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CO2 is not a pollutant. Without it, plants, and thus animal life will die. In fact plant death nearly occurred recently on a geological timescale. More co2 =
by awt 11y ago
CO2 is not a pollutant. Without it, plants, and thus animal life will die. In fact plant death nearly occurred recently on a geological timescale. More co2 = more life. There is no such thing as stasis wrt global climate, and I'm glad the climate does not appear to be moving in the direction of an ice age in the near term, although it looks as though in the long term this is inevitable.
- nabla9 11y agoCheck the definition of polluntant and polluntant taxonomy. Polluntant is not the same as poison or harmful chemical. Carbon dioxide is a fund pollutant.
- awt 11y agoOMG co2 is not harmful it is plant food. If there is more of it more plants grow. The earth has had insanely higher amounts of co2 in the atmosphere than are present today in which periods life thrived even more so than today.
- cromulent 11y agoIt's the level that we are interested in. Everything is a poison, what matters is the dose. It is good for plants, but it is also a greenhouse gas. Venus has a lot more CO2 than Earth, and a lot less life.
- _ph_ 11y agoWater is also essential for life, still you can drown. Yes, we had higher levels of CO2 in geological times of the earths past. The problem is, we are changing the CO2 content at a rate where ecological systems might not be able to cope with it. Also, even if the ecological systems do not collapse, just flooding of the inhabited costal regions would create enough human suffering to justify strong countermeasures against raising CO2.
- awt 11y agointeresting that you bring in human suffering. Have you thought about all the lives saved and brought into existence due to the burning of fossil fuels? I'm not much of a utilitarian, but gradual sea rise is nothing compared to the degree of poverty inflicted and number of people that would never be born if fossil fuel use were forcibly reduced. And no solar can't replace it, nor wind. The only contender is nuclear.
- _ph_ 11y agoThere is no doubt that modern civilization was only possible due to fossil fuels. But that says nothing about how long we should continue to use them. Actually its just in the last very few years that alternative energies are competitive. This is really a development which happened in the last 20 years. And solar and wind can replace fossil fuels. In 2015, 30% of the German electricity was produced by regenerative energies, up about 5% from 2014. So in the next few years, it will be the largest part of energy production. We don't have to go to 0% CO2 emissions, having 10-20% gas power plants for filling gaps is absolutely acceptable, as long as the rest is CO2-free.
- awt 11y agoWind power is not viable: http://trilema.com/2016/heres-where-you-forget-about-wind-power-as-an-alternative-source-of-power/ http://trilema.com/2016/heres-where-you-forget-about-wind-po...