CO2  by Roger King  

Table of Contents

1. Introductions
2. CO2
3. Carbon Offsets
4. CO2 Levels
5. CO2 Reduction Problems

Introduction

Scientists dismiss claims of runaway man-made global warming by Kirk Myers at the Seminole County Environmental News Examiner March 15, 2010  CO2 molecules capture a small portion of surface energy and transfer this energy to other gas molecules in the atmosphere. Some of this energy escapes into space and the rest finds its way back to the surface, where it is eventually re-radiated, beginning the cycle again.

Note that CO2 doesn’t actually retain energy. It acts only to transfer captured energy to other molecules in the atmosphere through collisions. In short, the greenhouse effect of CO2, even at concentrations well below current levels, is energy-limited and not concentration-limited.

According to Dr. Pierre Latour, a chemical and process-control engineer, a tripling of CO2 from current levels (approximately 385 parts per million) would not produce any additional warming. In an editorial published in the February issue of Hyrdocarbon Processing magazine, he writes:

"CO2 only absorbs and emits specific spectral wavelengths (14.77 microns) that constitute a tiny fraction of solar radiation energy in earth's atmosphere. The first 50 ppm [parts per million] of CO2 absorbs about half of this tiny energy, [and] each additional 50 ppm absorbs half of the remaining tiny fraction, so at the current 380 ppm, there are almost no absorbable photons left. CO2 could triple to 1,000 ppm, with no additional discernable absorption-emission [warming]."

In other words, all the long-wave radiation that can be absorbed by CO2 is eventually absorbed. So no additional warming is possible. The process is analogous to adding blankets to a bed on a cold night. Adding one extra blanket will have a big effect. But adding more and more extra blankets will have a progressively smaller effect until there is no effect at all.

Some climate scientists claim that clouds and water vapor amplify the radiative “forcing” of man-made CO2 – creating a sort of magic “multiplier effect” that raises surface temperatures. But where’s the proof? There isn't any. Climate models lack the computational power to accurately simulate clouds and cloud variations. In fact, as recent studies have shown, clouds may act to suppress any warming triggered by greenhouse gases.

To those that would have us attempt to control CO2 as critical to our survival, I would ask what that golden limit is?  Is 250 parts per million of the pre-industrial age the right amount?  Maybe more or less.   Vegetation certainly grows better on higher level and earth has certainly had higher levels that are are now experiencing on multiple occasions.

Finally, CO2 has been proven to follow temperature by several hundred years, where politically correct science has temperature following CO2 increase.   The ocean and volcanoes are by far bigger CO2 producers than man ever has been or ever will be.    

CO2 Fairytales in Global Warming  by Gregory Young  January 11, 2009   current CO₂ levels hover around 385 parts per million (ppm), a relatively minor constituent of earth's entire atmosphere -- less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present.    ...   human or man-made additions to the whole global mix of greenhouse gas is only 0.28% (shown in blue).  Of that amount, man-made CO₂ represents only 0.117%, or a little less than half of the 0.28%. 

CO2

12 Facts about Global Climate Change That You Won’t Read in the Popular Press  by Joseph D’Aleo   August 18, 2008    5 Reconstruction of paleoclimatological CO2 concentrations demonstrates that carbon dioxide concentration today is near its lowest level since the Cambrian Era some 550 million years ago, when there was almost 20 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere as there is today without causing a “runaway greenhouse effect.”  

Global Warming, Global Myth  by Edmund Contoski   Natural wetlands emit more greenhouse gases than all human activities combined. (If greenhouse warming is such a problem, why are we trying to save all the wetlands?) Geothermal activity in Yellowstone National Park emits ten times the carbon dioxide of a midsized coal-burning power plant, and volcanoes emit hundreds of times more. In fact, our atmosphere's composition is primarily the result of volcanic activity. There are about 100 active volcanoes today, mostly in remote locations, and we're living in a period of relatively low volcanic activity. There have been times when volcanic activity was ten times greater than in modern times. But by far the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions is the equatorial Pacific Ocean. It produces 72% of the earth's emissions of carbon dioxide, and the rest of the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, and the other oceans also contribute.  

