Talk:CO2 is Green

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IIRC from my atmospheric chemistry courses, one of the largest sinks for CO2 is actually the oceans, not plants. Now, if you take the fact that gases are less soluble in warm liquids and that CO2 causes temperatures to increase via the enhanced greenhouse effect (which is also caused by water vapour, which increases in concentration as you warm the earth up) then we have less CO2 being taken up by the oceans. Temperatures increase further, it's basically a massive positive feedback system. Then you have the added complications of particulates which cause radiative forcing in the opposite direction and ones that are more general pollutants; acidic rain, toxins and so on. ^pathetic 15:53, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't really care enough to edit it, but I'm just going to go ahead and say this. The last big paragraph confuses carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin, CO2 just dissolves in the blood as carbonic acid, where the bicarbonate ion it produces is crucial to regulating the body's long term pH trend.^{— Unsigned, by: 130.101.251.217 / talk / contribs}

No, it's right as it is. CO2 binds to the haem group; the fact that this displaces O2, although pH control by the presence of carbonic acid does cause the Bohr effect, which shifts the loading curves of haemoglobin to facilitate this. It's certainly not CO that binds to haemoglobin as whatever binds into the haem group must do so reversibly; addition of CO is certainly irreversible even at relatively low concentrations - this irreversible binding prevents oxygen binding which is why anyone suffering CO poisoning needs to be given 100% O2 to displace it.

http://www.iscid.org/encyclopedia/Haemoglobin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haemoglobin

^pathetic 13:39, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I misread that, the article does seem to simplistically imply that CO2 could bind irreversibly, but a high concentration of it (in the first instance, at least) does cause less O2 loading. Anyway, I think it's more complicated than the article suggests, and probably more complex than its scope can manage. ^pathetic 13:47, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Carbon-14

I heard that the CO2 released by cars and stuff contains carbon-14, and plants are only able to use Carbon-12 for photosynthesis, so the plants aren't benefitting.

Plus Doesn't Carbon-14 take like, 5,000 years to break down?

User:Mectrixctic 18:28, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

1. Completely wrong, all the isotopes are mixed up. Chemically, CO2 is CO2, whether it's got a C12 or a C14 atom. Do you recall where you heard that? 2. Yes, it takes 6,000 years for half of it to decay (into nitrogen-14). See wp:Carbon-14 - David Gerard (talk) 18:46, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Do you want the serious answer about carbon isotopes (there is one) or the phrase "you fail chemistry forever?". I can provide both. ^pathetic 18:48, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Hey, give the kid a chance to crib from Wikipedia ;-) The key phrase is "The different isotopes of carbon do not differ appreciably in their chemical properties." This is why the thing that makes C-14 different (that it's radioactive with a shortish half-life and reasonably common) makes it so very interestingly useful - David Gerard (talk) 18:52, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

(EC)Well, I'll give the serious answer anyway. 14-C is constantly generated from nitrogen by reactions in the upper atmosphere. This gives it a more-or-less constant atmospheric concentration in carbon based atmospheric molecules, CO2 and CO etc. etc. However, while it is chemically identical as DG says, this is only true for a certain value of "identical". The fact that the atom is physically heavier changes the bond strength a bit. Indeed, you can see this in IR spectroscopy as the frequency of the vibrational transition is related to the bond-strength. 13CO vibrates at a slightly different frequency to 12CO (and 14CO) indicating that its bond strength is different. This difference is bond strength, while insignificant in a lab setting it does come into play on large scale "experiments" such as global photosynthesis. Plants don't exactly "tell the difference" at a chemical level, but there are enough differences in the thermodynamics and kinetics for this minor changes to manifest themselves over time. This leads to a very slight difference in isotope ratios for inorganic and organic material. This is enough for modern mass spectrometers to pick up on and is one of the things that needs to be calibrated against in radiometric dating. ^pathetic 18:57, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I heard it in Debate class, but that was 2 years ago, so my memory is a bit fuzzy, although now I'm thinking that he was talking about C¹³₆ instead of 14. Well, THX for the explanation, I'll do more research if I decide to contribute. User:Mectrixctic 19:38, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Probably. As, in principle, fossil fuels shouldn't contain 14-C, bar contamination which is regular enough. But plants still can utilise 13-C, it's just at a negligibly different rate. Odd thing to bring up in a debate, though. ^pathetic 21:23, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Fake science

