U.S. EPA declares CO2 a “threat to public health”
The decision today by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to call CO2 and several other greenhouse gases a “threat to public health and welfare” sets the stage for more aggressive climate-change regulations to come out of the United States. Based on the EPA position, it’s now legally recognized that the CO2 that comes out of your car’s tailpipe, out of the oil sands, out of power plants, etc… is a contributor to global warming and bad for humanity.
How quickly things change under a new U.S. Administration. Cap-and-trade, renewable portfolio standards, national low-carbon standards — they’re all on their way. Something worth celebrating as Earth Day approaches…
Tags: carbon dioxide, EPA
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
April 17th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Obviously a very contentious issue, I’m a lifelong “greenie” and work in the envrionment field, so I place a very high value on environmental protection, sustainability, and whatever else you want to label it. However, I see some real problems with relating the environmental impacts of everything in terms of its carbon footprint. The fact that the science of CO2′s impact on climate is NOT by any means solid, and definatley does NOT have a consensus among reputable scientists is one side point (that is of course debatable as well), but the main problem I see is that the more intense and immediately dangerous pollutants get ignored, and that is a very bad thing.
For example, vehicle exhaust. There are so many toxic substances in exhaust, including some very strong carcinogens, that it amazes me that we only look at CO2 as the main indicator of its level of danger to health, when in actual fact the CO2 is the absolute LEAST dangerous tailpipe emission in term of human health. CO2 does not harm human life directly, and I think it is very irresponsible to lead the public to believe that it does, simply because it is untrue, and because it ignores the much more important pollutants. Now the reason why I don’t go so far as to say the news that you describe about the EPA labelling CO2 a threat to public health is “bad” is because if it helps to reduce vehicle dependancy and increase efficiency, it will result in the proper outcomes for society, even if it is for the wrong reasons. Whatever it takes to motivate people, I guess. However, I think the due dilligence and responsibility as a somewhat un-biased reporter is to point out that CO2 does not directly affect human health in a negative way, and indirectly it may not either. There is more and more research that suggests CO2 role in climate is very small and the portion that man contributes even smaller still. However, don’t get me wrong, I want to reduce CO2 “just in case” it is a problem, however science isn’t something that should be molded to say what we want it to say, it speaks for itself and the fact is only a very small percentage of people on this planet understand the scientific method, least of all politicians. And currently the science of CO2 is in its infancy and in my opinion could go either way. Whereas the science of other pollutants from anthropogenic emitions is very well documented and should be given the highest priority. I think we’re forgetting the importance of reducing these toxins in our environment, which are largely responsible for a long list of human diseases, cancer being the largest.
Clayton Weiss, B.Sc.