The unsound science behind "global warming"   by Edward F Blick  August 4, 2008   Henry’s Solubility Law, with mass balances of carbon and its isotopes, show the total increase in atmospheric CO2 from pre-industrial times is less than 4%. Burning all our remaining fossil fuels, cannot double the CO2, but only increase it by 20%.   ...  

If atmospheric CO2 drops as low as 220 ppm, plants get sick. They die at 160 ppm. In a field of corn on a sunny day, unless wind currents stir up the air, all of the CO2 is consumed within one meter of the ground in 5 minutes.    ...  

The most important greenhouse gas is water vapor. Its mass is 54 times greater than CO2. Dr. Reid Bryson, former director of meteorology at the University of Wisconsin, says: "The first 30 feet of water vapor absorbs 80% of the earth’s heat radiation. 

Carbon is the World's Best Friend  by Dr David Bellamy and Jack Barrett   June 26, 2007   Here are ten, let us call them Newton’s Apples that sow real seeds of doubt about the application of the science behind the IPCC’s conclusions.

1. Measurements prove that the pre-industrial damp blanket trapped 94.7% of all the infrared radiation as it escaped into space leaving a mere 5.3% to warm the great interstellar sink directly. All this thanks to the fact that the spectral escape window was partially blocked by what we now call the greenhouse gases that kept the Earth warm.
2. If we took no notice of the IPCC’s health warnings and burned all the known reserves of natural gas, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would rise to 454 ppmv.
3. Now throw caution to the wind and burn all the oil reserves we know about and the CO2 concentration would go up to 489 ppmv. Still nowhere near the dreaded doubling figure of those “halcyon” pre industrial days.
4. So lets pull out all the stops and burn at least one third of coal reserves in all its forms. With an awful lot of mining we would make the now much-feared figure of 570 ppmv. A point, at which IPCC’s super computer models warn that the sky might soon come falling down.  Some 600 million tonnes of extra potential plant fertilizer and about 1 billion tonnes of extra irrigation water hanging about up there, continuing to help balance the biosphere while increasing the atmospheric pressure by a mere 0.3 millibars.   The atmospheric blanket now traps 95.6% of the infrared radiation (a mere increase of 0.9% over those pre-industrial days) and the potential absorption by the combination of water vapour and CO2 is almost complete thanks to the logarithmic relationship between concentration and radiance/absorption.
5. Simple arithmetic also proves that at this moment of time in the IPCC’s countdown to catastrophe the annual increase of CO2 pouring into the atmosphere is a mere 3% of the natural turn over of this very important gas in the atmosphere. Thus leaving little doubt that there is massive buffering capacity in the system.
6. Simple mathematics proves that all the much “feared” doubling of the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere actually accomplishes is a slight narrowing of the infrared ‘window’ through which radiation escapes to space.
7. Checking the spectra also shows there is a window in that infrared escape route that can never be closed because there are no natural gases with the right spectral bands. If there were the temperature might then go up by around 5 degrees Celsius.
8. Measurements also show that the infrared absorption spectra of all the greenhouse gases overlap to a certain extent, in consequence their cumulative effect can never be realized. A cumulative effect that is already nearing saturation when no further heat will be trapped, thanks to the fact that the relationship between the concentration of any of the green house gases and radiance/absorption is logarithmic.
9. Despite all this incontrovertible evidence that the increase of the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a benign and almost spent force, the global warmers beg to differ. Their conclusions drawn from a plethora of complex computer models leads them to warn the World that an increase in trapped radiation of only 0.9% might trigger a catastrophic course of events. A chain reaction that could be responsible for a runaway enhancement of global warming that could pose a threat too much more than our way of life. To give their argument teeth they appear to put all their eggs into the basket of what they call radiative forcing, building into their models only positive feedbacks related to water vapour that trap more heat.
10. Newton’s Law of cooling perhaps drops the largest apple on the head of both the IPCC and the Kyoto Protocol arguments of a melt down scenario. In the simplest of terms it proves that if the non-radiative properties of water, (evaporation, albedo, mass transfer etc.,) were not already at work at the earth/ atmosphere interface the Earth’s surface would be some 13°C warmer. So again there is a lot of negative feedback in the system.
     

