Download Is Carbon Dioxide a Pollutant?

Is Carbon Dioxide a Pollutant?
ENVH 111
October 5, 2010
http://courses.washington.edu/envh111/
Carbon Dioxide is NOT a Pollutant!
• CO2 is a natural component of the atmosphere
• We exhale it continuously
• Plants need it to grow and to produce oxygen
• If CO2 is a pollutant, then what isn’t a pollutant?
Washington Times Editorial 3/29/09
“Protect Us from the EPA”
• CO2 is natural
– ‘If carbon dioxide wasn’t around, there would be no
plants’
– ‘Neither would there be any people or pets if we weren’t
allowed to exhale’
• Benefits of global warming
– Longer lives
– Greater biodiversity, agricultural production
– ‘Ocean levels might rise, but parts of Canada and
Russia would be much more habitable’
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/29/protect-us-from-the-epa/
Washington Times Editorial
3/29/09
“Protect Us from the EPA”
• It’s not clear that global warming is real
– Recent evidence of cooling
– Big factor is variations in the sun’s energy output
• Human activity is not affecting climate change
– Responsible for only small fraction of greenhouse gases
– Changes in GHG have little effect on global temperatures
• Proposed changes would be catastrophic
– ‘We don’t want to eliminate all carbon emissions’
What is a Pollutant?
POLLUTE
to make physically
impure or unclean
Contaminate
Poison
Defile
Carbon Dioxide
Benign?
Carbon Dioxide
Greenpeace burns CO2
in effigy
Or
Noxious?
“Carbon Dioxide: A Satanic Gas?”
Professor Patrick Michaels
Testimony
U.S. House of Representatives
CO2 in the Workplace
Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL)
10,000 ppm (1%)
CO2 in atmosphere
390 ppm (0.039%)
Too Much CO2  Respiratory Acidosis
• Respiratory acidosis
o Lungs cannot remove all of the CO2 the body produces
o Disrupts body’s acid-base balance (too acidic)
• Symptoms
o
o
o
o
Confusion
Lethargy
Shortness of breath
Sleepiness
Too Little CO2  Respiratory Alkalosis
• Respiratory alkalosis
o Low levels of CO2 in the blood
o Disrupts body’s acid-base balance (too basic)
• Symptoms
o
o
o
o
Dizziness
Light-headedness
Numbness of hands and feet
Sleepiness
• Treatment
o Breath into paper bag (re-breathe CO2)
The Greenhouse Effect
Natural greenhouse effect
increases surface
temperatures by
about 30oC.
Increasing
greenhouse gas
concentrations
increases surface
temperatures.
Source: Martin
Manning, Director,
IPCC Working Group
Atmospheric CO2
Concentrations
Charles Keeling
Mauna Loa
Volcano
How CO2 Became a Pollutant
• A second definition of “pollutant”
o To contaminate an environment, especially with man-made
waste
o CO2 is a waste gas of fossil fuel combustion
• Timeline
o 1998 – Clinton administration judged the Clean Air Act to be
applicable to CO2, but did not implement
o 2003 – Bush administration reversed this judgment
o 2006 – EPA rules that Clean Air Act does not apply to CO2
o 2007 -- Massachusetts files suit against EPA
The Clean Air Act provides: “The Administrator shall by regulation prescribe (and from
time to time revise) in accordance with the provisions of this section, standards applicable
to the emission of any air pollutant from any class or classes of new motor vehicles or new
motor vehicle engines, which in his judgment cause, or contribute to, air pollution which
may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”
Supreme Court: Massachusetts vs EPA
• Global warming
o Well-documented rise in global temperatures
o Related to significant in increase in atmospheric CO2
o “The harms associated with climate change are serious
and well-recognized.”
o EPA does not dispute causal connection
• Clean Air Act definition
“any air pollution agent . . .
including any physical, chemical,
biological, radioactive . . .
substance or matter that is
emitted into or otherwise enters
the ambient air”
Supreme Court Ruling
• Greenhouse gases ‘fit well within the Act’s
capacious definition of air pollutants’
• EPA ‘has statutory authority to regulate emission
of such gases from new motor vehicles’
• EPA required to regulate ‘air pollution which may
reasonably be anticipated to endanger public
health or welfare’
• EPA action was not ‘arbitrary, capricious, or
otherwise not in accordance with law’
EPA clears way for greenhouse gas rule
NY Times, April 17, 2009
• EPA ‘formally declared carbon dioxide and five
other heat-trapping gases to be pollutants that
endanger public health and welfare, setting in
motion a process that will lead to the regulation of
the gases for the first time in the United States.’
• Brings USA into line with European Community
and Japan
• Six gases declared greenhouse gases
– carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide,
hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur
hexafluoride
Regulation of GHG under the Clean Air Act
• May 2007: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA that GHGs
are air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act.
• December 2009: EPA issued “Endangerment Finding,” stating that current and
projected levels of six GHGs threaten the health and human welfare of current
and future generations
• May 2010: EPA issued “Tailoring Rule,” permitting guidelines to the largest
stationary sources of GHGs, excluding smaller factories, restaurants and farms
• December 2010: EPA issued guidance to states on implementing GHG permits
• January 2011: New GHG air permitting began for facilities that would have to
get air permits for non-GHG pollutants anyway
• January 2011: EPA proposed a three-year deferral of GHG permits for biomass.
• July 2011: New GHG permitting began for new facilities that would emit:
– more than 100,000 tons of CO2 per year;
– where major modification increase emissions by 75,000 tons of CO2 per year