
Evidence behind EPA’s obligation to regulate greenhouse gases stronger than ever - berkeleysciguy
https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/12/13/evidence-supporting-epa-obligation-to-regulate-greenhouse-gases-stronger-than-ever/
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RcouF1uZ4gsC
>The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to regulate air pollutants when the
agency’s administrator finds that they “cause, or contribute to, air pollution
which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”

The question is not whether it is a good idea for greenhouse gases to be
regulated. The question is if the Clean Air Act mandates it. IANAL, but from
what is quoted, I would have a hard time classifying CO2 (which already makes
up 0.04% of air) which you exhale every time you breath as an air pollutant.
There is no evidence that breathing air with CO2 (at the levels that current
industrialization produces) produces harmful effects directly. In fact, if you
hold your breath and exhale, the air you exhale likely has a higher local CO2
percentage than the increased levels caused by industrialization. The effects
are mediated by its greenhouse effect and global warming. This is analogous to
the CFC and the ozone depletion. The CFC's were pretty innocuous at ground
level, but their release cause ozone depletion. This was regulated not through
the Clean Air Act, but by the Senate ratified Montreal Treaty
([https://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/15/science/treaty-on-
ozone-i...](https://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/15/science/treaty-on-ozone-is-
backed-in-senate.html)).

The issue right now is that there is not the political will in the United
States to address greenhouse gases, therefore people are trying to accomplish
this through a very broad reading of the Clean Air Act. This will not be
helpful in the long term as it just further associates fighting climate change
with government overreach, and further politicizes what should not be a
partisan issue.

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dragonwriter
> There is no evidence that breathing air with CO2 (at the levels that current
> industrialization produces) produces harmful effects directly.

“directly” is not in the cited requirement, so indirect causation is not
excluded from the requirement.

~~~
marmadukester39
And actually c02 concentration has a measurable effect on intelligence.