Reminds me of this http://fakescience.tumblr.com/post/3486748618/keep-the-air-clean 18:01, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

More CO2 may benefit the world; CO2 is probably not a pollutant

The article claims that the proposition that "more CO2 will benefit the world" has "no backing in science". However, I remember reading several articles in New Scientist over the last few years which said that our current interglacial would have reverted to a "true" Ice Age - i.e. the arctic ice cap extending significantly over the northern land masses - but for the global warming caused by the Egyptian deforestation of Northern Africa. This led them to suggest that, given that the earth's climate is not in long-term equilibrium, global warming had the advantage of guaranteeing that the earth would not tip back to what we think of as an Ice Age, and that an Ice Age (which might be precipitated by a cooling of just a few degrees, given ice's albedo) would be far more disruptive to human (and natural) life than a warming of the earth by a few degrees. Can the page be modified to include this argument? (even if it then manages to dismiss it).

The article starts its discussion of the meaning of the word "pollutant" with the phrase "if we define". Rather than defining words yourself, I suggest looking to an impartial (and most would say correct) source, that being the OED. The OED defines "pollutant" as the noun derived from the verb "pollute", which is defined as "contaminate with harmful or poisonous substances"; "contaminate" is defined as "make impure by exposure to or addition of a poisonous or polluting substance". The use of the word "impure" means that a pollutant cannot be something which is already present in the natural state of that which is being polluted: thus CO2 is not an atmospheric pollutant It helps when considering this to look at where the article later talks about excessive consumption of water: by analogy, though a thousand litres of water a day would kill you, water is not a toxin. (whereas though a billionth of a gram of lead administered once would do you no noticeable harm, it is still a toxin) Of course the average consumer thinks that all pollutants are "bad" and that by corollary anything that is not a pollutant is "OK" so this argument naturally gives ammunition to climate change sceptics, but rather than bend the meaning of words to satisfy the public's ignorance for the sake of our political prejudices, a Wiki should set the record straight.

Let's not beat about the bush here: we all know exactly why pressure groups sponsored oil companies spread disinformation about global warming. It is annoying when people disagree with you, very annoying when they dress up their argument as scientific fact and absolutely infuriating when that fact is true. Unfortunately, there is a very strong case to be made that CO2 is not a pollutant as argued above and that increased CO2 levels may have at least one beneficial effect in preventing a recurrence of Ice Age. I do not doubt that these arguments are not constructive (as the general public are too ignorant to place them in perspective) and that they are manipulated by those with self-interest for the purpose of misinformation; however, that does not mean they are not true, and lest your page wish to stoop also to using disinformation to advance its own political agenda (the authors' personal bias made painfully obvious by scatological profanity), I suggest they are recognised on their merits. (I had to add this long-winded self-defence paragraph as I am rubbish at swearing)^{— Unsigned, by: 86.175.29.161 / talk / contribs}

Could you give a link to those New Scientist articles? Thanks.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 09:58, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Semantic bullshitting about whether CO2 classes as a pollutant is the point. Now, it doesn't strictly matter what the definition is but what the word actually means and the connotations associated with it. This is something that a dictionary doesn't give you and is one of the reasons many people take their time to iron out their definitions beforehand rather than going to a supposedly "objective" source like the OED. Otherwise you're Completely Missing The Point. Trying to define it as not a pollutant is clearly a political move and needs to be treated in that context. Additionally, I'm going to take an extreme issue with the concept that "it's not a pollutant if it's already there" because pretty much everything is already there in some form or another. Nuclear waste isn't a pollutant by that standard because radioactive isotopes are already in the Earth's crust and in abundance. The issue about harm is a dose-response relationship. If you think CO2 is harmful, grab a cylinder of it and breath deep - on the other end of the scale one of the deadliest agents made, VX, wouldn't do you any harm with just one or two molecules of it. Actual toxicity, as used by professionals in labs, is defined using this. This is why we have safe levels or acceptable levels of certain chemicals - if it's below the level where the body can deal with it, it just isn't toxic but if it goes over it is toxic. ADK^{...I'll litigate your pencil!} 15:00, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

