“For decades now, scientists have been warning us that extreme weather events will be exacerbated by this blanket of carbon pollution we’ve been wrapping around our planet,” said Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy.
I don’t know how I feel about framing carbon dioxide emissions as “pollution.” All this carbon has been in the atmosphere before, it’s just been trapped in the ground for hundreds of millions of years. There’s got to be a way to talk about that so low information people get it. They definitely don’t see carbon dioxide as pollution, since it’s intangible and a healthy portion of our atmosphere
When we add excessive amounts of it, it is definitely pollution. I think it’s time to start talking about it as such.
I’m talking about changing minds. CO2 emissions have already been framed as pollution for decades, and that narrative has demonstrably failed to move the public consciousness. Just saying “oh it’s definitely pollution when there’s too much of it” is dismissive and will change zero minds, assuming that’s your goal here.
so you think NOT calling it pollution is going to change minds? what are you arguing for exactly?
the problem is not people getting hung up on CO2 being labeled as “pollution”, that’s silly. the problem is people are in denial because they don’t want to change their carefree 20th century lifestyles.
It’s not just CO2, there are other carbon-based greenhouse gas pollutants like methane and CFCs.
Fully aware. Also, CO2 is the biggest problem, and addressing CO2 emissions will go a large way toward addressing gases like methane.
CFC emissions worldwide have dropped off a cliff since the 80s, and that can be viewed as a global success story we should emulate for CO2.
I mean sulfur is also a natural part of our atmosphere that geologic activity has been spewing out into the air for as long as earth has had air, but I’m still going to call it pollution if you’re power plant pumps a vast quantity of it into the atmosphere and now it’s raining acid on me.
We have more than doubled the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, with half of that doubling having been done in the last thirty years alone. The very oceans are acidifying to the point large swaths of marine life are being wiped out, and thousands to hundreds of thousands of people are being killled by the effects of global warming each and every year. It’s pollution, it’s just the pollution is on such a vastly larger and more dangerous scale than any acid rain or smog people are used to thinking about.