The Carbon Emissions of the Long Distance Runner

We’ve noticed several times an argument against regulating carbon emissions without actually noticing that it’s the same argument with different examples. For example, Here’s House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio):

The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you've got more carbon dioxide.

And Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.):

It's plant food ... So if we decrease the use of carbon dioxide, are we not taking away plant food from the atmosphere? ... So all our good intentions could be for naught. In fact, we could be doing just the opposite of what the people who want to save the world are saying.

At the time, we noted these comments lacked much in the way of logic or responsiveness to the issue. But this quote from Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) cinched it for us:

“So if you put 20,000 marathoners into a confined area, you could consider that a single source of pollution, and you could regulate it,” Barton says. “The key would be whether the EPA said that 20,000 people running the same route was one source or not.”

So that’s it. The argument is that any system intended to rein in carbon emissions (EPA regulation, cap-and-trade) will also cover the natural production of carbon dioxide – like you and I breathing in a crowd. We’re surprised Rep. Barton didn’t mention that any well-attended event puts masses of people together to release carbon dioxide pell-mell. So here comes the end of public attendance at football games and concerts-on-the-green. It’s a slippery slope: pretty soon, we’ll have to telecommute because we won’t be allowed out of our houses anymore.

The problem is that the argument is false, a straw man. Here’s what the EPA says about you and I and our devilish emissions:

Natural sources of CO2 occur within the carbon cycle where billions of tons of atmospheric CO2 are removed from the atmosphere by oceans and growing plants, also known as ‘sinks,’ and are emitted back into the atmosphere annually through natural processes also known as ‘sources.’ When in balance, the total carbon dioxide emissions and removals from the entire carbon cycle are roughly equal.

And then came the industrial revolution. (Now, all right, Boehner has a bit of a point about farm animals, but food supplements will likely put that one to bed.)

You may want to read the whole Newsmax story the above quote came from. You’ll get the fullest possible exposition of why the solution to carbon emissions is to do – nothing – because they’re not a problem. We don’t agree with much of it – and find the story’s good points rather buried in thick ideological honey, as is usual from NewsMax – but there it is.

Let’s see, we’ve used a picture of Rep. Boehner – and Rep. Shimkus – so here’s Rep. Barton. A sort of “twilight-of-the-gods” shot.