for the balance it is C, not CO2…
Modern combustion systems control the ratio of air to fuel.
Actually if CO2 as a greenhouse gas is Carbon Pollution then so H2O as a greenhouse gas would be Hydrogen Pollution
and since CO2 is plant food, calling it carbon pollution is truly stupid
Actually, since both compounds have more oxygen by weight than either has of carbon or hydrogen..
… they should both be referred to “Oxygen” pollution.
“Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy”.
Isn’t she the same one that used the email name “Richard Windsor” to hide from FOIA request under Obama’s “most transparent administration in history”?
If you want a sick laugh, read Gina McCarthy’s majors in college. Obama hired her.
Dick van Dyke’s career didn’t take off until he changed his name from Penis van Lesbian.
“Suppose we start calling CO2 “carbon dioxide” and quit referring to it as a pollutant?”
”We” have never done that, but they—your eco-overlords—will continue their deliberate policy of conflating carbon with carbon dioxide because it serves their agenda. It’s not just that they’re unfastidious intellectual and scientific slobs. It’s that saying “carbon” when they know damned well they mean “carbon dioxide” keeps people believing in their noble battle against pollution. The reality is that they’re waging a war against civilization, progress, and life. But the less clear that is to the joyless proles who will be the main beneficiaries of a fossil fuel-free subsistence, the better.
Tell me about it.
Like other readers of this blog, I have a PhD in Organic Chemistry.
That’s Carbon Chemistry. The only element in the periodic table of the elements that gets its own division of a University Department.
for some reason your post gave me a flashback from when I was about 10 years old- back around 1958- I put a spoon full of sugar over the flame of a gas stove- not having a clue what would happen- within seconds it burned up and left me with a spoon full of black, greasy carbon- made me feel like a scientist! But my mother smelled it burning and asked me what the hell I was doing? She didn’t appreciate my experimentation- but seeing the pure white sugar turn into black carbon was enlightening for me— no doubt it wasn’t pure carbon- it must have been some carbon based molecule…
Experimentation soots you.
That is because it is so absolutely essential for life on the planet. 🙂
You probably had to take some German.
Of all the famous German reactions, Diels Alder is my favorite. If I had to go French, I would say Geurbet.
I did indeed learn some some German in school.
Both of my parents also studied chemistry to different levels at university in the 1950s and were required to study German.
Despite my education, I would still be delighted if you could explain to me how Beilstein is organised. Talk Chemistry, or English, or even French, I would love to know.
Es tut mir leid, just for grins I went to the library and all of the physcial Beilstein volumes are gone. Apparently it’s been replaced by an online database.
But: https://pubs-acs-org.colorado.idm.oclc.org/doi/10.1021/ed058p982
Yup. When I used to go to the departmental Chemistry library, back in the 1990s, I felt like I was pumping iron taking the Beilstein and ChemAbs volumes off the shelves.
I still remember telling my supervisor “I’m never gonna learn all this.”
The immunochemistry section alone of ChemAbs was more each month than a reasonable person could read in a career.
The idiots sprouting this crap (carbon instead of carbon dioxide ) open the door to massive deception and confusion the mass of carbon in 1 ton of co2 is only 272.7 Kg ( 3.6666 times going the other way )
So are we emitting 1 ton of carbon dioxide or 1 ton of carbon the idiots sprouting this crap will have no idea that includes almost all politicians and even climate “scientists”
Confusion is the point.
And deception.
might as well confuse the media even more there is Carbon Monoxide CO a by product of the oil refining process that becomes fuel for the CO boiler. Then there is Graphene-pure carbon- one molecule thick, harder then a diamond and 10- times stronger then steel. many layers stacked together makes it graphite, the stuff used to unstick a lock.
Where Do Trees Get Their Mass?
https://youtu.be/2KZb2_vcNTg?si=lsriDEkifP7IIqlO
I also have wondered why the name was changed from carbon dioxide to just carbon. Maybe the alarmists really do intend to demonize carbon. Since oil and plastic are largely made of carbon it offers a reason for eliminating them too. And doing so would crush civilization. Perhaps teat’s the real goal. Our human bodies are 18% carbon that might provide an excuse for killing us all off too.
Greenpeace, a collection of unhappy, ignorant folk on a mission, once had a war against Chlorine, Cl. They agitated for a ban on Cl. Bit hard, when common salt is NaCl.
