Why CO2 is Not a Pollutant

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 8, 2023

“… the UK Health and Safety Executive has defined safe CO₂ limits for the workplace. The limit for long-term exposure is 0.5% (5,000 ppm) but for shorter encounters it is 2% [20,000 ppm]. Anything over that figure is regarded as a risk to human health.”

Skeptical Science, advertised as “getting skeptical about global warming skepticism,” posted recently on the question: Is CO2 a pollutant? Interestingly, they made the point that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant in any sense of the word. Yes, very high concentrations in confined spaces (they provide an example) is deadly, but then so is water in a drowning. But water is not a pollutant either.

John Mason and BaerbelW [Baerbel Winkler] wrote:

If you look up the definition of pollution in a dictionary, you will soon realise it’s rather subjective. There are many substances out there that are harmless at certain levels but harmful at others.

Carbon dioxide is well-mixed in our atmosphere. That’s because when it is emitted, by any mechanism from a vehicle exhaust to a volcanic eruption, it stays in the air for many years. Unlike water, it does not condense and fall back out as rain. Turbulence does a splendid job of mixing it evenly into the air. But there are places on – and in – Earth where much higher concentrations of CO₂ may be encountered.

The trouble with CO₂ is that it cannot be seen and neither can it be smelt. In other words we cannot detect it from a safe distance.

In caves and mines, high concentrations of CO₂ are a well-known hazard. They can result from things like rotting timber, oxidising coal and particularly by poor ventilation, where that mixing into the air fails to occur. Because CO₂ is heavier than air, in poorly ventilated areas underground it may collect into pockets waiting for the unwary.

Miners or underground explorers breathing a higher than normal concentration of CO₂ will experience gradually increasing ill effects. It depends on the concentration of the gas. For example the UK Health and Safety Executive has defined safe CO₂ limits for the workplace. The limit for long-term exposure is 0.5% (5,000 ppm) but for shorter encounters it is 2% [20,000 ppm].

Anything over that figure is regarded as a risk to human health. There have been many accidents and fatalities over the years caused by high concentrations of CO₂ in underground workings and to a lesser extent in caves. Coal-miners refer to CO₂ as black- or choke-damp in recognition of the hazard.

The authors continue with a rare example of CO2 asphyxiation:

Possibly the worst CO₂-related disaster was that of 21 August 1986 at Lake Nyos, in northwestern Cameroon in western Central Africa. The lake, only some 2 x 1 km in size but more than 200 m deep, is one of a number of flooded volcanic vents in a sporadically-active volcanic belt. Carbon dioxide-bearing springs are common in this area and some are present in the lake-bed.

Lake Nyos is typically stratified, meaning that normally its waters occur in distinct layers with different chemistry that do not normally mix. In something of a loaded gun scenario, the bottom layer used to become saturated with CO₂ from those lake-bed springs. On 21st August 1986, something caused an overturning of the lake, meaning the deep CO₂-saturated water headed for the surface. Like taking the top off a shaken-up pop bottle, a vast cloud of CO₂ was instantly released and travelled out from the lake along the ground. At least 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock died instantly from asphyxiation.

Modern technology and international cooperation have since been successful in controlling the build-up of CO₂ in lakes like Nyos. But clearly, in specific circumstances, CO₂ is as deadly a pollutant as any other.

Comment

CO2 is not a pollutant in any sort of normal situation–and by a long shot. (Same for water, after all.) So scratch the last sentence of the above: “But clearly, in specific circumstances, CO₂ is as deadly a pollutant as any other.”

But what is conveniently missing for the above, as interesting as the official 5,000/2,000 ppm estimates are? The other half of the story is that carbon dioxide is just the opposite of a pollutant. It is a plant food, a fertilizer so to speak, with a long way to go in the current buildup of atmospheric concentration.

Century 21 is shaping up to be the Century of the Plants, the Century of Global Greening, a story for another day.