The Lynching of Carbon Dioxide - The Innocent Source of Life  by Dr. Martin Hertzberg (a Democrat)  May 2008  The first 20 ppm of CO2 essentially makes the atmosphere almost opaque at those previously shown wave lengths, so that doubling the concentration to 40 ppm increases the heating effect by only 20 % more. Doubling it again to 80 ppm increases the heating effect by only 7 %.   ...

Is the Global Warming Alarm Founded on Fact? by Richard S. Lindzen   CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and its increase contributes to warming. It is, in fact, increasing, and a doubling would increase the greenhouse effect (mainly due to water vapor and clouds) by about 2 percent.   ...    In terms of climate forcing, greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere through man’s activities since the late nineteenth century have already produced three quarters of the radiative forcing that we expect from a doubling of CO2.3 There are two main reasons for this. First, CO2 is not the only anthropogenic greenhouse gas.  Others like methane also contribute. Second, the impact of CO2 is nonlinear in the sense that each added unit contributes less than its predecessor.    ...  It is not the level of CO2 that is important, but rather the impact of manmade greenhouse gases on climate.      

‘Medieval Environmentalists’ attack CO2 in their efforts to derail civilization  by Dr. Tim Ball & Tom Harris  Monday, January 21, 2008   So, how low would anti-carbon dioxide crusaders consider pushing CO2 levels, if they were able? At 250 ppm, plants suffer and at 150 ppm most die, resulting in no oxygen and no life on the planet.   

In praise of CO2   by Lawrence Solomon,  Financial Post    June 07, 2008    Until the 1980s, ecologists had no way to systematically track growth in plant matter in every corner of the Earth-- the best they could do was analyze small plots of one-tenth of a hectare or less. ...  Then, in the 1980s, ecologists realized that satellites could track production, and enlisted NASA to collect the data.  ...   The results surprised Steven Running of the University of Montana and Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA, scientists involved in analyzing the NASA data. They found that over a period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole became more bountiful by a whopping 6.2%. About 25% of the Earth's vegetated landmass -- almost 110 million square kilometres -- enjoyed significant increases and only 7% showed significant declines.  ...   Why the increase? Their 2004 study, and other more recent ones, point to the warming of the planet and the presence of CO2, a gas indispensable to plant life. CO2 is nature's fertilizer, bathing the biota with its life-giving nutrients.   

Carbon Dioxide In Greenhouses   by T.J Blom; W.A. Straver; F.J. Ingratta; Shalin Khosla - OMAF; Wayne Brown - OMAF at the Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs in Ontario, Canada   For the majority of greenhouse crops, net photosynthesis increases as CO₂ levels increase from 340–1,000 ppm (parts per million). Most crops show that for any given level of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), increasing the CO₂ level to 1,000 ppm will increase the photosynthesis by about 50% over ambient CO₂ levels. ...   As a rule of thumb, a drop in carbon dioxide levels below ambient has a stronger effect than supplementation above ambient.  During particular times of the year in new greenhouses, and especially in double-glazed structures that have reduced air exchange rates, the carbon dioxide levels can easily drop below 340 ppm which has a significant negative effect on the crop.  

The Great Global Warming Hoax?  Man-made CO2 doesn't appear physically capable of absorbing much more than two-thousandths of the radiated heat (IR) passing upward through the atmosphere.  And, if all of the available heat in that spectrum is indeed being captured by the current CO2 levels before leaving the atmosphere, then adding more CO2 to the atmosphere won't matter a bit.  In short, the laws of physics don't seem to allow CO2 it's currently assumed place as a significant "greenhouse gas" based on present concentrations.    