Laughable. Geoff S
Asking again, Geoff. Did you mine uranium? Zinc? Copper?
Nick breathes out carbon. Dark sooty stuff… from his nose.
He is some sort of non-human trollette.
The end product of smelting or processing of ore is the metal. The end product of combustion is the oxide.
Again with the childish and petty Nick-picking.
It is called a uranium mine, because that is the final product, with some copper, and zinc etc also extractable.
The very opposite of the AGW scam that you are willing participant in…
… where CO2 is the final product… the molecule that is meant to be the problem.
Carbon is nothing to do with the atmosphere.
Its all he has.
bnice, Nick is right in this case: it is called the carbon balance, no matter that it is carbon in different forms in fuel, air, plants, etc…
Just like an uranium mine is about uranium, in whatever form it may be mined.
That most carbon in the atmosphere is in the form of CO2 or CH4 has some effect on the radiation balance and at that point it is of interest to know the exact form of which carbon is incorporated.
To know how much of our fuel use ends in atmosphere, oceans and plants, it exact form is of no interest, only how much carbon in whatever form goes into each compartment.
Nick is wrong.. that makes you wrong also.
Not a good person to hitch your wagon to.. you will end up in the sewer.
CH4 has zero radiative affect, H2O overpowers it completely in any possible channels
CO2 has zero proven warming effect, but that is what the big AGW fuss is all about.
bnice, thus professionals ánd sceptics like Happer and Van Wijngaarden are wrong? They calculated that each CO2 doubling causes 2.7 W/m2 extra back radiaiton to the surface resulting in about 0.7 K warming…
Not much and certainly not catastrophic, but not zero either…
Or exactly measured in the period 2000-2010 at two ground stations: 0.2 W/m2 extra from 22 ppmv extra CO2 increase:
https://escholarship.org/content/qt3428v1r6/qt3428v1r6.pdf
Calling carbon dioxide ‘carbon’ is but one of several basic ‘climate science’ deliberate misnomers. Here are some others:
All solid facts Rud.
But as we see every day, a lie travels twice around the globe before truth gets its boots on.
I have to admit that I have hugh ties to the oil, gas and coal industries.
I utilise their products EVERY hour of EVERY day.
I could not exist without them.
I agree.
The ties skeptics have to the oil, gas and coal industries are: We pay them (for their products), they don’t pay us. 🙂
My skeptics’ check must have been lost in the mail, too. Maybe I should have requested an e-transfer? 😉
Of course it is, doesn’t matter to the leftist democrat. Act accordingly.
I disapprove of this article. It fails to recognise why people use non-technical terms.
C is not CO2. That is obvious. But so what?
It is often simpler to use inaccurate terms as proxies for technical concepts. It is a way of saying “This is roughly true but should not be taken literally”.
Every field does it.
Art: Try discussing the blurring corners of the lips of the Mona Lisa. Is it “Chiaroscuro”? No. It “blurring” or “imprecision” unless you want to spend all your few seconds in front of the painting trying to translate terms that non-artists do not understand.
Cricket: Try discussing the bowlers hidden ball that goes away that looks like one that would come in. Or try saying “It’s a doosra”. You need to know your audience.
Physics: We talk about “friction” like engineers and not contact forces or van der Waals or whatever because we usually do not need to be specific.
All this article has observed is that most discussions of climate change are not related to accurate science. But most discussions are about policy, not research.
The problem is that ALLOWING the errors to come in then not correct them becomes a running problem over time.
The type of house that have been constructed seen all over America is a continual error, but most people don’t realize it because they use the same error over and over for many decades which is why they are energy hogs and easily damaged in severe weather.
The “information world” that is poorly used to show much better building designs to construct that can easily save at least 50% energy needs without any downgrade in comfort has been known for centuries but since an error came along early on it got pushed aside over time.
That is obvious but so what you say……
Discussing the lips of the Mona Lisa using imprecise terminology will not cost trillions of dollars which could be spent on removing the real problems of the world.
Did you have a chest-feeder or birthing-person in your family?
We should start calling it “green carbon.”
Yes indeed. A very big issue I have always had. So much terminology has been corrupted and hijacked beyond recognition.
It should be insisted on and never accepted, when they refer to ”Carbon” instead of Carbon DiOxide. I ask if they would have a drink of Hydrogen?
