‘It Makes Climate Change Real’: How Carbon Emissions Got Rebranded as ‘Pollution’

by Kate Yoder (Grist) California activists paved the way for defining climate change as an air pollution problem. Now it's federal law. ... Connecting climate change with something visceral and dangerous brings more immediacy to a problem that’s often seen as unfolding far away or in the future, even though it’s causing suffering now. “Climate pollution” is becoming common on the websites of green groups and atop news stories. “Carbon pollution” has been adopted by the Biden administration, appearing on the Environmental Protection Agency’s site, in press releases about cleaning up manufacturing, and in speeches by the president.

“I think ‘pollution’ is a better word to use than ‘emissions,’ because everyone understands that pollution is harmful,” said Susan Joy Hassol, the director of Climate Communication, a nonprofit for science outreach.

Consider the recent Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. EPA at the end of June. The court’s conservative majority ruled that the EPA can’t implement sweeping regulations on carbon dioxide without the explicit approval of Congress. The ruling threatened the Biden administration’s ability to make good on its pledges to tackle climate change. At least, until a month and a half later. The Inflation Reduction Act, the landmark climate legislation signed by President Joe Biden in August, amends the 1970 Clean Air Act to clearly identify greenhouse gas emissions as a form of air pollution. When it comes to the law, definitions mean everything.

Massachusetts and other states argued that the Environmental Protection Agency was required to regulate greenhouse gases from vehicles under the Clean Air Act. But the EPA, under President George W. Bush, refused to do so, saying that the Clean Air Act didn’t give it that authority. The case eventually ended up in front of the Supreme Court, which ruled in 2007 that the EPA did have that power, since planet-warming emissions technically counted as “air pollutants.” The court ordered the agency to review the evidence to see whether carbon emissions endangered public health — and after an extensive two-year review, the EPA found that it did. READ MORE