I have a hard time understanding why Carbon Dioxide is now labeled a pollutant. Can someone enlighten me?

Question

How can you possibly classify Carbon Dioxide (essential to life) with Carbon Monoxide (deadly), Nitric Oxide and Nitrogen Dioxide (can cause asthma or death)?

Answer 1

It is the dose that makes the poison, sufficiently small amounts of all the listed chemicals aren't really a problem (at least not that we can get statistical significance).

CO2 is toxic if you have too much of it and putting it into the atmosphere at a rate faster than it is removed does cause an increase in temperature.

A pollutant is basically anything that has a negative effect on the environment or human health and the amount of CO2 we are releasing is having a negative effect on the environment (there is a scientific consensus on the matter, though you might not be able to see it on the pseudoscientist infested Yahoo! Answers) and the global warming may also affect human health (environmental levels won't reach toxic before our cities are under water though).

Answer 2

You can find out more about these and contaminants in genetal by checking this website

Answer 3

American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2005

pollutant (n)

"A substance or condition that contaminates air, water, or soil. Pollutants can be artificial substances, such as pesticides and PCBs, or naturally occurring substances, such as oil or carbon dioxide, that occur in harmful concentrations in a given environment. Heat transmitted to natural waterways through warm-water discharge from power plants and uncontained radioactivity from nuclear wastes are also considered pollutants."

CO2 would fit the bill as a "naturally occurring substance" considered at "harmful concentrations".

Answer 4

I think I have discovered the Twilight Zone. The easy answer is too much of anything is toxic, even oxygen. As for the replies of the others that chose to answer, please tell me you are smart enough to know that global warming is not a false alarm, and that you know the earth is a delicate balancing act of both non-toxic and toxic chemicals that have helped to both create and sustain life.We as humans have and are continuing to effect the balance of these chemicals, oddly enough, just by the act of breathing.

So the more we can do to preserve the land we live in and on, the the longer we will be able to do so.

Answer 5

You have to consider the source.  Just as "Global Warming" is a hoax, more lies are necessary to make the big lie more believable.

Answer 6

Sure, find a few liberal judges and you can 'label' anything the way you want.  Marriage?  GW?  Terrorist with civil rights?

Answer 7

By making a perfectly harmless gas into a pollutant, they are just taking the small steps necessary to tax everything that creates CO2.  Never mind that it is necessary for plants to live.

This will create trillions in extra taxation by taxing the energy producers who will then pass that tax down to the consumers.

If you think fuel and energy costs a lot now, wait until these socialists get completely into power.  You won't be able to breathe out without paying an extra tax fee.

Answer 8

Beats me??

Answer 9

Ken's dead wrong. A pollutant/toxin has to cause neurological or tissue damage. CO2 doesn't do that, but it can displace O2. They do check blood gases to determine imbalances of respiratory and metabolic acidosis and alkalosis. It's a determent test and not a condition of.

Even in plants it can cause O2 displacement, but is considered a cycle and not a detriment. That is plants become over fertilized and decompose creating food for the next cycle.

ed: a really good example of really bad science approached from a legalistic view point. Leave out reality and you can have anything you want.

ed2: Argon strives to reach a equilibrium 3-5 five greater then surrounding gases. That's why it's a insulator in glass, it tries to escape with a greater force then those entering.

Answer 10

it creates holes in the ozone layer! that ozone layer protects us, earth, form the sun's dangerous (solar) flares. if that layer gets destroyed, we are toast!!

Answer 11

one can not Marley classify carbon monoxide, many of people with many of studies must clearly be necessary in order for one to give an acceptable correction to an acceptable response. rather than an accepted acceptance

which is the difficult aspect to understand

Answer 12

Bestonnet said it best, the dose makes the poison.  There are many elements that are 'essential to life' at trace levels that would also be poisonous to us at high enough concentrations.

Heretic, do you really believe breathing high concentrations of CO2 would not cause neurological damage?

Answer 13

IT IS A SCAM - TO MAKE MONEY.

It is not a pollutant, but a natural gas that every organic item releases.  Even volcanoes release tons 300 times more than every man, woman, and child causes to be produced every year.

There is a new scheme managed by the UN (hmm) Carbon Cap and Trade.  Some companies are banking on this Carbon Trading Vehicle.  They are trying to make a market out of thin are requiring payment to market participants to do business.  Obviously the business that buy these Carbon Credits will ultimately Charge YOU.

