CO₂ - the definitive rant

Go and read this, print out multiple copies and hand them to your hippie friends (at least those that still have a working brain). This is one of the best debunkings of the whole CO₂ is a pollutant tropes that I have seen. The author -- William Happer -- is a Professor of Physics at Princeton University so although not a climatologist, he knows his way around math, analysis and that whole "science" thing... From First Things:

The Truth About Greenhouse Gases
The dubious science of the climate crusaders.
William Happer
The object of the Author in the following pages has been to collect the most remarkable instances of those moral epidemics which have been excited, sometimes by one cause and sometimes by another, and to show how easily the masses have been led astray, and how imitative and gregarious men are, even in their infatuations and crimes,� wrote Charles Mackay in the preface to the first edition of his Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. I want to discuss a contemporary moral epidemic: the notion that increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, will have disastrous consequences for mankind and for the planet. The �climate crusade� is one characterized by true believers, opportunists, cynics, money-hungry governments, manipulators of various types�even children�s crusades�all based on contested science and dubious claims.

I am a strong supporter of a clean environment. We need to be vigilant to keep our land, air, and waters free of real pollution, particulates, heavy metals, and pathogens, but carbon dioxide (CO₂ ) is not one of these pollutants. Carbon is the stuff of life. Our bodies are made of carbon. A normal human exhales around 1 kg of CO₂ (the simplest chemically stable molecule of carbon in the earth�s atmosphere) per day. Before the industrial period, the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere was 270 ppm. At the present time, the concentration is about 390 ppm, 0.039 percent of all atmospheric molecules and less than 1 percent of that in our breath. About fifty million years ago, a brief moment in the long history of life on earth, geological evidence indicates, CO₂ levels were several thousand ppm, much higher than now. And life flourished abundantly.

Now the Environmental Protection Agency wants to regulate atmospheric CO₂ as a �pollutant.� According to my Webster�s New Collegiate Dictionary, to pollute is �to make or render unclean, to defile, to desecrate, to profane.� By breathing are we rendering the air unclean, defiling or desecrating it? Efforts are underway to remedy the old-fashioned, restrictive definition of pollution. The current Wikipedia entry on air pollution, for example, now asserts that pollution includes: �carbon dioxide (CO₂)�a colorless, odorless, non-toxic greenhouse gas associated with ocean acidification, emitted from sources such as combustion, cement production, and respiration.�

As far as green plants are concerned, CO₂ is not a pollutant, but part of their daily bread�like water, sunlight, nitrogen, and other essential elements. Most green plants evolved at CO₂ levels of several thousand ppm, many times higher than now. Plants grow better and have better flowers and fruit at higher levels. Commercial greenhouse operators recognize this when they artificially increase the concentrations inside their greenhouses to over 1000 ppm.

Wonderfully said -- print out copies and give them to people. Link to this article. He goes into a lot more detail so the entire article is worth your time, not just this brief excerpt. Read it all here: The Truth About Greenhouse Gases