The proposed bill would classify all noble gases as nonpolluting. Utah pol: Increase carbon dioxide

A Utah state lawmaker is introducing legislation to exempt CO 2 from regulation in his state, citing a need for more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Republican state Rep. Jerry Anderson, a retired science teacher, told a committee hearing Tuesday that the atmosphere needed double the amount of CO 2 , matching levels when dinosaurs walked the earth.


“We are short of carbon dioxide for the needs of the plants,” Anderson said, according to a report by The Salt Lake Tribune.

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His bill, Utah HB229, would limit the state’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and prevent a state standard for carbon dioxide concentrations. It would reclassify all noble gases as nonpolluting.

“I think we could double the carbon dioxide and not have any adverse effects,” Anderson said. “Concentrations reached 600 parts per million at the time of the dinosaurs and they did quite well.”

Anderson’s assertions directly conflict with climate change research, which suggests that carbon levels that high would acidify the oceans, according to a retired engineering professor Joe Andrade, the Tribune said. Andrade said that the concentration levels may not be toxic to humans, but they are to the planet.