People can live in 80% argon and 20% oxygen.
Madd Maxx
Wrong, Maxx. Carbon dioxide is indeed toxic.
http://inspectapedia.com/hazmat/CO2gasha...
10% carbon dioxide in air reduces nitrogen to 70% and oxygen to 18%, a reduction in partial pressure of oxygen equivalent to climbing a hill. And in the asker's example, oxygen is 20%, just like normal air.
So now you are using the the UN as your source. Here is some more information from the UN.
http://www.ipcc.ch/
Anyways, not classified as toxic =/= not toxic. Gases classified as toxic will kill you at concentrations which are a fraction of 1%. Hydrogen sulfide kills at 500ppm, not much higher than the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If they were to classify a gas like carbon dioxide which kills at 10%, even if there is oxygen, as toxic, everything would have to be classify every substance as toxic.
Carbon dioxide is a compound not a mixture. Polluted air contains toxins. Carbon dioxide doesn't contain a toxin; it is a toxin.
Read the question Maxx. An an a 80% CO2/20% O2 atmosphere has just as much oxygen as regluar air. It is the nitrogen which is missing from the mixture. This nitrogen would be missed by nitrogen fixing bacteria, but not by humans. We can't live in an atmosphere which is an a 80% CO2/20% O2 atmosphere, but we can live in an atmosphere of 10% Ar/72% N2/18%O2 atmosphere.
No, and you still need nitrogen. CO2 produces the need to respire and nitrogen does the opposite. In other words the lack of oxygen doesn't produce the need to breath. There basically would be no physical way to expel, buffer, or exchange the excess CO2 (hypoventilation and respiratory acidosis's). Realistically with those exaggerated levels, the differences in density probably wouldn't allow for any type of functional mixing. You would be breathing a 100% CO2.
I think you are saying 80% CO2 and 20% oxygen.
If that's correct then NO, humans cannot survive in such an air mix. CO2 starts to displace oxygen when it reaches about 10% of the air, which means you would suffocate even with 20% oxygen in the air. http://theroadtoemmaus.org/RdLb/11Phl/Sc...
Of course we are a very long way from CO2 even being 1% of the air. Currently it's about 400ppm which equates to 0.04% of the air. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_...
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Climate Realist - CO2 is NOT toxic. But past 10% in the air it will smother you. Just like when you drown in water, you didn't die because the water was 'toxic' but because your body was prevented from getting oxygen.
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Climate Realist - CO2 is NOT toxic. Your boys over at inspectapedia are using bad terminology. In order for a substance to be toxic is has to contain a toxin and CO2 simply doesn't. It smothers you and even your inspectapedia page admits that if you read it carefully. Toxic is technically the wrong word to use to describe CO2.
CO2 is an asphyxiant gas and not classified as toxic or harmful in accordance with Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals standards of United Nations Economic Commission for Europe by using the OECD Guidelines for the Testing of Chemicals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_diox...
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Climate Realist - You say: "If they were to classify a gas like carbon dioxide which kills at 10%, even if there is oxygen, as toxic, everything would have to be classify every substance as toxic."
THAT'S RIGHT... now you're starting to 'get it.' There is not a substance on the planet that won't kill you in large enough quantities... but not everything on the planet is classified as toxic. Something that is toxic will kill you in very small quantities. If CO2 was really toxic then we would all be dead because we've breathed it with every breath of our life. Drinking too much pure water will kill you, but is pure water toxic?
"All substances are poisons; there is none which is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison…." Paracelsus (1493-1541)
So if you want to say that everything on the planet is toxic then you can, but not everything is CLASSIFIED as toxic because in CLASSIFICATION that term is reserved for substances that will kill you with a small dose. And CO2 does not fit that classification.
How helpful is it to identify truly toxic substances if you are going to say that everything is a toxin?
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Rio is flowing in the right direction. CO2 is what controls our breathing. An increase would have us in Cheyney-Stokes breathing in short order. If you didn't die quickly, you certainly would want to.
You would go unconscious in seconds and be dead within minutes, this has happened many times before when workers would go down ladders into culverts or pits where CO2 had accumulated, unfortunately often other men would see them and go to down to help and end up dead too.
Now places like this need to be checked with an analyser before allowing workers to enter.
No with that much CO2 we would not survive.
Radical question and a diabolical thought.
Do you really appreciate life?
I don't mean to seem like an elitist, but that question can only be 'brought on' by an information system that is seriously flawed.
It would be difficult but yes
