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Comment by ryguytilidie | Hacker News Reader

Here is my thought on climate change, and something each party overlooks while paying scientists to do research that supports their point. Lets just pretend that hypothetically, we are 100% sure global warming is not caused by human-manufactured pollution. With that being the case, what do we do? Take off pollution controls? Turn every city into a place where you need to wear a mask to breathe? If you've ever been to Shanghai or even Los Angeles it is pretty obvious there are problems with pollution beyond damaging the ozone. Personally, I think that millions of people being able to actually breathe is more important than chemical company x stock price going up because they didn't have to "waste" money on proper disposal and soot filters...

The fact that we get bogged down in a discussion of whether the ozone is being damaged and overlook whether our lungs are being damaged just blows my mind.

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CO2 does not damage the Ozone layer. CO2 is not soot. CO2 does not damage our lungs. Even though it has recently been added to the EPA's list of pollutants (because of the climate change debate), CO2 is not even what people would readily identify as "pollution" - like chemicals that irritate eyes, lungs or sinuses.

The debate is how much - if any - negative impact is being done to our climate by a chemical that is an inevitable byproduct of the combustion of carbon-based fuels (which, outside of nuclear and hydro, offer the cheapest source of energy), and is combatting the risk of negative impact worth the economic impact to our economy.

I am not making a statement about climate change. I am only saying, respectfully, that you deeply misunderstand the debate.

> The fact that we get bogged down in a discussion of whether the ozone is being damaged and overlook whether our lungs are being damaged just blows my mind.

Not to diminish your point, which I completely agree with, but the current discussion about climate change is not related to the ozone layer, but is primarily about greenhouse gasses and associated global warming. The former was down to pervasive use of CFCs, which have now mostly been regulated away; the latter is down to (in particular) carbon emissions.

Stopping burning money on economically unviable projects because otherwise boogeyman will come to get us would be a good start. There are billions spent on things having nothing to do with pollution or pollution control. In fact, many of the pollution factors (including soot) are cooling rather than warming.

If the resource are wasted on things that are not necessary, not economically viable and not producing any useful effect - the same resources are not available for being used on things that do produce useful effects - such as filters or better technologies. If, as president Obama said, the goal of the government is to "bankrupt coal industry", why would anyone invest in cleaner and more efficient coal technologies? Why invest in upgrading filters in existing factory if the government will destroy it anyway?

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