If these clowns don’t understand the difference between a solid and a gas, then they are unlikely to be any sort of guiding light in a subject as complex as climate.
Hydrogen Oxide is the Great Villain…the Evil One….H2O is a far greater GHG than CO2. Stop blaming the minor one for the deeds of the Evil One….we gotta do something…the hotter it gets…the more H2O evaporates into the atmosphere….THE HOTTER IT GETS….What to do? ….WHAT TO DO? I am sweating now…..profusely…oh, dear me.
Changing the meaning of words is a political trick that liberals use frequently. When did global warming morph into climate change? When did illegal aliens become migrants? When did blacks become people of color? When did swamps become wetlands?
I was just informed today on this site that there have been five Ice Ages when CO2 was over 1000 or even 2000 ppm. Does not this render the entire conversation as absurd?
Yep
Personally, I believe the most fantastic example of “carbon capture” is to be seen is in the plants and animals (aka organic matter) found on Earth.
When carbon capture goes wrong.
I stated “plants and animals”, not devils.
Plants are people. They have infiltrated the university sector like a fungus. Woops
Stolen directly from the “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” . . . are you now or have you ever been a seed pod?
Diamonds are carbon? Who’d have guessed?
Also, “carbon capture”, as interpreted by Nick Stokes, has ramifications leading to a shortage of pencils on Earth.
They’ve gone from ‘a girl’s best friend’, to carbon pollution.
I’m reading Steve’s book.
Carbon dioxide by weight is 12 parts carbon and 32 parts oxygen.
Mostly oxygen, not carbon.
Well said, Steve.
Thank you for this article and reminder. I will not let anyone get away with complaining about “carbon” or “carbon footprint.” I will chime in with You mean carbon dioxide, a colorless, odorless, life giving compound. 🙂
Yep. I always do that, too. 👍
I usually phrase it this way: oh, you mean carbon dioxide – a colourless, odorless, benign trace gas, literally vital to all life on Earth.
THIS has been a major bugbear of mine right from the beginning of this scam.
Such audacious deceit.
Akin to when harmless steam is depicted by media as dangerous emissions.
Here’s the think from the perspective of Nick Stokes et al.
Eliminating carbon implies the elimination of carbon-based life-forms including humans. And I think that’s their goal.
Didn’t Svante Arrhenius refer to carbon dioxide as “carbonic acid”? I’ll cut him some slack, that was around 150 years ago.
Carbonic acid is actually H₂CO₃…
He was referring to the compounding of CO₂ and H₂O in the atmosphere.
Thing is, carbonic acid rapidly dissociates into CO₂ and H₂O in the presence of extra H₂O.
(It is a tad more complicated than that, with carbonates also coming into play.)
On a slightly different note, I found this on Wikipedia, which is telling:
“Arrhenius’s absorption values for CO2 and his conclusions met criticism by Knut Ångström in 1900, who published the first modern infrared absorption spectrum of CO2 with two absorption bands, and published experimental results that seemed to show that absorption of infrared radiation by the gas in the atmosphere was already “saturated” so that adding more could make no difference. Arrhenius replied strongly in 1901 (Annalen der Physik), dismissing the critique altogether.”
Even back then, the saturation of CO2 IR absorption wavelengths was recognized, and at over 400 ppm today, this is even more so. Yet Arrhenius dismissed it anyway. He was the first dedicated “warmist”. Is he a distant relative of Greta Thunberg?
“Knut Ångström in 1900, who published the first modern infrared absorption spectrum of CO2 with two absorption bands, and published experimental results that seemed to show that absorption of infrared radiation by the gas in the atmosphere was already “saturated” so that adding more could make no difference.”
Shades of Dr. Happer!
Yes, there is no evidence that CO2 is making any difference with the Earth’s temperatures or weather.
The Earth is not experiencing unprecedented temperatures today or unprecedented weather. CO2 has increased in the Earth’s atmosphere but with no apparent effect.
Tom, the main bands of CO2 are saturated, but there is broadening of the side bands, which makes that there still is some effect: logarithmic with the increase in CO2.
