I received the following email from a friend in the Canadian Green
Party. Is the concern expressed (concerning our ability to breathe air
with increased CO2) a real one, and is it being studied seriously by
scientists or politicians anywhere? What results are known at this
time?


Hello all.  I maintain a website dedicated to Health and Environment issues 
called greenvaughan.com.  It also serves as the local green party website for 
my riding.  It's sort of a scrapbook of very interesting and troubling findings 
that show how poorly we are regulating our food, water, and air.  There is 
one issue related to Global Warming that I find particularly troubling.  It 
concerns human health in relation to the level of Carbon Dioxide in the air we 
breathe.  I have read that even a level of 750 parts/million affects our ability 
to concentrate.  We are already at a record high level(over the past 400,000 
years of our evolution) of 360 ppm and going higher.  Perhaps there is already 
an affect on our cognitive abilities.  It seems to be this issue could be more 
important than Global Warming yet I've never heard it mentioned anywhere.  Am 
I barking up the wrong tree here?  Is there a direct health issue here 
related to Carbon Dioxide levels?

Adrian Visentin

REPLY I recieved back from the foundation:

Hi Adrian,

I've had a few people ask that question over the years, but to be honest, I'm 
not aware of any studies that have looked at it, nor have I heard of any 
other NGO engaged in climate issues raise it. The United Nations IPCC 
(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is one of the largest
groups of scientists
ever assembled, and I don't believe the issue was addressed in any of their 
assessment reports. This isn't to say that it's not important or real - especially 
since the "worst case" scenario they predict would be about 970ppm of CO2 
(which is well above the 750 ppm you mention below). Hopefully we won't allow our 
emissions of CO2 to reach that "business as usual" concentration. I realize 
this isn't much help, but I'm afraid we don't have a lot of solid info on this 
issue.

Regards,
Paul Lingl

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 19 Mar 2004 09:25 PST

This fact sheet might be of interest to you:

http://www.hoopersupply.com/msds/co2.htm

It indicates that health effects from exposure to CO2 occur at
concentration levels measured in percents, rather than parts per
million.

I have not seen any information to suggest that atmospheric CO2 levels
are having any direct impact on our cognitive abilities...but who
knows!

In theory it may be possible for that to happen - but - other effects
will become visible long before we reach that kind of concentration. 
The estimated "pre-industrial" concentration of CO2 is 280 ppm; in
other words, for (at least) millenia, all life on this Earth has
adapted to growing with 280 ppm of CO2.  As we shoot higher and higher
above this concentration, it messes around with natural systems.

Climate change is one very real possibility, which won't just heat up
the Earth, but it will do it unevenly and shift weather patterns.  Hot
parts of the Earth will probably just get hotter, but at the same time
we might see a disruption in currents such as the Gulf Stream, which
carry heat towards Western Europe and Scandinavia.  The result may be
that these northern countries become significantly colder and less
habitable, while hotter areas bear the brunt of the overall
temperature increase.  Climate change may also affect Arctic wind
systems to the extent that it will couple with ozone depletion to
create a Northern ozone hole, exposing numerous Northern countries to
excessive UVB radiation.

Another involves the timing of natural systems - Scientific American
recently had a good article about this.  Some species in the natural
environment rely on the solar/seasonal cycle for timing, which is
constant regardless of climate.  Others rely on the climate as an
indicator, for example, of whether to migrate, or when to start mating
seasons.  As climate change progresses, these systems fall out of sync
with one another.  At the same time, many plants will respond to
increased CO2 by growing faster, but then depleting soil nutrients
faster than the environment can handle.  The list goes on, and
although we cannot make certain predictions of such a complex system,
it is quite certain that we are already feeling the effects of climate
change, and that long before CO2 itself poses a direct health risk, it
will start tampering with other systems in far more harmful ways.

C

Suggested Reading:  "When Smoke Ran Like Water"  It is excellent.

Discusses evidence and investigation of the health risks associated
with pollution among other things.  It also discussed the politics of
studying these types of issues, for various powerful corporations such
as the auto, coal, and oil industries fight to keep polluting our air
despite the dire health consequences. (And our current administration
is making it even easier for them.)