EPA says pollution OK!

Just when you thought it was safe to breathe, the Bush administration relaxes pollution standards.

The Bush Administration is set to rule that carbon dioxide is not an air pollutant and that the federal government has no authority to regulate emissions linked to global warming, an environmental group said on Wednesday.

The decision would be a big win for automakers producing high fuel consumption vehicles, such as SUVs, and utilities that operate coal-burning power plants, which collectively account for 60 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.

www.alertnet.org...

Let's all drive bigger cars that eat up more and more fuel! Who gives a damn about what the emissions do to our air quality!

More:
reuters.com...
www.msnbc.com...

-B.

Oh, well, that settles everything! If Bush says that carbon Dioxide is ok, then it must be! breathe deeply!

And people wonder why I have no faith or trust in statistics, graphs, or anything the govornment says, claims, does, or any established org, such as the AMA or other crap.

And venus is 900 degress ont he surface bot because of choking carbon dixide clouds, but because its so close to the sun

I have read so many things on the ATS boards that fall into the

"Only In America"

category.

Carbon dioxide produced by carbon-based organisms living in some level of harmony with their habitat can't be a pollutant.

Carbon dioxide produced by the industrial-military complex in the pursuit of short term profits, at the same time as the clearing of rainforests which could convert some of the CO2 back to breathable oxygen for all land-inhabiting species, is nothing short of insanity.

The man is an idiot puppet responding to fools, and yet America applauds.

How repealable will this idiocy be?

To be honest, I do not, and never have, subscribed to the theory on the greenhouse effect. The hard science on it is far too inconclusive to hang a hat on it one way or the other.

Indeed, as I have posted in the past, we are actually in a current Ice Age (Ice House Conditions). Geologically speaking, throughout history, the geologic record is filled with either Ice House or Hot House conditions. During Hot House conditions, no solid ice exists anywhere on the planet year round. These climatic changes are naturally occurring, and constantly change associated with the Milanchovic Cycles.

I am very suspicious of any science that is so inconclusive, yet is seized upon by certain political groups for political purposes. That only serves to invalidate said science, and give it the tag of psuedo science.

So, in a nutshell, Im not too worried about carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, be it natural or industrial in nature.

Now, I WOULD be worried about an increase in the allowance of such nasty things as VOCs (Volatile Organic Chemicals), Free Radicals, Nitrogen Oxide, Sulfur Oxides, and other related airborne contaminants.

dr

Spend too long in a small enclosed environment with CO2 only, no Oxygen, and let me know at what point you get worried.

CO2 by definition is harmful waste especially to mammals. We rely on symbiosis to clear it.

Happy for you to show otherwise.

Originally posted by MaskedAvatar
dr

Spend too long in a small enclosed environment with CO2 only, no Oxygen, and let me know at what point you get worried.

In a sealed environment, CO2 will eventually displace the O2, and become lethal, simply due to lack of O2. That is simple.

However, when you take into account the total volume of the atmosphere (or even just the troposphere, as that is the part that matters to us) and compare the total amount of CO2 that we are producing, it comes out to be something like 0.5% of the total volume of the atmosphere.

The tree huggers like to quote the billions of tons of CO2 produced (and they are correct for the most part), but that is a complete drop in the bucket compared to the volume it would have to displace to become anywhere near lethal.

As far as trees go, yes, we are indeed loosing biota at an accelerated rate, but again, we are talking less than 1 % of the total amount available. It might be a problem at the current rate in a couple hundred years.

This also fails to take into account the amount of CO2/O2 exchange that takes place in the ocean. The Oceans are giant CO2 scrubbers to make it simple. We are NOT in danger of CO2 overcoming our O2 threshhold.

The only true POSSIBLE threat from CO2 is its place as a "greenhouse gas" and I am NOT convinced of that as a defined function at this point.

Normally, DR id agree with you on this, after all, alot that these environmental groups claim is thier own propoganda.

The greenhouse effect may or may not be our doing, after all, nature does change climates every so often, often violently.

But for one, the recent warming in the northern lattitudes is disturbing. Theres also local climate changes. Carbon Dioxide might cause local warming. Theres also the problem of alot of the vegetation getting destroyed, trees, manily, that once ate up all the CO2 that we produced naturally. Thus, the once cleaners of CO2 are disappearing, whats gonna clean the CO2 out of the air now?

Skadi,

Well, as I mentioned, a lot of these changes are possibly naturally occurring as well. Keep in mind, we have had a HELL of a lot of very unusual solar activity in the past 12 months (the solar poles flipped), we have seen far more solar flare activity than normal. We are seeing heightened seismic activity. Hell, HAARP has been flipping out regularly for the past 6 months.

Also, as I mentioned, we are indeed loosing biota, but not to the point that it could affect the global CO2 concentration. Keep in mind, the Ocean is as big or bigger in terms of CO2 respiration than the worlds forrests.

The old "I'll pretend I didn't see the comment about the ocean and try the rainforest-clearing aberration line" trick.

Second time I've seen it this week.

Who made a comment about the oceans besides me?

It WAS you, 99.

It was Skadi the evil Siegfried that was trying it on.

Well, without a doubt this was motivated by an ulterior motive, likely to financially help out several political allies.

However, I do agree, CO2 is NOT a major environmental concern, and is NOT a pollutant... I would be far more concerned if this agreement loosened restrictions on many other chemical contaminants.

Ya know we could all speculate all day about Global Warming but what I wanted was a study by real scientist. People that search more for truth than for a evidence to back their politics.


I got it..

www.cfa.harvard.edu...


Also, just today...this is a little pro-right skewed so take it with a grain of political salt...bet ya won't hear a liberal say that about their side of it..

newsmax.com...


Some more food for thought..

www.sitewave.net...



Here's a little quiet questioning of the left itself..

news.bbc.co.uk...



The bottom line is, we are ready to deal a major blow to world economy on the basis of political speculatory science. The rise in CO2 has followed the 300 year warming trend not preceeded it and is not out of the ordinary. As the earth warms, ice melts, more fresh water means more in the atmoshpere means more lush plant growth, de-forestation and dessertification slow. No doubt we have added some but as d.r. noted its only about .5% of the .04% of CO2 that makes up the atmoshpere. You are not , by a long shot living in the warmest time in earth's history..CO2 levels are no even close to reaching their high point. The only thing these laws will do is send the world backward in progress, poverty and from that, the environment will suffer more than it ever could from CO2.

Its been the trend that poverty opposed to wealth is our environments greatest threat.

I'll leave you all with a series of quotes..


�The environmentalists try to inject guilt into people for consuming, as if consuming by itself causes destruction to the environment. There is no truth to that. You have the wealthiest countries on earth with the best looked-after environment. Poverty, not wealth, is one of the biggest threats to the Earth's ecological health. Look at the environmental destruction caused by poverty. They have no money left to reforest, they have no money left to prevent soil erosion, and there is no money to clean their water after they make it dirty. It's that kind of arrogance that is coming from a movement that is basically white upper-middle class and is saying that it's neat to have Africans with no electricity. They are mainly political activists with not very much actual science background who are using the rhetoric of environmentalism to push agendas that are more political than they are ecological.�

-Patrick Moore, head of the environmental advocacy group Greenspirit, and a former founding member of Greenpeace. Moore left Greenpeace in the 1980s after becoming disillusioned with what he considered the group's radical approach to environmental concerns.