Politics: Global Air Poisoning?

TORONTO, ONTARIO - It's been a cold week here in Toronto with the wind chill reaching -30 C when I woke up this morning. It's been a cold week all across northern North America, the kind of deep freeze that sometimes happens in the winter. In this era, though, whenever temperatures dip significantly below seasonal levels, a bunch of right-wingers starts claiming that this is evidence that "global warming" is not occurring. Never mind that for at least a decade, scientists and other informed people have been trying to explain that a more appropriate term for what it happening as a result of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is "climate change" that will result in more extremes in many places, but on average result in overall increased average temperatures. Clearly, this communication campaign has failed. People can't or won't distinguish between climate and weather, and many don't accept the idea that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere matters. A new communication tactic is needed, and I suspect the prospect of air smelling like rotten eggs--maybe call it "global air poisoning"--might be more convincing.

Even if one doesn't believe that the causes are man-made, the observation that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are increasing can't be regarded as a good thing. There are many impacts besides the well-known "greenhouse effect" of trapping heat inside the atmosphere. One of the more disturbing effects is that the increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere raises its level in the oceans as the two are in equilibrium. More carbon dioxide in water means greater acidity--carbonic acid is formed. The acidity of the ocean is reportedly already going down, to the extent that the phenomenon rates its own Wikipedia page.

So what? As water becomes acidic, it becomes harder for organisms that have an aerobic-based metabolism--basically, things we are used to from animals to plants to algae that exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide or vice versa--and easier for things that have a sulfur-based metabolism. These are things that for the most part live only in the deep ocean right now next to thermal vents. This is a good thing, because the bacteria based on a sulfur metabolism process sulfur oxides into hydrogen sulfide (instead of turning carbon dioxide into hydrogen oxide, better known as water). Everyone knows what hydrogen sulfide is--it smells like rotten eggs. Humans can detect it in the parts per trillion range. In higher concentrations, it basically kills off aerobic organizations, and some think a volcanic-based spike of hydrogen sulfide is what led to the Permian extinction.

The more carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere, the more acidic that the oceans become, and the closer we come to allowing the anaerobic, sulfur-based organisms to gain a foothold in the ocean. As the Science Daily article linked above puts it:

In the end-Permian, as the levels of atmospheric oxygen fell and the levels of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide rose, the upper levels of the oceans could have become rich in hydrogen sulfide catastrophically. This would kill most the oceanic plants and animals. The hydrogen sulfide dispersing in the atmosphere would kill most terrestrial life.

To me, hydrogen sulfide in the atmosphere is more disturbing than climate change, which is disturbing enough. Hence, I would suggest that those of us concerned about the changes taking place in the atmosphere quit talking about "climate change" and try calling it something like "global air poisoning" that encompasses both ideas.

Of course, basing environmental arguments on increased hydrogen sulfide probably won't work, either. People won't be able to smell the increased levels of hydrogen sulfide, so they won't believe that it is happening even when levels start to increase, if they ultimately do. By the time people would smell anything, we'd be on the verge of death and it would be too late to decisive action. So, if the scare factor doesn't work--and if it were going to, I would think that rising sea levels should have done that trick--it isn't going to help.

Still, the language of "climate change" doesn't seem to be working. Perhaps "global air poisoning" can lead us to some other terminology that will be ideally be more accurate and more effective. "Global atmosphere change" maybe? I'm still thinking.