The WSJ says that carbon dioxide has been declared dangerous by the US government. Carbon dioxide is present in a minuscule amount (380 parts per million) in the atmosphere and is absolutely essential to human life:

The Obama administration declared Friday that carbon dioxide and five other industrial emissions threaten the planet…The Environmental Protection Agency finding that the emissions endanger “the health and welfare of current and future generations” is “the first formal recognition by the U.S. government of the threats posed by climate change”…The finding could touch every corner of Americans’ lives, from the types of cars they drive to the homes they build. Along with carbon dioxide, the EPA named methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride as deleterious to the environment.

You may not recall that carbon dioxide is essential to human life, because it is essential to plant life. In the process of photosynthesis, six molecules of water plus six molecules of carbon dioxide produce one molecule of sugar plus six molecules of oxygen. Thus plants grow, and so man can live. But the US government considers it dangerous. So it goes.

As for methane, one of the other now-dangerous gases, we have commented on occasion here and there about livestock flatulence. One might draw a comparison with what’s now coming out of the EPA now, but that would be unbecoming.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 3:41 am and is filed under business, Democrats, Left of Left, Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.