Carbon Dioxide, A California Pollutant

California had listed CO2 as a pollutant a while ago (exactly when eludes me, but it has been a few months, I believe), and this is perhaps the most asinine move the state has made in a long time. Thank God that Gray Davis never got his way - he tried to recategorize both CO2 and H2O as pollutants if they came out of a car - emissions are too low, and the state has to have something to regulate. If your party has to get the green vote, and we are doing well in environmental policies, you must create more and more extreme positions to define your politics. Silly, but it seems to be the way of the world - especially as politics is more and more a substitute for religion.

The really dumb thing about CO2 as a pollutant is this - it is a naturally occurring compound with no environmental effect (unlike say SO2 which is very clearly detrimental - naturally occurring as well, but not a part of our ordinary atmosphere, nor a part of the carbon cycle, for example). Despite best efforts on the part of a shrill movement, there is little to no proof that carbon dioxide is a cause of anthropogenic warming. I can go more into that at another time, but let us simply say that you believe in CO2 as an anthropogenic warming nightmare. This is still a horrible idea.

Case in point - cement is the leading single producer of CO2 worldwide. There are a number of cement plants in California. The reason it is so carbon intensive is that you have to coal fire silicates to get them to have cementatious properties (so all those cement block homes are an environmental disaster as well). Our plants run on the clean burning low-sulfur coal that the US has and so are very low on the pollution scale. They do produce a lot of carbon dioxide, however. They have been ordered to reduce the production of CO2 by 12%; California says it will cost a certain plant 20 million dollars, the plant says 250 million is a more realistic cost. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, but the plant would probably have to shut down because it could not absorb those kinds of costs. "Hurrah," says the environmentalist, "we have struck a blow for mother earth. Either they clean up or they shut down, either way the world is a bit better."

WRONG!!! Right now, because of high labor costs and manufacturing expense, we import 40% of our cement from Mexico and China who have much weaker to no environmental restrictions (carbon, sulfur, or anything else), so the plant would close or lose business because of the expense, and more cement would be shipped in from environmental nightmare countries. The net effect would be a worse impact on people and the world, but because it is not in my backyard and because I took the proper symbolic stance, that is what is important. So for a symbolic gesture that might be completely erroneous anyway, we damaged the economy, lost jobs, increased pollution, and increased CO2. If you actually think that the environment is a big issue, you should figure out how to keep more manufacturing in the states, not close down our businesses to favor polluters in other countries. So even if you buy the global warming hype, this is a horrendous idea. In fact it is especially egregious if you do, because the carbon used in shipping the cement here coupled with the less efficient plants in China and Mexico mean much more carbon pushed into the environment.

But our politicians would actually have to think rather than focus on reelection by a panic-stricken and green-rhetoric-loving electorate to actually assess this. Then they would actually have to educate the electorate, but they wouldn't want that because it might reduce the stranglehold they have on California politics. It is much more about personal power and elitism than it is about actually doing anything right - I wish that was cynical, but I don't think it is, because I do not think that this is any great insight, and most people could follow this logic if it was explained to them, just the few in charge are trying to keep the rest of us stupid, because that is the nature of democracy when people without principles are in charge. That is why Plato favored a republic - of course he experienced a democratic lynching of his mentor, so perhaps he was a bit biased.

And before you mention it, I know we are a representative republic, but we have many of the trappings of democracy, and lean further and further towards this precipice of tyranny of the masses every election. Okay, that may be cynical.