The Great Global Warming Hoax?  So, what's the approximate molecular mass of the different gasses?  That's simple addition:

Remember, we're rounding off to the nearest whole number, and amu means Atomic Mass Units.  Do you see something significant?  Think like a scientist.  Yes, CO₂ is by far the heaviest of the major constituents, and the law of gravity applies to it as well.  It sinks to the ground.. in fact, into the ground, and into the oceans, as well, because CO2 is very water-soluble and that's what puts the fizz in Ginger Ale.  This doesn't happen overnight.  In fact, the winds and convection currents and such keep the air stirred up constantly, so it may take 100-150 years for the CO₂ you are exhaling right now to make it back into mother earth, where most of it is currently locked up.    Link

1. The sun heats the earth, repository of most of the CO₂ on the planet.
2. Some stored CO₂ comes out by a process known as outgassing ( from the soil ) and the champagne effect ( from the oceans ).  The oceans are by far the largest source.
3. Sloppy "scientists" see the warming, and the CO₂, but overlook the changes in the sun, don't see the fine differences in timing... and proceed to blame the increasing temperature on CO₂ and mankind as the culprit in a classic knee-jerk reaction.    In other words, the hotter the sun the quicker the out-gassing and the colder the sun the slower the out-gassing.

Global warming debunked  by Andrew Swallow in The Timaru Herald  May 19, 2007   Climate change will be considered a joke in five years time, metorologist Augie Auer told the annual meeting of Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers in Ashburton this week. ...  Water vapour was responsible for 95 per cent of the greenhouse effect, an effect which was vital to keep the world warm, he explained.  “If we didn’t have the greenhouse effect the planet would be at minus 18 deg C but because we do have the greenhouse effect it is plus 15 deg C, all the time.”  The other greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen dioxide, and various others including CFCs, contributed only five per cent of the effect, carbon dioxide being by far the greatest contributor at 3.6 per cent.  However, carbon dioxide as a result of man’s activities was only 3.2 per cent of that, hence only 0.12 per cent of the greenhouse gases in total. Human-related methane, nitrogen dioxide and CFCs etc made similarly minuscule contributions to the effect: 0.066, 0.047 and 0.046 per cent respectively.  

Belgian weather institute’s (RMI) August 2007 study dismisses decisive role of CO2 in warming:  "Brussels: CO2 is not the big bogeyman of climate change and global warming. This is the conclusion of a comprehensive scientific study done by the Royal Meteorological Institute, which will be published this summer. The study does not state that CO2 plays no role in warming the earth. "But it can never play the decisive role that is currently attributed to it", climate scientist Luc Debontridder said. "Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. It is responsible for at least 75 % of the greenhouse effect. This is a simple scientific fact    

A Global Warming Primer by The National Center for Policy Analysis   Greenhouse gases make up no more than 2 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere.   …   Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon and other Gases make up the remaining part of the atmosphere …CO2 and other trace gases are only 5 percent of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Water vapor makes up the other 95 percent. .  … Humans contribute approximately 3.4 percent of annual CO2 emissions. However, small increases in annual CO2 emissions, whether from humans or any other source, can lead to a large CO2 accumulation over time because CO2 molecules can remain in the atmosphere for more than a century..  … Humanity is responsible for about one-quarter of 1 percent of the greenhouse effect.   …  There was an explosion of life forms 550 million years ago (Cambrian Period), when CO2 levels were 18 times higher than today. During the Jurassic Period, when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth, CO2 levels were as much as nine times higher than today.   …    During the time dinosaurs roamed the Earth, the average temperature was about 18°F (10°C) warmer than it is today.  …  Over the past 400,000 years, there has been a series of ice ages lasting 100,000 years, on the average, interrupted by warm periods lasting about 10,000 years. During ice ages, the temperature drops by as much as 21°F, sea levels fall dramatically, glaciers expand and most living things are forced to migrate toward the equator. During periods of relative warmth, sea levels rise and glaciers retreat. We are currently at the tail end of a warm period.   …  For the past 400,000 years, temperature and CO2 levels have varied together. However, the Earth’s temperature has consistently risen and fallen hundreds of years prior to increases and declines in CO2 levels.  …   CO2 levels have been fairly constant for the last 10,000 years. Largely due to human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation, CO2 levels have risen approximately 35 percent since the beginning of the industrial revolution, with more than 80 percent of that rise occurring since 1950.    …  The Earth’s average temperature has risen a little less than one degree Celsius over the past century. Although almost half of this warming occurred before 1940, greenhouse gas emissions began to rise substantially only after the 1950s.   …  The United States has slowed the growth of its emissions far more than the European Union—despite larger population growth and higher economic growth.    …  Most reports focus on gross CO2 emissions. However, as much as 40 percent of U.S. human CO2 emissions are reabsorbed, primarily by vegetation.     …   Sea levels have risen since the Earth began to come out of the last ice age. However, the rate of sea level rise since 1961, less than two-sixteenths of an inch annually, is far lower than the historic average.  …  Neither the number nor the strength of hurricanes has increased outside the natural range of variability (category 1 is the lowest wind velocity and category 5 is the highest).   …     Worldwide weather-related deaths have declined dramatically over the past eight decades.   … CO2 is like plant food and most plants evolved at times when CO2 levels were much higher than today. Laboratory results show that plants grow bigger and faster with increased levels of CO2.   …  Less-developed countries (which are not required to reduce CO2 emissions) would suffer significant harm from the Kyoto Protocol due to loss of world trade and other economic impacts.  

