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To people who are skeptical that carbon dioxide could be considered pollution — after all, it’s natural! We breathe it out! — Hassol would point out that we use pollution to describe all kinds of disturbances, such as glowing cities (light pollution) and roaring airplanes (noise pollution). “Warm water isn’t a bad thing either, but if you’re dumping from a cooling tower water that’s too warm into a stream, it’ll kill the fish and it’s not allowed,” she said. “People understand intuitively what pollution means — it s something that s harmful that you re introducing unnaturally into the environment. And so this perfectly fits that definition.” To describe greenhouse gas emissions, Hassol likes the phrase “heat-trapping pollution,” since people don’t need special background knowledge to comprehend it.