Una verdad simulada

An undesirable side effect of the extended debates on global warming is the huge misconceptions that the “environmentally sensitive” folks now harbor about carbon dioxide. An Inconvenient Truth has undoubtedly made people realize that they leave a “footprint” on the planet, and their consumption pattern will have a long-term impact on the ability of this planet to support human life. It bears repeating, not life but human life.

However, what the movie has also done is to cast the good old CO2 in an undeservingly bad light. Too many people are becoming too worried about CO2 emissions, its just CO2 that is in minds of so many folks. So lets be clear: CO2 is possibly one of the most benign pollutants, perhaps after water. As a matter of fact, I hate to even label CO2 as a pollutant.

Several times I have heard people being worried about vehicular pollution because their cars spew huge amounts of CO2. This comment about Pune being polluted because vehicles emit CO2 is just one of the several examples I have encountered. No! If CO2, H2O and N2 were the only pollutants from a vehicle exhaust, the air would be as fresh to breath as that in a forest, miles away from civilization. The real problem in vehicular emissions are particulates, unburnt hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and nitrous oxides (in roughly that order; also ozone). Heard about a catalytic convertor… its job is to ensure that the pollutants from a vehicular exhaust are CO2, H2O and N2, as far as possible.

CO2 is a non-reactive, (relatively) non-toxic gas. In fact, it is necessary to sustain life: ever heard of photosynthesis. At higher concentrations, exceeding 4%, it is hazardous. This means that exposure to CO2 approximately two orders of magnitude higher than what we are typically exposed to is hazardous, unless you work in a field where you are exposed to elevated levels of CO2.

Besides CO2 finds several applications. Another misplaced concern comes from people who use the CO2 gas, for example, in food industry (freezing or colas), medicine (respiratory systems or laparescopy), fire extinguishers etc. I have seen people worried about these applications of CO2. Newsflash: get over it. CO2 alternatives (eg, helium in laparescopy) could be more energy consuming (and thus, more environmentally harmful) than CO2 itself. When you completely burn a fuel, you get CO2: a process can hardly be more efficient (I am using this term loosely) than that. But most importantly, CO2 is an industrial off-gas. A lot of CO2 is not manufactured by burning additional fuel, in fact, its manufactured by recovering and purifying the CO2 that would otherwise be let out in the environment anyway.

Bottomline, CO2 is not evil, not even close to evil. The problem lies elsewhere: our penchant for high consumption and choosing expediency over efficiency.

Tags: General //