Carbon dioxide is vital to all life on earth as set out by E Cawse in letters (GT 21 Nov).
There is a minute amount (0.04 per cent) in the atmosphere.
Chemically it is harmless at this level.
It takes about 10 per cent to be fatal in air and there is no prospect of it increasing to anywhere like this level.
So why is there a need to stop the level increasing?
In the atmosphere CO2 acts as a “greenhouse”
It lets the sun’s heat in and doesn’t let a lot of it out.
If there is more CO2 there is more heating of the earth.
This is fairly simple physics.
It is not really contestable as the theory is ratified by any number of experiments.
Looking at CO2 as a chemically benign gas ignores the physics.
It does cause heating.
It has caused heating since we started increasing the atmospheric level by burning fossil fuels.
And it will continue to cause more heating.
The level of 0.04 per cent is enough to get all the good effects but increasing above this heats the planet.
More heat means a more dynamic weather system – more floods, more droughts, more wind, and change throughout the planet.
An increase of 2 degrees will see the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef and the movement of cyclones to Brisbane.
So far we have an increase of about one degree and the effects are obvious.
The problem is that politicians who deal with this will no longer be in power when the worst effects occur.
At present they are after votes – not solutions.
– Reg Lawler
Dagun