According to Happer and Van Wijngaarden about 2.7 W/m2 for each doubling or about 0.7 K extra warming. Not much, but not nothing either…
Direct measurements of downwelling IR radiation in the period 2000-2010 at two ground stations show about 0,2 W/m2 increase caused by 22 ppmv increase in CO2. Even the seasonal variation in CO2 levels was detected:
https://escholarship.org/content/qt3428v1r6/qt3428v1r6.pdf
“Not much, but not nothing either…”
I’m not saying CO2 has no effect. I’m saying CO2 has no discernable effect on the Earth’s climate or weather.
Come on boys (and girls), for once Nick Stokes is right.
Why do scientists call the nitrification balance by NH4 and NOx the nitrogen balance? Because that is easy to calculate ánd clear to follow.
The same for the phosphor balance: mostly in the form of phosphates used in agriculture as that is of interest for the balance between uptake and supply for plants.
Or indeed the sodium content of food, as that is the main factor of interest for the health of your kidneys…
Why do they call it the carbon balance? Because it is CO2 only in the atmosphere. It is 1% CO2, 90% bicarbonates and 9% carbonates in seawater. It is sugars, starch, cellulose (carbohydrates) and a host of other products in plants. Nobody starts to decompose all the different forms of which carbon gets in nature, they simply calculate where the carbon resides or gets in or out: carbon can not be destroyed or made from nothing, in whatever form it may be incorporated…
Except… carbon 14 which is formed from nitrogen by collisions with cosmic rays and because it is radioactive, decays over time. But these quantities are negligible compared to the stable C-12 and C-13 carbon isotopes…
Thus indeed, Nick Stokes is right in this matter…
So, based on your argument, the phrase “carbon capture” must necessarily take into account reductions in the amount of existing organic carbon (you know, that in carbon compounds comprising the bulk of plant and animal lifeforms on Earth’s land and in its oceans).
Can you please provide your suggested list prioritizing the plants and animals that must be “carbon captured” in order to save the planet from climate change?
And where are YOU on that list?
TYS,
You should know that it is the reverse of what you think: carbon capture is used to get more CO2 out of the atmosphere than happens now. Our CO2 comes from carbon fuels that did capture CO2 out of the atmosphere millions of years ago at much higher levels than today, thus releasing that CO2 today increases the current level. Which doesn’t imply that this has any negative effect, to the contrary.
One uses CCS (carbon capture and storage) in general for the direct filtering out of CO2 out of the exhausts of e.g. power plants and burying it into old oil fields. Or disposing it in the (deeper) oceans where it dissolves. Until now with little success.
Alternatively, one can plant a lot of new trees that while growing absorb a lot of CO2. Until now also with little success, as the growth of all organic life on earth, the greening world, is only 1/4 of what we humans supply as extra in the atmosphere each year.
And many more inorganic carbon derivatives (mainly as bicarbonates) are present in the oceans than organic…
Whooosh . . . ruffled hair.
A bit late in the day – and at risk of repeating myself – there is a good reason for calling it Carbon.
CO2 is a colourless gas which, in the public’s view – because of dry-ice stage-shows – is white. But the PTB needed a bogie-man to frighten the children. What better candidate than having a black bogie-man: And so, Carbon was born! How many of us (of a certain age) were threatened by such as children.) Our masters really think they are like parents, threatening their children. They think we can’t…
My Grandfather and his brother (my Mother’s father and uncle) were killed in the horrors of WWI: I hate to think how many children today will look back on our generation in 107 years’ time, and rue the day.
The claim of Climate Change is a crime against humanity – but the main players will be long gone and their issue, enjoying a privileged life-style when the scam is accepted.
/rant
Politicians aren’t interested in Truth. They are interested in power. The easiest way to grab power is through the distortion of truth. That explains the common practice of defining words that have had an agreed upon definition for decades, such as “acidification,” and corrupting the the science practices of presenting averages with their associated uncertainty, and when appropriate, the kurtosis of the distribution.
I attempted to correct the obvious errors in the text, but was told I was entering text too quickly. I’ll have to move the block of kryptonite closer to the computer.
Carbon is the substance which makes life possible on this planet. The only true “carbon pollution” is that contained in the bodies of liberal/globalists who are trying to regulate us out of existence.
Maybe the reason that Bill Gates wants to chop down 7,000,000 trees and bury them in order to sequester the carbon, is because as a non-scientist, the distinction between Carbon (C) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) has been purposely blurred in almost everything written and spoken about by technically challenged newsreaders and writers.
Correction: 70,000,000 acres of trees.