Really? So a naturally occurring element in air is a pollutant? Might want to rethink that definition.
Is nitrogen a pollutant? Argon? I’m pretty sure you can’t breathe those exclusively and live.
If CO2 really is a pollutant, we should rid the atmosphere of it at once! Though I’m not sure the plants will be very happy, and if the plants aren’t around anymore, kiss your a-s goodbye.
CO2 IS a pollutant, and can be deadly, but it also occurs naturally. Removing CO2 from the environment would be impossible, but stopping processes that create massive amounts of CO2 is a fantastic idea. People are surprised to discover that you can be poisoned, and die, by drinking too much water. I remember kids in science class in elementary school being shocked that the air we breath is mostly nitrogen, and that 'nitrogen narcosis' is deadly for scuba divers.
Any change from stasis that is unanswered by nature is a danger to the planet. Ozone (O3) production, and ironically it's depletion in the upper atmosphere, is a huge problem, CO, CO2, NO, NO2, SO2, etc, are as well.
Fossil fuels don't spontaneously combust, so to say that fossil fuels don't pollute is insanity. To propose yet another fossil fuel plant to do *anything* is insanity, but when has humanity actually worked meaningfully to save itself? Coal, and other fossil fuels are an easy reach for addressing problems that could be dealt with in a much less harmful way, but the 'power industry' is wed to what they can get cheaply, damn the long term costs. People making those bad choices aren't likely to be alive when the poop hits the fan, and by then, it's
STILL cheaper to 'kick the can' than fix the problem.
If China declared war on pollution like they seem to be ready to declare on the rest of the world, they really could reverse their long and short term problems. It IS possible. The pandemic response, lock downs, and incredible decline in human activity indisputably proves that WE are killing our planet, and we CAN fix it. We CAN save ourselves...