US Says CO2 Is Not A Pollutant

Independent (UK) ^ | 8-31-2003 | Andrew Gumbel

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US says CO2 is not a pollutant

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
31 August 2003

The Bush administration has decreed that carbon dioxide from industrial emissions - the main cause of global warming - is not a pollutant.

The decision by the Environmental Protection Agency - announced with minimal fanfare on the eve of the Labor Day weekend - reverses the stance taken under President Clinton and allows industry to increase emissions with impunity.

It is also part of a pattern of casting doubt on scientific evidence, going back to the US's rejection of the Kyoto Protocols in 2001. Earlier this year, the Bush administration excised a 28-page section on climate change from an EPA report. It also ignored a report by the US Academy of Sciences that argued that the evidence of climate change could not be ignored.

"Saying that carbon dioxide does not cause global warming is like refusing to say smoking causes lung cancer," said Melissa Carey, a climate change expert with the advocacy group Environmental Defense.

Environmental groups are now considering suing the EPA to force the regulation of greenhouse gases.

The Bush administration appears to be guided by a leaked memo by the political consultant Frank Luntz, which advised: "Should the public believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate."

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ping.

[Scenic Sounds]

The Bush administration has decreed that carbon dioxide from industrial emissions - the main cause of global warming - is not a pollutant.

The decision by the Environmental Protection Agency - announced with minimal fanfare on the eve of the Labor Day weekend - reverses the stance taken under President Clinton and allows industry to increase emissions with impunity.

Is this important?

[ElkGroveDan]

Wow. Common sense takes the front seat.

[NautiNurse]

Sounds like another "ketchup is a vegetable" maelstrom.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Wellllllllllllllllllll, we know right away that the writer (at least) is a liar -

The main source of CO2 (and ALL OTHER GLOBAL ASSOCIATED GASSES!!!!!) IS NOT industrial CO2 but rather volcanoes and natural products.

Further - THE CAUSE (of so-called global warming) IS NOT KNOWN - and the functional SYMPTOM of so-called global warming is even itself under debate.

Further - The US is the MAIN COMPLIANT country that has done the MOST to reduce physical and chemical and water pollution by ALL SOURCES!

Where is the writer's data about the pollution from China that cna be measured around the world?

[ElkGroveDan]

The Bush administration has decreed that carbon dioxide from industrial emissions - the main cause of global warming - is not a pollutant.

I suppose I'm dreaming if I were to wish the press would report this like they do for issues important to conservatives:

...emissions - the main ingredient in the unproven so-called "global warming" process - is not a pollutant.

[Sgt_Schultze]

...US's rejection of the Kyoto Protocols in 2001.

The US rejected Kyoto in the 90's under clinton when the Senate voted 99-0 to reject the Kyoto protocols. Clinton was working to implement the Kyoto treaty without Senate ratification - in defiance of the explicit Constitutional requirements for Senate approval. Bush ended clinton's unconstituional behavior.

[TheDon]

..."carbon dioxide from industrial emissions - the main cause of global warming"...

I like the author's style. He warns you right off the article is a bunch of nonsense, so you don't have to waste time reading the whole article.

[Zeroisanumber]

Like anything else, in the right quantities CO2 isn't a pollutant.

[Semper Paratus]

retirement

Clinton never formally sent the Kyoto Accords to the Senate for ratification, the 99-0 was a "Sense of the Senate", so Clinton/Gore could keep the issue open in 2000.

[tubebender]

...said Melissa Carey, a climate change expert with the advocacyanarchist group Environmental Defense.

[Friend of thunder]

"Saying that carbon dioxide does not cause global warming is like refusing to say smoking causes lung cancer," said Melissa Carey, a climate change expert with the advocacy group Environmental Defense.

True, if there were no CO2 in the atmosphere the planet would be much colder. The question is does man made (i.e. industrial emissions of) CO2 directly cause measurable temperature change. As I understand it the question is still open. If it does, that would be a problem. But classifying CO2 as a pollutant would mean all animals – by breathing – are polluters. I am not being, totally, sarcastic when I say that possibility of EPA mandated breathing regulations may have prompted the Bush administration to take this step.

[gatex]

Link to CO2 history from Vostok ice cores (Russia)---

Link to graph
BP = Before Present

Appears CO2 cycles about every 100,000 years.

[Amelia]

Is this important?

If CO₂ is a pollutant, we all need to stop breathing, because it's what we exhale.

[Sgt_Schultze]

I understand that. You are exactly correct. The Senate sent clinton the message that the treaty was dead. clinton decided to implement portions without Senate approval. The lefties behaved as though Kyoto was approved - including dem Senators. W made the Kyoto death official.

[bimbo]

CO2 is certainly NOT a pollutant ... it is what Andrew Gumbel will be exhaling until he dies; and it is what vegetation requires for photosynthesis.

[blam]

Hot Summer Sparks Global Food Crisis

[general_re]

Not to mention that trees and other plants take in the CO₂ that we exhale, of course - they need it the same way we need oxygen to survive.

What gives? I thought that the greenies liked trees. Sure wish they'd make up their minds...