Why don't humans cease breathing out co2?

Question

Co2 is, some would have you believe, a POLLUTANT.

Answer 1

because it is not that much

Answer 2

Co2 a pollutant?  You've got to be kidding me.  Co2 is what PLANTS BREATHE.  Would you be happier without plants, silly hippies?  If people are that worried they're singlehandedly taking out the planet by breathing they should plant a freaking tree and shut up.

Answer 3

, humans are carbon neutral, Undersea volcanos and trenches put out more Co2 in 1 year than man puts out in 100 years

Answer 4

CO2 from humans is part of the natural "carbon cycle" and not a problem.  That CO2 was recently taken from the air by plants, putting it back is no big problem.

Digging up carbon that the carbon cycle buried thousands of years ago, and burning it real fast - big problem.

CO2 IS a pollutant.  "Pollutant" is a legal word, not a technical term.  The Supreme Court decides legal issues, and they say it's a pollutant.  They win.

The idea of it is that too much of anything is bad.  And we're making too much CO2.

Answer 5

yes, you are correct.  Not many people realize we put off a little under a kilogram of co2 per day.  With over 6 billion of us, thats around 6 billion kilograms per day!  We NEED to take action NOW.  I call for putting bags over our mouths and butts.

Answer 6

cuz then we'd die

but Co2 is inhaled by trees

so its not as bad as other pollutants

Answer 7

if u want a painfull operation on u to change nature than be my guest... by the way co2 supports life for trees and they give us oxygen

edit: nothing we can do to stop breathing out co2

and best of all, man made global warming is a myth

Answer 8

waft

Answer 9

Please try, and then let us know what happened ;-)

The CO2 we exhale comes from the food we eat. The CO2 from our breath is then absorbed by growing plants, which again is eaten by us or by animals. As long as new plants replaces the old and continues to grow, this is a natural cycle. The problem arises when we burn fossil fuels that has been buried for millions of years. They don't have a place in that natural cycle.

Answer 10

It's the exaggerated claims that hook people.  This is what make advertisements so effective.

There are actually some people that think co2 can kill you.  Co2 is harmless, it's the lack of O2 that kills.

Even Oxygen can kill you in high concentrations, as it is very corrosive.  This is why divers use blended gases when they go diving.

Answer 11

Don’t worry – sooner or later every person whether alarmist, skeptic, or neutral will stop emitting carbon dioxide. Of course then we begin to emit methane as we decay, which has more than 20X the warming potential of CO2.

And you are of course correct, CO2 is NOT a pollutant. Only the cognitively challenged would believe that.

Answer 12

Saying that something is not a pollutant because its natural is nuts.  Lead is natural, mercury is natural, uranium is natural, chromium is natural, but at too high a level they will all kill you.

Answer 13

I agree that if CO2 is a pollutant then the environmentalist should stop breathing. The plants hate them too because they need the CO2.

Answer 14

The CO2 we breathe is part of the natural carbon cycle.

The CO2 we release by burning fossil fuels had been trapped for millions of years, and thus is not part of the carbon cycle.

The natural carbon cycle is normally in balance.  Our addition of formerly sequestered carbon is throwing it out of balance and causing CO2 to accumulate in the atmosphere, increasing the greenhouse effect and global warming.

That's why.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycl...

By the way, those "some" who have said CO2 is a pollutant - that was the (conservative) US Supreme Court.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachuset...

Answer 15

For humans to stop exhaling CO2, they'd have to stop inhaling.  And that would be bad....

Answer 16

The per capita benefits would be far greater if just those that ignore the mountain of evidence for global warming and wastefully emit tons of CO2 annually, ceased exhaling.  Then maybe the rest of us would be able to create a healthy sustainable environment.

Answer 17

Alarmists don't want to find ways to reduce natural CO2 emissions...that's not the point of their scaremongering.  So what if we could find an easy way to trap CO2 emissions from the ocean or active volcanoes (reducing net emissions to the atmosphere in the process)...they want our cars and our tax money!

Answer 18

There's not a real scientist on the face of this planet that would declare CO2 as an pollutant. The Supreme Court was established to rule/vote on Constitutional issue's only, not on established science.

To answer the question,it's referred to as autonomic ventilation.Through a process called aerobic respiration.The underlying steps it's noted as the Krebs Cycle.Carbon exchange is listed in step (3) where ATP is created using CO2 + H20,or energy. Of course there are exchanges of ions,but the pathways become complex.

It's all a natural balance,but it can be tilted one way or the other at times.To what degree is still under study, and currently there are no true remedies that will help...in the time frame given. Most people already conserve and do their part,out of common sense. Some undertaking is being done in the area of sand, coal, and shale oil extraction. Believe me, if they could do this with economic feasibility they would do it. It's more of a dependency issue then a environmental one.