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.
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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.