THIS IS A HUGE TAX to PAY CORPORATIONS, and GOVERNMENTS.

Global Warming is just the vehicle  - it is not real, but an exaggerated illusion.

Answer 14

Same reason abortion isn't labeled murder...politics.  It's legal, not logical.

Edit:  People are desperately trying to justify this one.  CO2 isn't toxic, even in the cases expressed in other answers.  What they're describing is an absence of oxygen.  Any non-toxic substance can cause asphyxiation...that doesn't make it toxic.

Answer 15

Al Gore is the biggest fraud, and it's criminal what he's doing to line his own pockets - how interesting that he's not willing to do the things he says the rest of us must to save the planet - scientists have de-bunked his "global warming" c**p, and it's sad how many people have bought into his lie.

Answer 16

You forgot the very poisonous sulfur dioxide that comes from a lot of coal and fuel oil/diesel burning sources that have been blamed for acid rain. The whole con about Co2 started back in the 1930s when it and sulfur dioxide were competing for use in refrigeration systems as to which was the best refrigerant. In the middle of the battle on of the major chemical companies came up with a fluoride/carbon compound they called Freon and began attacking Co2 as a refrigerant while promoting their new compound. After a couple of years and the promotion of Freon as a safer refrigerant Co2 virtually vanished from this use even though it was preferred for carbonated beverages, dry ice and fire extinguishers for electrical fires where it is still the best.

When the agents of the oil companies and the club of Rome looked for something they could use in an anti technology scam they revived a lot of the old arguments that the chemical companies had used to suppress its use as a refrigerant in the 1930s. Now today Freon has been banned because it is supposed to be bad for the ozone layer and Co2 is being developed again as the preferred refrigerant in new systems. Most if not all Japanese cars will have Co2 filled air conditioning in the next couple of years because it just works better than any of the non fluorocarbon fluids.

One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.

Robert A. Heinlein

Answer 17

It's a good question.  The problem is that what we have is an excess of CO2.  the normal levels are fine--in fact we need that, as you correctly pointed out.

But we are adding so much CO2 to the atmosphere.  That excess changes the heat-retaining behavior of the atmosphere and thus causes global warming.

here's an analogy.  On a chilly  night you put a blanket on the bed to trap heat and keep you comfortable. But if you put too many blankets on the bed you will get too hot--too much heat gets trapped.  The extra blankets aren't an asset--they are too much of a good thing.

It's exactly the same with CO2--there is a normal amount that is necessary.  But when you have too much it starts being a problem.

Hope that helps.

Answer 18

Have you heard of Lake Nyos, in Cameroon? In 1986 the lake "burped" a large quantity of carbon dioxide into the air that flowed downhill and asphyxiated about 1700 people.

What you call "essential to life" can also be deadly in other circumstances, it's not that hard a concept.

EDIT:  Argon is used in double pane windows because its thermal conductivity is low compared to air, but I believe the conductivity of carbon dioxide is even lower.  However, that's not the important thing about CO2, it doesn't "insulate" the Earth--that is a widespread misconception. It absorbs infrared radiation (heat energy) that is leaving the Earth and then re-radiates it back toward the planet's surface, making it warmer than it would be otherwise.  Argon does not act this way, neither do Nitrogen or diatomic Oxygen.  Water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane do.

Answer 19

Bravo.  It's NOT a pollutant.  It's not correlated with temperature in the whole of geologic history.

Global Warming looks more and more like Scientology everyday.

Answer 20

It's simply a ploy to place all of us in an unescapable "Man-did-it" Chicken Little iron grip.

CO2 levels have been MUCH MUCH higher in the past and life during those times thrived.

Remember, there has been and continues to exist.... a 'cause industry'..... typically embraced by the liberal left.  They have to have something to picket, protest, condemn or tax.  Now that they have pretty much  'conquered' public smoking, the mouth-breathers are focusing on their latest cause..... 'man-did-it' global warming.

If those goobers want to do some real good..... they should go after 'fatty' foods...... of course that means that Al Gore could no longer be the Ed McMahon of 'man-did-it'.

Answer 21

According to the (conservative) US Supreme Court, carbon dioxide meets the definition of an "air pollutant" under the Clean Air Act.  An air polutant is defined as a substance

"emissions of which...cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare"

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/42/740...

CO2 contributes to the greenhouse effect which scientists have determined is the primary cause of the current global warming, and which they have also anticipated will endanger public health and welfare.

Therefore, the Supreme Court was correct in ruling that CO2 is an air pollutant.