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Comment by dantheman | Hacker News Reader

Climate science has nothing to do with pollution -- CO2 is not a pollutant, any more than water vapor is.

If you read the article you linked it talks about overfishing, trash,fertilizer, etc -- these have nothing to do with CO2. Yes, acidification is caused be CO2, but there has been lower Ph levels in the past (due to volcanic eruptions etc). Now is this a problem that should be discussed, it certaintly is, but if we are talking about CO2 then only talk about it. Don't mix in all sorts of unrelated claims.

If you want to talk about pollution and over harvesting then talk about each one separately. Muddying issues by combining them in no way makes them easier to solve or easier to understand.

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I took a step back on the big picture analyzing groups attacking "Climate Science" with obvious interests behind.

IMHO, it's blatantly a PR campaign to get the masses to distrust all scientists reporting on the current biosphere situation. Do you think NASA is lying about their reports too? Perhaps not you, but you must admit most people don't go beyond reading headlines.

Don't get me wrong, I think Al Gore is a terrible messenger with more show than content and probably risks making more harm than good (just like celebrities.)

And regarding climate science as just reading temperatures over time is at least overly reductionist. The melting of the Arctic probably counter-balances greenhouse-gases, and there are studies about a short ice-age caused by the melting of Greenland's ice sheet. It's much more complex than what the mass media wants to report on their headlines.

And climate science studies, among other things, the impact of pollution on the atmosphere. Are you serious?

> I took a step back on the big picture analyzing groups attacking "Climate Science" with obvious interests behind.

So? There are other groups promoting 'Climate Science' with obvious interests behind them (Al Gore's political interests, companies that may benefit from carbon trading, science cliques, companies working on carbon sequestration programmes, etc...). Don't think that those who promote global warming are as pure as the driven snow.

Trying to demonise all those who question the reality of AGW is not conducive to a robust debate on the topic.

Down-voting what you don't agree with is against the rules. Well, in theory.

HN is really losing it.

"CO2 is not a pollutant, any more than water vapor is."

CO2 actually is considered a pollutant by the EPA. There are lots of things that are 'natural' but that are still pollutants. For example, fine particulates are considered a pollutant because they cause cancer. Thus construction equipment is not allowed to vent unlimited amounts of diesel fumes, even though much of what is released is basically the same as the stuff that already occurs to a small extent in the natural environment.

> CO2 actually is considered a pollutant by the EPA.

So what? The EPA is a regulatory agency. If they define something as a pollutant, they get to issue regulations and control things.

If you're going to take a regulatory agency's word, ketchup is a vegetable....

CO2 actually is considered a pollutant by the EPA

A political decision, not a scientific one. Made recently by the current administration, and likely to be dropped by the next administration.

I agree on the "natural" bit though. Hell, cyanide is all-natural. For that matter, peanuts are all natural but still deadly to some people.

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