CO2 Is Not an Air Pollutant

Since 07-20-09

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/lewis200504080955.asp

First, the EPA assumed rather than demonstrate that CO2 is an "air pollutant." Section 302(g) defines "air pollutant" as "any air pollution agent or combination of such agents...which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air." Note that to be an "air pollutant," it is not enough for a substance to be emitted into the ambient air (oxygen and water vapor fit that description). The substance must also be must be an air-pollution "agent." The text does not define this term, but it does not have to. An air-pollution agent is obviously something that pollutes the air. According to Webster, "pollute" means to "make impure," "make unclean," "dirty," "befoul," or "contaminate." Carbon dioxide simply does not pollute the air in any recognized sense of the word.

A clear, odorless gas that is non-toxic to humans at 20 times ambient concentrations, CO2 neither impairs visibility, fouls the air, or contributes to respiratory disease. Plants raised in CO2-enriched environments are able to survive and even thrive despite exposure to bona fide air pollutants such as sulfur dioxide that would otherwise damage or kill them. Carbon dioxide is plant food, and experimental data indicate that the rise in the air's CO2 content from 280ppm to 380ppm over the past 150 years has increased average wheat yields by roughly 60 percent. Were it not for CO2 emissions, either many people now living might not exist or many forests now standing might have been cleared to make room for crops. The air's rising CO2 content helps almost all plants grow larger, faster, and more profusely, and all animals depend on plants, directly or indirectly, as a food source. Thus, CO2 emissions are greening the planet, contributing to biodiversity and global food security. Carbon dioxide is fundamentally unlike any substance EPA has ever regulated as an "air pollutant."