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Which scientists are saying that we need plutonium to survive?

Maybe certain kinds of plutonium or uranium aren't harmful in trace amounts, but they are not necessary. If they were, they would be considered mineral nutrients. I challenge you to find any source that quantifies any of those substances as a nutrient.

Just him?

Yes, because Grogg Jr. would never have been born.

Seems some people around here have difficulty grasping the notion that not all things are good in moderation.

Cooee!

Mr gbaji!

Is pollution a bad thing?

Sheez

Connecting the issue with global warming is another thing, which you didn't do, but others have done. I'm not 100% certain that they're connected, mostly because we don't have the science yet to understand what kind of an impact that we've had on this planet.

No, you can't understand the science. That's not the same thing, alas.

Guys... My point with pollutants (specifically "air pollutants" in this context) is that we should only be counting things that do not naturally occur in "air" and can and should be reduced as much as possible. I'm quite certain you could reduce the parts per million of Sulphur Dioxide in a volume of air without any "harm" being produced. Yes. Not a perfect definition, and I'm sure you can always find exceptions, but the main point was that carbon dioxide is a natural and necessary component of our atmosphere. It's not just something that may be present. It's there because all the plants and animals would die if it wasn't there.


The definition of pollutants used by the EPA implies this distinction, but the Court decision ignored it. In fact, they kinda quoted half of it and ignored half, and in the process twisted the meaning around to where anything is now defined as a pollutant. Any chemical in the air is an "air pollutant" under the definition used by the Court. Including Oxygen, Nitrogen, etc...


I was trying to get to the point that from the EPAs perspective, air pollutants are things that can and should always be reduced from the air that they are in. They cause "harm" at any level, with the goal to keep their levels low enough so that the harm they cause is less then that which the body/organism exposed to the pollutant can handle (the toxicity level). Harm in this case *is* defined in terms of toxiciy. That's what typically makes something a "pollutant".


CO2 is not a "toxic" subtance in this context. The "harm" that is alleged is based on the entire global warming process. But that's a wholely different ball of yarn. What the Court ruled was that CO2 should fall under the heading of a pollutant (as a toxic substance basically) so that the EPA could be forced into regulating it. What the dissent was arguing was that this is wholely the wrong way to do this. CO2 is *not* toxic nor meets the definition of a pollutant as defined by the EPA. The proper way to create CO2 level enforcement is to legistlate a set of definitions and requirements for the EPA to follow that actually matches the problem and "harm" that CO2 may cause, not try to shoehorn it into an existing definition that doesn't really fit because it's expedient to do so.

Um. And that's just what's scientifically wrong with the decision. I've already gone into great lengths on the legal and political problems with it.

Water is a natural and necessary part of the Great Lakes. It's not something that just might be present, it's supposed to be there and plants and animals would die if it was absent.

That said, increasing the amount of water in the Great Lakes by 50% would still be a big problem.

You sound like the laughably moronic "We call it life" ads.

Yes. I'm glad you finally noodled out the point here. The Courts decision was based on a strictly semantic intepretation of the EPAs definition of pollution. One which effectively defines *everything* as a pollutant.

What's funny is you all keep coming up with supposed counterarguments that only strengthen my point. Yes. Too much water in the Great Lakes would be bad. Yes. Too much Oxygen in the air would be bad. But we don't define oxygen or water as pollutants (and when we do, it's usually part of some Dihidrogen Oxide joke).

Yet the Supreme Court effectively "fell for the joke" in this case. They ruled as though the dihodrogen oxide scare was true. And ruled that CO2 is a pollutant who's levels must be regulated by the EPA, and that the EPA can be sued for *not* sufficiently regulating it. All based on the semantics in the definition of "pollutants".


Thanks for agreeing with me that this is absurd.

No. I'm bothered by the fact that the court made a ruling based on the assumption that they should...


Ok. Let me go really slow:

The EPA defines "air pollutants" as any chemical that is "in the air", and which can be shown to cause harm.

The laws governing the EPA require that it requlate the levels of any known "air pollutants".

The court ruled that CO2 meets the definition of an "air pollutant", and thus the EPA is responisble for regulating its level and thus the EPA can be sued for *not* regulating it.


The problem: By that use of the definition of air pollutant, *everything* is a polllutant. Even oxygen for example. By extention, all other areas in which pollution is defined (like water pollutants) would include things like for example H20 (by the "dihydrogen oxide" joke, that can be shown to "cause harm", just as much as CO2 can).

It effectively sets an impossible standard to meet. While the court does not demand a reduction to zero, the precident set is that the EPA could be sued if it does not. Afterall, who decides what the "right" level of CO2 in the atmosphere is? No one knows. There are too many factors. While you can get a lot of scientists to conclude that there might be too much right now, and that this likely is causing some of the warming (a degree or so of it), no one could tell you what the "right" amount is. That's because the "right amount" varies based on hundreds of other climate factors that are well outside the scope of the case in question.

Thus, any plaintiff can simply charge that the EPA didn't reduce CO2 levels "low enough", and meet the standard allowed in this case.

It's a ridiculous ruling.

Want to reduce CO2?

Plant more trees.

I should be on that EPA I'm ******* awesome.

You all realize this is part of my secret evil plan to make people panic and plant so many trees that they trigger a new ice age right? Or did the memo not go out?