Climate Craziness of the Week: Center for Biological Diversity petitions EPA to list CO2 as a ‘toxic substance’

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WUWT:

thescream-co2

From the “everybody breathes out poison” department. WUWT reader “Hell_Is_Like_Newark” writes:

The Center for Biological Diversity has issued a petition to get CO2 listed as a toxic substance.  CO2 will join the ranks of dioxin, cyanide, etc.

For Immediate Release, June 30, 2015

Contact: Miyoko Sakashita, (415) 632-5308, miyoko@biologicaldiversity.org

Legal Petition Urges EPA to Save Sea Life, Regulate CO2 as Toxic Substance

WASHINGTON— With the world’s oceans and sea life facing an unprecedented crisis from ocean acidification, the Center for Biological Diversity and former Environmental Protection Agency scientist Dr. Donn Viviani today formally petitioned the Obama administration to regulate carbon dioxide under the federal Toxic Substances Control Act. The first-of-its-kind petition under the toxics act seeks widespread reduction of CO2because it contributes to ocean acidification, driving the destruction of coral reefs and threatening nearly every form of sea life, from tiny plankton to fish, whales and sea otters.

“Time’s running out to avoid a mass extinction of wildlife in our oceans,” said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center. “It may not look like a toxic chemical, but when there’s too much CO2 in the ocean, it turns seawater corrosive and dissolves the protective shells that marine animals need to survive.”

The oceans absorb more than 22 million tons of CO2 each day, and on average the oceans are 30 percent more acidic now than at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Harm from ocean acidification is already observable: It has killed billions of oyster larvae in the Pacific Northwest; severely dissolved the shells of pteropods, a butterfly-like plankton, off the coast of California; and impaired the growth of corals in Florida and the Caribbean. And with CO2 levels rising, the dangers to our oceans will become more severe.

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Again, liberals try to redefine facts to fit their agenda.