The Right to Breathe
By E. Ralph Hostetter (12/14/06)
The United States Supreme Court this month heard arguments on the issue of whether carbon dioxide should be identified as a pollutant and be brought into the Environmental Protection Agency enforcement policies of the Clean Air Act.
Webster describes a pollutant as a harmful chemical or waste material discharged into water or the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide, as it exists in the earth's atmosphere, has never been proven harmful. It is not a waste material.
Carbon dioxide just happens to be the single most important part of the Earth's atmosphere as it relates to life on this planet. CO2 is the only compound on earth that can harness the energy of the sun and, through a process known as photosynthesis, matter is created. All food is related to the vegetation created by the sun's use of carbon dioxide.
CO2, according to Department of Energy, represents a concentration in the earth's atmosphere of 368 parts per million (368 ppm) or 0.0368 percent, three hundred sixty-eight ten-thousandths of one percent — a trace.
The concentration of CO2 has increased from 280 ppm in the 1850s, when the world's population reached its first one billion, to 368 ppm today, an increase of 88 ppm. Most of this increase occurred prior to 1940, before modern day air and vehicular traffic.
This increase of some 30% during the last 150 years or so has alarmed the "envirocrats" in the Environmental Defense Fund, Green Peace, the Sierra Club and the twelve States carried by Senator John F. Kerry in the 2004 election, along with their toady dominant media outlets.
If these groups were really serious about finding a reason for this 88 ppm increase of CO2 they need only glimpse at the 600% increase in the world's population since 1850.
People do exhale, you know. The average person exhales about two pounds of CO2 a day. A population of approximately 6.5 billion people exhales 13 billion pounds of CO2 a day, or 2.37 billion tons per year.
Let's not forget that man had to domesticate animals to supply the milk, meat and clothing for 5.5 billion additional people. An estimated three billion cows, sheep, goats and hogs, plus 75 million horses and billions of cats, dogs and assorted pets will add at least another two billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere.
The "global warming" alarmists have failed to prove that CO2 is the cause of global warming. During the last 100 years the average global temperature has increased less than one degree centigrade.
They have now taken a new course in their quest to get your SUV off the highway. Typical of the political activists' modus operandi, they have gone to the courts to legislate an issue that no legislature would condone.
Were the Supreme Court to rule in favor of the envirocrats how would the American citizen be treated under the newly promulgated regulations? Would every person become a polluter by virtue of the fact he breathes?
Alarming though it may be, the following — at this point only a possibility — must be said.
Regulatory agencies in the United States have been known to take the extreme in interpretation of regulations. This is particularly true of the Environmental Protection Administration (“EPA”) in dealing with pollution and the Clean Air Act.
Reports coming from those who will administer the “pollutant” CO2 appear to agree with the principle of carbon allotment embodied in the Kyoto Protocol.
The Kyoto Protocol deals with nations and the responsibility for enforcement rests with the United Nations, resulting in historically questionable outcomes. The United States failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. This very well could be the environmental activists’ way of bringing the onerous measures of Kyoto to bear on the American public. EPA enforcement could apply Kyoto’s draconian principles to the individual U.S. citizen.
In the event the Kyoto Protocol were followed total energy use in the United States would be reduced to the total energy consumed in 1990, less 10%. Kyoto’s objective set a deadline of the year 2012.
Allotments could be established on an per capita basis. Each person in America would be allowed a carbon (CO2) allotment that would represent his permitted energy use. Allotments would include the 740 pounds of CO2 per capita annually created by man’s respiration. In addition, he would be limited in the CO2 emission of his automobile. The number of miles he could drive would be determined by the particular make and model of his car. This would encourage citizens to use the most fuel efficient vehicles, not SUVs.
Carbon allotments could be assigned for travel by air, train or bus.
In a final effort to reduce the use of fossil fuels, fuel rationing, no doubt, would be introduced. Long gas lines, experienced in the 1970s, would return.
Carbon allotments could be issued for home electrical use and heating. Those with larger homes would have to heat or air-condition fewer rooms.
Allotment regulations would be strictly enforced and violators would be severely penalized, as already has been demonstrated by EPA.
In the event the Supreme Court were to hold that rule CO2 is a pollutant all these provisions and many others would be considered, and some would be enforced.
Implementation of an affirmative Supreme Court decision well could change the average American's lifestyle. It most certainly would seriously damage America's vibrant economy.
E. Ralph Hostetter, a prominent businessman and publisher, also is an award-winning columnist and Vice Chairman of the Free Congress Foundation Board of Directors.
(Printer friendly version) 
Send Feedback