A Cold Spell Soon to Replace Global Warming  by Oleg Sorokhtin  1-03-08     The ocean is the greatest carbon dioxide depository, with concentrations 60-90 times larger than in the atmosphere. When the ocean’s surface warms up, it produces the “champagne effect.” Compare a foamy spurt out of a warm bottle with wine pouring smoothly when served properly cold.
 

The Sun Also Sets  by Investor's Business Daily  February 07, 2008  A Hoover Institution Study a few years back examined historical data and came to a similar conclusion.  "The effects of solar activity and volcanoes are impossible to miss. Temperatures fluctuated exactly as expected, and the pattern was so clear that, statistically, the odds of the correlation existing by chance were one in 100," according to Hoover fellow Bruce Berkowitz.  The study says that "try as we might, we simply could not find any relationship between industrial activity, energy consumption and changes in global temperatures."   

A NASA Space Sleuth Hunts the Trail of Earth's Water  January 31, 2007  A team of scientists … used the instrument’s observations of heavy and light water vapor to retrace the “history” of water over oceans and continents, from ice and liquid to vapor and back again. Heavy water vapor molecules have more neutrons than lighter ones do.   By analyzing the distribution of the heavy and light molecules, the team was able to deduce the sources and processes that cycle water vapor, the most abundant greenhouse gas in Earth’s atmosphere.  The team found that tropical rainfall evaporation and water “exhaled” by forests are key sources of moisture in the tropical atmosphere. They noted that more water than they had expected is transported over land rather than ocean into the lower troposphere (Earth’s lowermost atmosphere), especially over the Amazon River basin and tropical Africa.   Co-author Dr. David Noone: “One might expect most of the water to come directly from the wet ocean. Instead, it appears that thunderstorm activity over the tropical continents plays a key role in keeping the troposphere hydrated.”  The team found that in the tropics and regions of tropical rain clouds, rainfall evaporation significantly adds moisture to the lower troposphere, with typically 20 percent and up to 50 percent of rain there evaporating before it reaches the ground. The atmosphere retains this water, which can be used to make clouds. The strength and location of this evaporation give scientists new insight into how water in Earth’s atmosphere helps move energy from Earth’s surface upwards.    

Canada's carbon dioxide 'comedy of errors' a total capitulation to climate change dogma   by Dr. Tim Ball and Tom Harris   June 6, 2007  Although it is improbable that humanity can greatly alter atmospheric CO2 levels,  MPs must understand that CO2 is not a pollutant and threatens neither us nor the environment. CO2 is essential to life on Earth as plants 'breathe in' CO2 and 'breath out' oxygen while animals inhale oxygen and exhale CO2. Research shows plants function best with CO2 levels between 1,000 and 1,200 parts per million (ppm). Greenhouses inject CO2 to reach these levels and achieve significantly higher yields as a result. This suggests that plants evolved to suit levels around 1,000 ppm and are CO2 starved at today's 385 ppm. In fact, at 200 ppm plants begin to suffer and at 120 ppm they start to die.

