I don't see the point of trying to redefine "pollution" to include CO2. We have been discussing climate change for decades, but it was only recently that people tried to shoehorn CO2 into category of "pollution." It just takes a category where society has some consensus and then shoehorns some new disputed idea into existing category. It's an end-run around the process of building consensus around the new thing.

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Rygian 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The first ever version of the "Greenhouse gas" wikipedia page lists CO₂ as the first such gas (besides water vapor, obviously disregarded).

That page is from 2002.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Greenhouse_gas&ol...

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pjc50 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

IPCC first report was 1990, and the basic arithmetic of the atmosphere goes even further back.

	▲	rayiner 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Right, but the 1990 IPCC report doesn’t use the term “pollution” to refer to CO2: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/05/ipcc_90_92_a... It uses the term “greenhouse gas” to refer to CO2 and uses the term “air pollution” to refer to what people traditionally think of as air pollution. For example, in one place of says: “Consequences of CO2 enrichment and climate change for natural terrestrial ecosystems could be modified by other environmental factors, both natural and man induced (e.g., by air pollution).” So that’s treating “CO2 enrichment” (emissions) as distinct from “air pollution.”
	▲	throwyawayyyy 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I was battling global warming in Civ endgames in 1991...

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rayiner 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm talking about redefining the term "pollution," not the term "greenhouse gas."

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applfanboysbgon 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Carbon dioxide atmospheric pollution has been acknowledged since literally the 1800s. What era are you from? Are you 200 years old?

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rayiner 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Did we call it “pollution” back then or something else? That is, did we lump CO2 conceptually into the same category as soot from coal plants and things like that?

Society uses labels to group things together so that we can treat similar things similarly for various purposes. For example, when we talk about “education” we usually mean teaching kids in schools or colleges. Of course, there’s lots of other things you can call “education.” But if the Department of Education comes in and says it’s going to regulate technical presentations at software conferences because that’s also “education,” then you’d say: “that’s not what people mean by the word education in this context.” That is, we have a consensus about what “education” encompasses and what it doesn’t for purposes of government regulation, and seminars at conferences falls outside that understanding.

	▲	pjc50 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, labels matter; so let's take a step back and ask why you're fighting this argument? Why does it matter which of the harmful emissions from a smokestack count as "pollution"?

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AnimalMuppet 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think you miss rayiner's point. He's not disputing whether CO2 is a greenhouse gas. He's saying that doesn't make it a "pollutant" as the term was understood at the time, say, the EPA was created. There was no congressional legislation that said that it was something the EPA was empowered to regulate. Then the EPA decided to regulate it anyway (and, yes, won the court case about whether it could). But it was still shoehorned in, as it was not considered a pollutant in the way that NO2 or particulates or chlorine were.

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watwut 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is ridiculous. There is no redefinition, it was always part of definition. Seriously. The only end run around consensus are lies like "CO2 as polution is a novel thing".

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rayiner 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> There is no redefinition, it was always part of definition.

Source?

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wyre 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You need a source showing you that greenhouses gasses aren't pollution?

The thing that is also known as "air pollution"?

I want to tell you to stop being a moron, but its against this site's TOS.

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rayiner 2 hours ago | parent [-]

In the 1990 IPCC report it talks about “greenhouse gasses” and also about “air pollution” but treats those as two distinct things: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/05/ipcc_90_92_a.... For example, on page 97, it says “CO2 enrichment” may “enhance plant growth,” but that “enhanced levels of air pollution could also reduce this positive effect.” There’s it’s clearly talking about CO2 and air pollution as two different things that have opposite effects on plant growth.

Is the IPCC also “morons?”

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wyre an hour ago | parent [-]

Do you have zero critical thinking skills?

CO2 can be pollution while still allowing plants to grow, plants use CO2 in their growth cycle, if you didn't know, they don't use other greenhouse gases to grow.

Page 9 lists CO2 as the first item in a list of greenhouse gases. I don't want to spend all day read this 37 year old report.

In what world are greenhouse gases not air pollutants?

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rayiner 20 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

You don't have to read the whole report, just search for how it uses the words "greenhouse gases" and "air pollution." The IPCC treats those as being two distinct things.

For example, on p. 55.

> "Consequences of CO2 enrichment and climate change for natural terrestrial ecosystems could be modified by other environmental factors, both natural and man induced (e.g. by air pollution)"

That clearly refers to "air pollution" as an example of "other environmental factors"--something different from "CO2 enrichment" (rising CO2 levels). The report uses the same terminology on pp. 88 and 97. Throughout the report, it treats "greenhouse gasses" as it's own category that can interact with "air pollution"--but is different from air pollution.

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xyzzyz an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

In a world as of a couple years ago, when nobody called CO2 “air pollutant”.

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watwut an hour ago | parent [-]

But that is a lie. CO2 was air polutant 30 years ago 20 years ago and basically forever.

It is only in the post-truth society of right wing anti-climate influencers that apparently someone tries to redefine the terms to exclude it.

	▲	rayiner 14 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		If it was always this way, explain why the IPCC's seminal report on climate change uses the phrases "CO2 enrichment" (rising CO2 levels) and "air pollution" as if they're two different categories? > 2.2.4 Consequences of CO2 enrichment and climate change for natural terrestrial ecosystems could be modified by other environmental factors, both natural and man induced (e.g. by air pollution). Help me parse this according to your understanding that "CO2 was an air pollutant 30 years ago." If CO2 is a subcategory of "air pollution," then it makes no sense to list "air pollution" as an example of "other environmental factors." It wouldn't be grammatical. The report uses this basic sentence structure, referring to "CO2 enrichment" as one thing in distinction to "other environmental factors" including "air pollution" several times. Explain to me how that's consistent with your position?
	▲	card_zero 36 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I have also vaguely noticed that it started being called pollution sometime this century. "Huh, that's new", I thought. Not particularly surprising, though. Of course that timespan is almost 30 years, so my concept of recent change might be getting stretched. But yeah, more familiar pollutants are dirty or caustic or radioactive, and chew holes in things or give you lung diseases or poison the wildlife, things like that, so it was a little jarring. Though I suppose we had CFCs, they didn't do anything directly harmful either.