Pitch
On the basis of accumulated scientific evidence, MIT should encourage all nations of the world to treat CO2 as an environmental pollutant.
Description
Summary
In 2007, twelve U.S. states and several cities filed a suit with the Supreme Court for obligating the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate climate-related emissions under the Clean Air Act. The court commented that "greenhouse gases fit well within the CAA’s capacious definition of air pollutant”. That standpoint was reconfirmed in 2012, compelling the EPA to include carbon dioxide as a pollutant in all subsequent regulations.
Carbon dioxide is commensurately identified in the EPA Clean Power Plan announced on August 3, 2015, as “the primary GHG pollutant, accounting for nearly three-quarters of global GHG emissions and 82 percent of U.S. GHG emissions” (Federal Register of October 23, 2015, Part 5 a).
Nevertheless, CO2 constitutes only one of many spectral influences on global temperatures that include other greenhouse gases as well as clouds and airborne particulate matter. The Earth's solar reflection and carbon absorption characteristics are altered by human land use and natural vegetation. Since carbon dioxide is the basis of photosynthesis and consequently of plant re-assimilation, the relationships between carbon emissions and ensuing climate change are rendered correspondingly more complex and less readily quantified.
By comparison, global ocean acidification is caused primarily by the conversion of absorbed carbon dioxide in seawater to carbonic acid (H2CO3). Except for the gradual decay of atmospheric methane to CO2 as well as acidic soil runoff in coastal regions, no other greenhouse gases or ancillary effects contribute to the ongoing decline of ocean pH levels.
The current atmospheric CO2 concentration of about 400 ppm is increasing by 2 – 3 ppm/a, while ocean pH values averaging 8.06 are estimated to be declining 100 times more rapidly than at any other time over the last 300 million years. As the primary agent of ocean acidification, therefore, carbon dioxide ranks unequivocally as an environmental pollutant.
What actions do you propose?
The verified correlation between anthropogenic carbon emissions and reduced ocean pH levels has become an environmental determinant that could be subjected to legal regulation. To manage, moderate, and reduce the carbon-related degeneration of interrelated life systems, all nations of the world should enact legislation classifying carbon dioxide as an environmental pollutant. Existing guidelines and procedures that forestall detriments to human health and environmental integrity by noxious substances could be extended to regulate the decarbonization of energy conversion (e.g., coal to electricity), industrial processes, and agricultural production.
At the initiative of the presenter in Germany, the legal definition of CO2 as an environmental pollutant was included into draft coal phase-out legislation submitted by the Left Party (LINKE) to German parliament (Bundestag) on November 25, 2014. The corresponding bill 18/3313 entitled “German Contribution to the UN Climate Negotiations – Define Carbon Dioxide as an Environmental Pollutant, Limit the Operating Periods of Coal Power Plants” (Deutscher Beitrag zu den UN-Klimaverhandlungen – Kohlendioxid als Umweltschadstoff definieren, Betriebszeiten von Kohlekraftwerken begrenzen) has been referenced in recent parliamentary debates preceding the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Paris. Following that conference, German parliament will again address national energy and climate policy to include recent findings on greenhouse gas emissions.
To elevate this initiative to a global dimension, MIT and its alumni could now issue an appeal to the governments of all Member States of the United Nations recommending the adoption of the EPA definition of carbon dioxide as an environmental pollutant. The emissions from fossil fuel combustion, alterations of land use, and industrialized manufacturing would constitute the focal point of legislation relating the quantifiable effects of carbon imbalances in the biosphere to overall economic policy. Employing ocean pH values as a lead parameter could link all countries of the world to the cumulative dissolution of CO2 effluents by seawater.
The inherent increasing presence of carbonic acid in the oceans results not only from the combustion of fossil fuels, but also of wood and other biogenic matter. Dissolution in seawater prevents the carbon dioxide from being subsequently re-assimilated by photosynthetic processes. Research conducted by MIT could determine the extent to which the classification of biomass as a renewable energy resource might therefore be qualified.
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