That might have some grain of truth if CO2 levels were analogous to previous cycles, but they're not. And you need to define a "few degrees." That's no small change as climate sensitivity is most likely to be 3 degrees C as reported in AR4. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 17:04, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Re the New Scientist article - no I don't have it. It's one I wish I had kept though! "it doesn't strictly matter what the definition is but what the word actually means and the connotations associated with it" - that's not objective (unless you glean those connotations from an independent source, rather than by argument). That's making sure that your definitions suit your political message so that people agree with you. There are (hopefully) objective sources that define CO2 as a pollutant - just type "pollutant" into Wikipedia and search for the word carbon - but there are also very respected and, I really do think, not at all political sources which give a definition of pollutant that supports the proposition that CO2 is not a pollutant. You may choose to have a Wiki page that advances only the definitions that support your arguments, but I think it makes the page - and your arguments - much stronger if you acknowledge and include even the evidence that is against you: otherwise it is very easy for someone who doesn't agree with you simply to look at the definitions in the dictionary as I have done as come to the conclusion that your page, and thus your arguments, are incomplete. I am not saying you are wrong in your overall message - in my opinion the author's opinion should count for nought when writing a Wiki page - but simply that starting a supposedly objective discussion with "if we define" is self-satisfying rhetoric rather than independent fact. Surely a Wiki page should include all facts on a subject, rather than including only the ones which support what the author considers the 'correct" conclusion to be? Include those OED definitions on the page - they are facts from a reliable source which are directly relevant to the issue - and include all the other relevant facts too, and let the stronger argument win on its merits - not someone's opinion. And I was guilty of this too - citing definitions as I think they are or should be used, rather than from an independent source. I just looked on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic - and it turns out that my toxicity analogy could be wrong, as they talk about the toxicity of water. Wikipedia may also be wrong - it's only written by people such as us after all - but I believe that is how argument is most strongly advanced, by citing verifiable and respected sources, not by coming up with deft arguments as to why our chosen meaning should be the right one. (I then looked in Wikipedia at toxin, toxicity etc. and couldn't come to a firm conclusion - but it was only an analogy so maybe better to drop it than get sidetracked) The "few degrees" to the best of my recollection was indeed the three centigrade to which the third reply refers - I think the point they were making in the article was that the damage suffered from the spreading of deserts and rising of sea levels predicted by global warming models might be far less that that caused by a hundred foot of ice covering entire continents, as can happen in an Ice Age - i.e. that we have more to fear from an Ice Age than we do from global warming.

Just a little climatology factoid if you want to fear an ice age over global warming (though technically we're still in an "ice age" as we have ice caps, but this is common when we don't have a supercontinent landmass). Wwarmer climate mostly means warmer oceans. Gases don't dissolve easily in warmer water meaning CO2 increase will lead to less CO2 dissolved in the oceans, leading to a feedback cycle that warms the oceans further. This alters the salinity and temperature gradients that drive ocean currents as more ice cap fresh water is melted into the salty ocean water. The Gulf Stream slows and then stops, so warmed equatorial water isn't brought up from the equator. As the only thing currently stopping the northern hemisphere turning into a snowball is the Gulf Stream (as the direct radiative flux is massively unbalanced over different latitudes) we get an ice age from global warming. And yes, this can happen over a "few degrees". In fact, the climate record shows this happening some time around 30,000 years ago and it happened over a time period less than a century. ADK^{...I'll advocate your flightdeck!} 15:19, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

"A simple counter-argument to the bullshit"

This section appears to suppose that too much CO₂ kills plants outright, as opposed to acting as a greenhouse gas. Is that intentional? Is CO₂ simply toxic in high doses?--"Shut up, Brx." 17:12, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Searching Google for "CO2 overdose plants" brings up pretty much exclusively cannabis growing forums. ^pathetic 17:32, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

lol. But maybe that section should be removed? Do we have a botanist here?--"Shut up, Brx." 17:46, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that's what it's trying to say. I think the suggestion is supposed to be that too much CO2 is an overdose for the planet as a whole (via the greenhouse effect) rather than plants themselves. But it's not a very clear or useful analogy; remove if you want. Wëäŝëïöïď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 18:17, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Done. I must say, there's a weird sort of pleasure in removing content. I think I might have gained new insight into the minds of deletionists--"Shut up, Brx." 18:26, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Its like saying oxygen is good, so why not fill your house with only oxygen..you prolly wont blow up... ^{— Unsigned, by: 76.222.85.44 / talk / contribs (signed by bot)} 18:49, 28 March 2013 (UTC)