Comments on: CDC Says Climate Change Threatens Public Health

By: Climate 411 » H.E.L.P. For Climate Change and Health - Blogs & Podcasts - Environmental Defense Fund

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:33:40 +0000

[...] the House, Center for Disease Control's Howard Frumkin detailed the dangers to human health posed by climate change. In the Senate, Senator Kennedy's Health, Education, Labor and [...]

By: marsh02

marsh02 — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 18:54:50 +0000

Where did you get your PhD?

By: kenzrw

kenzrw — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 02:16:46 +0000

Is it true that CO2, per se', is not a pollutant, but too much of it is? After all, we all breath out CO2 every time we breath (one pound a day) and trees give off CO2 when they lose their leaves naturally, as do volcanos and other natural forces. The 'pollution' comes from the fact that we're releasing too much of it. Is this correct? If any CO2 is labeled as a pollutant regardless of how little is released (i.e., breathing out), then every living creature would be a source of pollution.

I'm just saying that autos and industry are not the only sources of CO2. How are we going to cap dead-leaf CO2 or volcano CO2? Is the CO2 released by power plants and autos the same as CO2 released by me when I breath? Are these proposed caps only going to apply to industrial CO2 then?

I can see potential problems of caping ALL CO2 from ALL sources. This could someday translate into allowing only one child per family because the carbon footprint would be too high if you had 2 or 3 children. Am I being too theoretical?

Yes, we need caps on greenhouse gases, but to me it's not that clear-cut what sources to cap.

By: johnmashey

johnmashey — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:44:21 +0000

I recommend Stanford Professor Mark Z. Jacobson's excellent work, in general:

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/

and specifically, here is his testimony on April 9 to the US House of Representatives:

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/040908_testimony.htm

"I will discuss the scientific findings on the effects of carbon dioxide, emitted during fossil-fuel combustion in California, the U.S. and the world, on air pollution and health in California relative to the U.S."

See "Results from the studies and analyses area as follows:"

basically, more CO2 hurts CA health worse than it hurts most states.

This is based on Jacobson(2008) in Geophyiscal Research Leters,
"On the causal link between carbon dioxide and air pollution mortality."