The Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change has justified the nation’s new carbon tax by suggesting that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.
In a tweet Tuesday, Catherine McKenna, confused the issue of air pollution with the emission of greenhouse gases such as CO2.
“Canadians know that pollution isn’t free,” the minister wrote. “We see the costs in storms, floods, and wildfires — that’s why we’ve announced we’re putting a price on pollution. It’s good for the environment and it’s good for the economy.”
Canadians know that pollution isn’t free. We see the costs in storms, floods, and wildfires — that’s why we’ve announced we’re putting a price on pollution. It's good for the environment and it’s good for the economy. https://t.co/Ypza3aLLa4
— Catherine McKenna (@cathmckenna) October 23, 2018
In May 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a comprehensive report documenting the severe health risks caused by air pollution.
According to the WHO report, “around 7 million people die every year from exposure to fine particles in the polluted air that penetrate deep into the lungs and cardiovascular system, causing diseases including stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and respiratory infections, including pneumonia.”
The report made no mention of climate change and spoke only of the adverse health effects of polluted air, a different phenomenon.
All of the potentially fatal pathologies referenced in the report are caused by “exposure to fine particles in polluted air” and not by global warming, much less exposure to carbon dioxide.
In its infographic on the causes of air pollution, the WHO lists six sources of dangerous fine particulate matter, none of which is related to climate change.
The six sources of air pollution are industry and energy supply, dust, agricultural practices, transport, waste management, and household energy.
Among the six solutions proposed by WHO for combatting air pollution, not one of them touches on carbon dioxide emissions, for the simple reason that CO2 is not a pollutant and is not harmful to human health.
Unlike pollutants, carbon dioxide is odorless, colorless, and most importantly, non-toxic. Human beings expel carbon dioxide with every breath they take (without polluting), and breathe it in with every lungful of air they inhale — to no ill effect. Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than oxygen.
The WHO database collects annual mean concentrations of fine particulate matter. Those that pose “the greatest risks to human health” are sulfate, nitrates, and black carbon, they state.
The WHO report further noted that deaths relating to air pollution occur overwhelmingly in third-world countries where large segments of the population “still do not have access to clean cooking fuels and technologies in their homes.”
Ms. McKenna — affectionately known as “Climate Barbie” — is not alone in erroneously confusing carbon dioxide with air pollution.
Canadian finance minister Bill Morneau has made the same mistake, referring to CO2 emissions as “carbon pollution.”
Carbon pollution does indeed exist in certain parts of the world, but it should not be confused with carbon dioxide, which is a normal component of air, and not a foreign pollutant.
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Is there a real scientific study out there that compares plant growth & health in controlled environments? One at 100ppm CO2, one at 400ppm and one at 1000ppm? Not just little room size facilities, but greenhouse size with a variety of common vegetation.
It’s curtains for plants at 100ppm CO2. The lowest the CO2 level is known to ever have gone, as shown by ice core data, is about 180 ppm. It got about that low near the end of some glacial periods.
I think L. M Gerhart, J. K. Ward, and others, have run experiments specifying the ill-effects of low CO2 (150ppm to 220ppm) on plants, and also coupled low CO2 with such stresses as low moisture and low atmospheric pressure.
I want to say “Bio-Sphere” – but I’m not positive that that was the name of the project. It was in the Arizona desert, a sealed environment to test if a viable closed living system could be set up – to generate information for possible use on other planets — or something along those lines. I wonder what level of carbon dioxide they maintained in their ‘atmosphere’?
From Wikipedia, “McKenna holds a master’s degree from the London School of Economics where she studied International Relations, and a law degree from McGill University. She also holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto.
After graduating from École élémentaire catholique Notre-Dame (her father insisted that all his children be bilingual despite not knowing any French himself)[3] and then Saint Mary Catholic Secondary School[4] in Hamilton, Ontario, McKenna attended the University of Toronto and studied French and International Relations. After graduating from the University of Toronto, she filmed a documentary in Asia, “Real Travels: 60 days in Indonesia.” McKenna then completed a master’s degree in International Relations at the London School of Economics and a law degree at McGill.[5] ”
She has no background in the scientific world. She merely echoes what she’s been told, and in the process, has no credibility. She earned the title, “Climate Barbie”. Anyone coming out of London School of Economics will have a socialist, leftist slant in their education. It was founded by the Fabian Society to spread their economic and socialist views. “Four Fabians, Beatrice and Sidney Webb, Graham Wallas, and George Bernard Shaw, founded the London School of Economics with the money left to the Fabian Society by Henry Hutchinson. Supposedly the decision was made at a breakfast party on 4 August 1894.” –also from Wikipedia.
There is a very appropriate line that fits the CO2 proponents, IPCC, et al. “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive………….”
Climate Barbie made more than one mistake. In addition to calling carbon dioxide is a pollutant, she said, “We see the costs in storms, floods, and wildfires.” Yet, the UN IPCC states that extreme weather events are not increasing. Politicians and journalist just started making that claim with nothing to base it on.