Ask your kids if CO2 is a "pollutant"

If you have kids, ask 'em what a "pollutant" is.  Then ask 'em if a "pollutant" is good or bad.  You already know the answer.

Ask 'em if all oxygen-breathing critters exhale CO2.  Ask 'em if they know that plants--which make both oxygen and food for living things--absolutely must have lots of CO2 to live--and that higher CO2 makes plants produce more oxygen and food.

So...how the hell was something as vital to life as CO2 *decreed* to be a "pollutant," eh?  (Hint: the Obama regime did it.)

Your kids have been propagandized to think CO2 is a poison.  In fact many articles in the non-tech "media" claim it's a poison.  And if you were paying attention a decade ago, you recall that this meme was created because  when the all-powerful emperor Obozo occupied the White House he had his EPA *rule* that CO2 was "a pollutant."  

Wow, y'say Obozo's EPA *ruled* that something we all exhale, which plants must have to make crucial food and oxygen, is a pollutant?  Why do ya suppose the lying sons of whores said that?

One reason: Because Obozo wanted to close all powerplants powered by burning fuel.  He started with coal-fired plants, because coal had a bad reputation.  So his EPA--with his explicit approval--issued *rules* arbitrarily declaring that coal-fired plants had to emit no more than a specified number of tons of CO2 per megawatt-hour.

Plants built more than a decade or so earlier couldn't meet that totally arbitrary *rule* without a total overhaul, at huge cost.  Utilities announced that spending such vast amounts to keep older powerplants running wasn't "economically feasible," so the only prudent course of action would be to shut 'em down.

The bureaucrats at the EPA and White House just laughed.  "Mission accomplished!"  
Economists pointed out that coal-fired plants produced roughly 40% of all electricity in the U.S., so shutting down roughly 180 coal-fired plants would make the price of electricity skyrocket.

The EPA folks and Obama's advisors laughed.  Why would they care what deplorables have to pay for electricity, eh?  And of course Democrat voters would happily pay any price, since they're convinced we haz ta do dis to save all life on Erf.

Later I'll get back to how this worked out.

If you're well informed--and you are, right?--you know what the level of atmospheric CO2 on Erf is now, right?  Sure ya do.  Make your guess out loud, then roll over the line below to find out how close you are.

>>A shade under 420 ppm, which as everyone knows means "parts per million."

Now, since Obozo's EPA hath *decreed* that CO2 is "a pollutant"--thus presumably harmful to living things (though not plants, eh), would humans be harmed if the level of CO2 were to, say, double?

What if it quadrupled, to a whopping 1,700 ppm?  Surely we'd all be dropping dead of carbon dioxide poisoning, right?

How about if it increased a staggering ten-fold, to 4,200 ppm?  Plants would thrive, but would there be any human or animal life left?

Interestingly, those experiments have already been done.  And it turns out humans can survive at 5,000 ppm of CO2--or even 7,000-- as long as they don't try to do anything that requires mental acuity, like operating a nuclear submarine or launching missiles tipped with hydrogen bombs.

Democrats: "Dat not true!  Dat FAKE NEWZ!  Dat much CO2 would fry every neuron in yo' brain, stupid deplorable!"

Really, sparky?  Care to bet?  Cuz our Navy's missile-carrying nuclear subs routinely operate with 5,000 to 7,000 ppm of CO2 and it doesn't seem to have any negative effects on decision-making.

Let me repeat that: Routinely, 5,000 to 7,000 ppm.  Nuclear submarines.  Got it?

Democrats: "Whut?"

So humans don't mind high CO2.  The bitch about CO2 is that it's a "greenhouse gas" that will kill all life on Erf if it increases any further.

Ask your kids if they've heard the term "greenhouse gas."  Ask 'em what they think it means, and if it's good or bad.  They'll most likely tell ya rising CO2 gonna fry--not the neurons in your brain--but duh whole planet.  Ask 'em how they know this.  Be prepared for some interesting revelations.

"My teacher said so."  Ah, yes, of course. "But how does your teacher *know*?

Blank looks, cuz they can't know how the teachers "know."  The teachers obviously haven't done any research (fair enough), so are just parroting what they've been ordered to say by school boards, reinforced by the Media and duh "elites"--who are taking their info from NASA and NOAA and duh U.N.

"SEE?  It mus' be true cuz doze pipo wud nevah lie to us!  Dey all guuuud pipo, cuz dey say dey wanna save duh Erf!  An' dey say if CO2 rises to 450 or 500 ppm duh climate will go into "thermal runaway:" temperatures will skyrocket, melting all duh ice at duh poles, an' duh permafrost!  An' duh sea level will go up 100 feet, swamping all duh coastal cities!"

Wow, I had no idea!  Oh wait...if you claim 500 ppm will do all dat, then back when CO2 was 8,000 ppm wouldn't that have raised sea level enough to submerge almost the entire planet, wiping out all plant life?

Is there any evidence that happened?

Warmie: "No, obviously that couldn't have happened, cuz if it had all life on Earth would have ended!"

How...odd.  Cuz we know for a fact that CO2 was at 8,000 ppm for ten million years.  Yet the climate didn't get too hot for life.

Also, if you claim CO2 causes "thermal runaway," what would cause the Earth to *cool* again, to make ice start forming again if no plants were left to remove CO2?

Warmiez: "Well, see, it was a miracle.  We don' know zackly how it happen, but we're still here.  Duh fossil record only show one huge extinction--the Cretaceous extinction--which we know was caused by an asteroid hitting earth and putting so much dust into the stratosphere that it shut off most sunlight, turning the planet really cold... Wait, that's it!"

Okay, cute.  But of course the 8,000 ppm lasted for ten million years--and clearly did NOT cause "thermal runaway" (global temps keep rising without limit).  That would seem to sink your theory that higher CO2 will cause dangerously high temperatures on Earth.

So demanding that the U.S. spend trillions to prevent a 0.5C increase in global temp seems sort of...silly.

Warmie shill: "NOOooo, a 0.5C increase will melt all the ice caps an' we'll all DIE!"

Me: [sigh] "Let's start all over again..."