How Do We Know that the Atmospheric Build-up of Greenhouse Gases Is Due to Human Activity?  Published in 1997 by the United Nations Environment Programme - World Meteorological Organization   Carbon dioxide is released to the atmosphere by a variety of sources, and over 95% percent of these emissions would occur even if human beings were not present on Earth. For example, the natural decay of organic material in forests and grasslands, such as dead trees, results in the release of about 220 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year. But these natural sources are nearly balanced by physical and biological processes, called natural sinks, which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. For example, some carbon dioxide dissolves in sea water, and some is removed by plants as they grow.   

Warm, watered and well fed is better   Viv Forbes  BrookesNews.Com  October 1, 2007   "When warmth and moisture are combined with more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the beneficial effects on plant life are multiplied. A doubling of the CO2 content of the air would have insignificant effect on global warming but would have marvellous effects on plant (and then animal) life:

1. Growth rate of herbaceous plants would increase 30%
2. Growth rate of forest plants would increase 50%
3. All plants would be more tolerant of drought and heat
4. Food production would need less land and less artificial fertilizer

Is Global Warming a Sin?   by Alexander Cockburn   April 28, 2007   Water covers 71 per cent of the surface of the planet. As compared to the atmosphere, there's at least a hundred times more CO2 in the oceans, dissolved as carbonate. As the postglacial thaw progresses the oceans warm up, and some of the dissolved carbon emits into the atmosphere, just like fizz in soda water taken out of the fridge. "So the greenhouse global warming theory has it ass backwards," Hertzberg concludes. "It is the warming of the earth that is causing the increase of carbon dioxide and not the reverse." He has recently had vivid confirmation of that conclusion. Several new papers show that for the last three quarter million years CO2 changes always lag global temperatures by 800 to 2,600 years.  

Carbon Offsets (Taxes)

The Carbon Folly   by Emily Flynn Vencat  of  Newsweek  March 12, 2007    "A responsible approach to solving this crisis," Al Gore said recently at New York University's Law School, would be "to authorize the trading of emissions ... globally." Emissions trading, also called carbon trading, is being expanded in the European Union and Japan. And in many places where it's yet to take hold, like Sacramento, Sydney and Beijing, politicians are embracing it. Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank and Europe's foremost political expert on global warming, predicts that the value of carbon credits in circulation, now about $28 billion, will climb to $40 billion by 2010.

    Emissions trading has also failed to stimulate investment in new green technologies. While trading funnels billions of dollars of international environmental investment money into companies like Shri Bajrang, renewable-energy projects aren't receiving funding because they're more costly. Indeed, only 2 percent of the United Nations' trading projects involve renewable energy like hydro dams and wind farms, and communities that preserve forests and follow other ecofriendly practices are ignored.      

CO2 Levels

Our Public Servants at Work by Nancy Morgan  May 26, 2009   a new report showing that levels of numerous gases linked with air pollution, like carbon monoxide, have fallen off since 2001 and air quality in the U.S. has improved significantly over the last decade. Translation: The greenhouse gases Congress is in such a rush to regulate are at their lowest level in 19 years.

U.S. Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Energy Sources  by the Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy in May 2007  U.S. energy-related CO2emissions declined in absolute terms –from 5,955 million metric tons (MMTCO2) in 2005 to 5,877 MMTCO2in 2006, a 1.3 percent decrease.  Emissions from natural gas and petroleum fell 1.7 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively, while coal emissions declined 0.9 percent.  ...  In the last 15 years CO2 emissions average a 1% increase per year.  

The Coming of a New Ice Age  by  Gerald E. Marsh a retired physicist from the Argonne National Laboratory  Sunday, February 24, 2008   Indeed, the Sun has been getting brighter over the whole history of the Earth and large land plants have flourished.  Both of these had the effect of dropping carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere to the lowest level in Earth’s long history. 

Five hundred million years ago, carbon dioxide concentrations were over 13 times current levels; and not until about 20 million years ago did carbon dioxide levels dropped to a little less than twice what they are today.

