Since plants BREATH carbon dioxide to grow, how can CO2 be a pollutant?

Question

Which is the greenhouse gas? Carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide?

Answer 1

it's carbon monoxide that's the pollutant.

Answer 2

Carbon monoxide is toxic. Carbon dioxide is essential for life. Plants need CO2 for photosynthesis. Think of like this: humans inhale oxygen and exhale CO2 and plants inhale CO2 and exhale oxygen.

There is more CO2 in the air than previously and it has been beneficial. The Earth has greened up, food production is up and famine around the world is way down.

In the technical sense, CO2 is not a pollutant. The only argument for it being a pollutant is based on the unproven theory that increasing atmospheric CO2 will be problematic in the future. The Supreme Court has agreed with this argument but that is not proof of the theory.

Recent estimate of climate sensitivity by Stephen Schwartz of Brookhaven National Lab indicates AGW will not be catastrophic.

Answer 3

If you apply the correct (technical) definition of a pollutant then both carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioixide (CO2) are pollutants. But then, so too is anything that can be considered a contaminant or has an adverse effect on the environment into which it's introduced.

From the perspective of human beings both CO and CO2 are pollutants, from the perspective of a plant then CO2 is beneficial and CO is basically irrelevant.

Plants breathe in much the same way we do - they take in as much carbon dioixide as they need, just like we take in as much oxygen as we need. If we increase the amount of oxygen in the air it doesn't make us grow any faster and similalry, increasing levels of CO2 doesn't make plants grow any faster.

Plants have got more CO2 then they need, the rest is surplus to their requirements and it remains in the atmopshere.

Each year biomass absorbs 90 billion tons of CO2 and releases 88 billion tons. I can't recall off the top of my head how much CO2 there is in the atmopshere - it's either 1.5 or 2.3 trillion tons (one is total atmopsheric CO2, the other is total anthropogenic CO2). Whichever it is, the plants have got about 20 times the amount of CO2 they need.

Answer 4

It's not necessarily a pollutant, but it is a green house gas, meaning the more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more heat we trap on the planet. We've increased the CO2 in the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, but also by cutting down large swaths of forests over the last 50-100 years as well, meaning there's less plant life to soak up all this extra CO2.

Answer 5

CO2 actually isn't the key pollutant.

Regardless... it IS a pollutant. The more CO2 emissions (which includes over-population of human life), the more trees have to "breath". The fewer trees there are (due to forests being chopped down for various things... including housing developments for the extra people), the less CO2 there is changed to oxygen... and the more CO2 becomes a pollutant.

Answer 6

CO2 is not a pollutant. It is a greenhouse gas and people think that greenhouse gases are a bad thing. Greenhouse gases are actually what allow life to exist on Earth. Though, high levels of green house gases in the atmosphere will raise the overall temperature on earth. I think it's a misunderstanding that CO2 is a bad thing because it's not even the most prominent greenhouse gas in our atmosphere. Water vapor is the most common greenhouse gas, accounting for 40-60% of the Earth's greenhouse gases.

Answer 7

Global warming is a HOAX! It was created by a bunch of ignorant pukes who saw it as a means for controlling the Global Population. And sadly the mindless little sheep are only too happy to jump onto this broken down band wagon.
Of course ALL on the Far-left will support this fraud! Those pukes are desperate to find ways to bring EVERYBODY under THEIR PSYCHOTIC CONTROL! Those half-witted clueless fools actually think that they have the right to dictate what other people Eat, Wear, What appliances they can use, What kind of car they can drive and how much fuel they can use.
NEVER MIND those douche-bags who promote this garbage fly around in private jets and gas guzzling cares. That's because these rules are JUST for the little people. Not the big important people like Al Gore! RME!

Answer 8

Too much of anything is bad. Water is good, too much will drown you. The same is true for CO2.

"Pollutant" is a legal term, not a technical one. The US Supreme Court has said CO2 is a pollutant. Since it's a legal issue, they win.

Answer 9

THE oceans have remained alkaline during the Phanerozoic (final 540 million years) apart from an exceptionally short and poorly understood time fifty 5 million years in the past. Rainwater (pH 5.6) reacts with the main uncomplicated minerals on earth (feldspars) to offer clays, it is an acid eating reaction, alkali and alkaline earths are leached into the oceans (that's why we've saline oceans), silica is redeposited as cements in sediments, the reaction consumes acid and is speeded up by potential of temperature (see decrease than). interior the oceans, there's a buffering reaction between the sea floor basalts and sea water (see decrease than). Sea water has a close by and native version in pH (pH 7.8 to eight.3). that is going to be talked approximately that pH is a log scale and that if we are to create acid oceans, then there is not any longer sufficient CO2 in fossil fuels to create oceanic acidity by way of fact most of the planet’s CO2 is locked up in rocks. while we run out of rocks on earth or plate tectonics ceases, then we are in a position to have acid oceans.

Answer 10

CO2 is a pollutant because its levels are too high. Anything can be dangerous in too high of a level (i.e. water and overhydrating). Yes plants do use CO2 but humans are producing too much for the plants to handle and its building up. That is the reason global warming is occuring.

Answer 11

It is not a "pollutant" as such. But the GW problem is caused by too much CO2 in the atmosphere, so it is undesirable to add even more.