CO²

Of all that are considered bad for the environment, CO² is the number one bogeyman, the most oppressive of all gasses in our atmosphere, the most villainous symbol that could end humanity, and we must get rid of it, like vermin, or to be eradicated as we would the plague.  Or else, it shall be the end, the most potent of all existential threats.

So, let's take a closer look.

A simple-looking compound, it seems, with two oxygen atoms attached to one carbon atom. Like hydrogen and oxygen, they have a special affinity for each other. There is no debate that the most crucial of combinations - that of two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms which give us H2O - are why there is life on earth. 

But why is CO² not a good mix? Is it really that bad?  Well, let's take an even closer look.

One  crucial phenomenon that makes life what it is today, here on earth, anyway, is the co-dependency between the two main categories of life forms that biologists fondly label - flora and fauna - plants and animals. 

All life forms are engines of life. We, humans, and countless other species, burn fuel for energy, just like any internal combustion engine. Carbohydrates are our favorite source of fuel. For combustion to take place we need oxygen to burn with the fuel.  Like any engine we need an exhaust for some of the products of combustion - mainly waste gasses.  Carbon from the carbohydrates in our food combine with oxygen from the air we breathe and we have combustion. Energy is released and the fused atoms become a compound molecule that is CO². We exhale it. Well and good but that is not the end of the story.

But first, this:

"According to H.H. Mitchell, Journal of Biological Chemistry 158, the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water. The skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79%, and even the bones are watery: 31%".

So, we're mostly water, and since water is H2O, and there are two atoms of hydrogen per water molecule, one would assume that we are therefore made up mostly of hydrogen.  In number of atoms, yes, but the atomic weight of an oxygen atom outweighs hydrogen by 16 to 1.  In other words, we are  mostly oxygen. That is no trivial matter.

Most amazingly though is that oxygen in the air is even more crucial because beyond four minutes that we do not inhale it,  our existence will come to a gasping end. Yet, our daily life is regulated by our body's breath cycle, even while asleep, without us having to think about it. And every day we exhale waste gasses that are made up mostly of CO² in the amount of two pounds per person.

As "luck would have it", CO² is fuel to the other half of all lifeforms on the planet - plants.  From algae to grass to palm trees to Redwood, CO² is as crucial as oxygen is to us. And then, no less miraculous, is that the plant will strip the carbon from CO², keep the carbon atom for its growth, and then expels the oxygen atoms. 

It is life's greatest universal gift from nature that wasted gas from one is needed by the other, and vice versa, which makes life for both a circular sustaining process.  This is the most important symbiotic relationship, without which neither may exist.

The clown fish and the sea anemone have a symbiotic relationship as millions of other species do but none can compare to the universal co-dependency that is between plants and animals that must occur every second of every day. 

But what have we done?  Our population now is upwards of seven billion, expelling 3 billion tons of CO² per year. That's just us. Add to that all air breathing animals and that is a lot of CO².

Meanwhile, we denude our forests, rainforests in particular, and our habitats have become concrete and other non-carbon consuming entities. We have effectively upset the balance of co-dependency.  That imbalance has more to do with climate and our existence than just the proliferation of CO², per se.

Even more astounding is that the more CO² there is for plants,  the less water they need.  Which is a good thing. But then when there are less plants and trees from when it used to be, what are we to expect but reap the consequence of a shattered co-dependency.

CO² is not to blame.

 

Time Magazine's 2019 Person of the Year, teenage phenom, Greta Thunberg, has this quote below:

"Of course there is no magic amount that says that this an OK amount, science doesn't really work that way," she said. "The higher the concentration of CO² in the atmosphere is, the bigger the risks are going to be. There is not one magic tipping point where everything is beyond saving and so on, but rather we should try to keep it as low as possible."

Time Magazine, as inconsequential as it had become, notwithstanding, we can't really blame Greta because we know full well she does not have the scientific background to make her an authority but we can perhaps blame all the adults who are behind her ascendancy.  All the adults at the UN and the U.S. Congress who invited her to speak the irresponsible claims against CO² and fossil fuel are responsible for the insanity of climate change or climate emergency or some other revised talking point in the future.

The cynics among us are led to believe the insincerity of those who promote zero emissions and the elimination of fossil fuel. Notice that the programs they propose will not all be in place till many years from today - promises by year 2030, others by 2050. Long after they are no longer in office or long enough for folks to forget what they did or long after they are gone from this life to be held accountable.

Take the climate summit held in Davos, Switzerland, last year.

From CNN (Business) London:

"WEF (World Economic Council) estimates that there were as many as 309 trips last year by private planes to two nearby airports for the conference. That number, which excludes the presidents and prime ministers that tend to land at a nearby military base .."

Add to that the number of gas guzzling limos, some heavy with armor plating, and cynics have a legitimate reason not to take these so called "concerns for the environment" seriously.

At least, Greta traveled by train and when she went to New York to address the UN, she went by sailboat from Sweden.

Now. let's consider this.  During the Jurassic period when the dinosaurs ruled the earth CO2 was five times the level than it is today.  The dinosaurs reign lasted for 160 million years.  Ancient vegetation were just as dominant and they were the scrubbers of CO2, and like today, from plants, exhaled precious oxygen to support the other lifeforms, including the giant dinosaurs.

Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time

Therefore, CO2 and oxygen, in partnership for eons of time, are what had then and now kept our lives viable. 

The Green New Deal, pardon the pun to follow, is barking at the wrong tree.