It is possible that moderately increased carbon dioxide concentrations could extend the current interglacial period.  But we have not reached the level required yet, nor do we know the optimum level to reach    

Blame Clinton and the Greens for Gas Prices   by Henry Lamb  Sunday, April 27, 2008   The one thing on which scientists agree is that atmospheric carbon dioxide is currently about 375 parts-per-million.  Eighty percent of this carbon is naturally occurring, and would be in the atmosphere had oil never been discovered.  The remaining 20 percent, or about 75ppm, is generally attributed to all the smoke-stacks and automobiles and lawn mowers that humans have created.   ...

Environmental extremists wring their hands and cry crocodile tears at the thought of “ruining” the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge by using only 2000 of the 18 million acres for oil production.  But they seem to have no problems with the idea of covering millions of acres in the southwest with solar panels.  

Late Carboniferous to Early Permian time (315 mya -- 270 mya) is the only time period in the last 600 million years when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures were as low as they are today (Quaternary Period).

Temperature after C.R. Scotese http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm CO2 after R.A. Berner, 2001 (GEOCARB III)

There has historically been much more CO2 in our atmosphere than exists today. For example:

During the Jurassic Period (200 mya), average CO2 concentrations were about 1800 ppm or about 4.7 times higher than today.

The highest concentrations of CO2 during all of the Paleozoic Era occurred during the Cambrian Period, nearly 7000 ppm -- about 18 times higher than today.

The Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period were the only geological periods during the Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today. To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today -- 4400 ppm.

According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence Earth temperatures and global warming.    

Green Myths On Global Warming Debunked   by budsimmons   May 19, 2007  96.5% of all carbon dioxide emissions are from natural sources, mankind is responsible for only 3.5%, with 0.6% coming from fuel to move vehicles, and about 1% from fuel to heat buildings. Yet vehicle fuel (petrol) is taxed at 300% while fuel to heat buildings is taxed at 5% even though buildings emit nearly twice as much carbon dioxide!    

‘Medieval Environmentalists’ attack CO2 in their efforts to derail civilization by Dr. Tim Ball & Tom Harris   January 21, 2008  In scientific circles, CO2 is referred to as a ‘trace gas’ that, for hundreds of thousands of years, has remained at or below five ten-thousandths of the atmosphere by volume.  Even among the so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ (GHG), CO2 accounts for less that 4%, with water vapour being by far the most significant GHG.  CO2 is clearly a miniscule component of the massive mechanisms that create climate and cause climate change.  ...

At 385 parts per million (ppm) by volume, CO2 levels are now, in a geologic sense, at their lowest in 600 million years. For example, during the exceptionally cold Ordovician glaciation, about 440 million years ago, CO2 levels were more than ten times higher than today.  ...

So, how low would anti-carbon dioxide crusaders consider pushing CO2 levels, if they were able? At 250 ppm, plants suffer and at 150 ppm most die, resulting in no oxygen and no life on the planet.  

The Geography of Carbon Emissions  by Jack Dini  May 23, 2009  No American city is among the top 50 cities in the world for air pollution according to the World Bank. (1) Another list, ‘The Top Ten of the Dirty Thirty,' compiled by the Blacksmith Institute of New York compared the toxicity of contamination, the likelihood of it getting into humans and the number of people affected. Places were bumped up in rank if children were impacted. No US or European sites made the list. Sites in China, India and Russia occupied six of the top ten spots. Some examples: at Linfen in Shanxi province-the heart of China's coal industry-industrial and automobile emissions put the health of 3 million people at risk. At Sukinda in the state of Orissa in India, 2.6 million people face the hazards of one of the world's opencast chromite mines. And in Dzerzhinsk, Russia, 300,000 people are exposed to toxic by-products from chemical weapons.

 Although China receives the most attention, it is not the only Asian nation where this concern is present. India is also growing rapidly, and its major cities experience particulate levels often eight to ten times higher than the worst American cities.  India is the fourth-most coal dependent country in the world and has enough reserves to last for the next 100 years. Carbon emissions in India are rising faster than nearly every other country on the planet. Between 1980 and 2006, India's carbon output increased by 341%, compared to 321% for China, 103% for Brazil 238% for Indonesia and 272% for Pakistan.

CO2 Reduction Problems

1. New mileage standards that will likely make cars and light trucks less safe and cost more lives.
2. Subsidies and mandates for politically correct "alternative" energy projects that probably wouldn't survive without such aid. 
3. Ivy League Geologist Dr. Robert Giegengack (who supports Al Gore politically) says: "If we reduced the rate at which we put carbon into the atmosphere, it won't reduce the concentration in the atmosphere; CO2 is just going to come back out of these reservoirs." (reservoirs such as the oceans, soil and permafrost)  …  "In terms of [global warming's] capacity to cause the human species harm, I don't think it makes it into the top 10," Giegengack said in an interview in the May/June 2007 issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette.  Link
4. Redistribution of wealth The environmental group Friends of the Earth, in attendance in Bali, also advocated the transfer of money from rich to poor nations on Wednesday.  “A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources,” said Emma Brindal, a climate justice campaigner coordinator for Friends of the Earth.   Link
5. MIT climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen warned about these types of carbon regulations earlier this year. "Controlling carbon is a bureaucrat's dream. If you control carbon, you control life," Lindzen said in March 2007. Link   Link
6. Corn prices will continue to rise, along with the cost of meat, candy, soft drinks and other products that use corn for feed or corn syrup as a sweetener. The biofuel itself will cost more, but provide less mileage per tank.
7. CO2 credits are just exchange of money without reductions of CO2 emissions.
8. Management Information Services concluded that Kyoto could eliminate 1.3 million black and Hispanic jobs, force nearly 100,000 minority businesses to close, and cause average minority family incomes to plunge by more than $2,000 a year. States with large minority populations would lose $10-40 billion a year in economic output, and over $2 billion annually in tax revenues.   Link
9. The Kyoto Protocol, if adhered to by every signatory nation, would prevent a mere 0.2 degrees F of warming by 2050. To stabilize atmospheric CO2 and prevent theoretical climate catastrophe, we would need 30 such treaties, each one more restrictive and expensive than the last. The various congressional bills would accomplish far less than that.
10. If you plant a tree, it will indeed soak up CO2 from the atmosphere as it grows. But if you burn that tree, or let it die and rot, all that carbon is put straight back where it came from.  Link
11. Per a study a study published in the scientific journal Nature last month. The nearly $6 billion already spent on projects to curb emissions of HFC-23, a potent greenhouse gas, had the same impact on the environment as would $132 million worth of equipment upgrades.  Link
12. Many experts think a carbon tax would be the better alternative. It's more straightforward and jargon-free, and would prevent much of the "gaming of the system" that's plaguing carbon trading. The problem, of course, is that new taxes are unpopular with voters.  Link

80% CO2 Reduction

The Real Cost of Tackling Climate Change  by Steven F. Hayward  April 28, 2008   Environmentalists claim that nothing less than an 80% reduction in emissions by the year 2050 will suffice –       ...  

According to the Department of Energy's most recent data on greenhouse gas emissions, in 2006 the U.S. emitted 5.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, or just under 20 tons per capita. An 80% reduction in these emissions from 1990 levels means that the U.S. cannot emit more than about one billion metric tons of CO2 in 2050.

Were man-made carbon dioxide emissions in this country ever that low? The answer is probably yes – from historical energy data it is possible to estimate that the U.S. last emitted one billion metric tons around 1910. But in 1910, the U.S. had 92 million people, and per capita income, in current dollars, was about $6,000.

By the year 2050, the Census Bureau projects that our population will be around 420 million. This means per capita emissions will have to fall to about 2.5 tons in order to meet the goal of 80% reduction.  ...  

Today, the average residence in the U.S. uses about 10,500 kilowatt hours of electricity and emits 11.4 tons of CO2 per year.  To stay within the magic number, average household emissions will have to fall to no more than 1.5 tons per year. In our current electricity infrastructure, this would mean using no more than about 2,500 KwH per year. This is not enough juice to run the average hot water heater.

You can forget refrigerators, microwaves, clothes dryers and flat screen TVs. Even a house tricked out with all the latest high-efficiency EnergyStar appliances and compact fluorescent lights won't come close. The same daunting energy math applies to the industrial, commercial and transportation sectors as well. The clear implication is that we shall have to replace virtually the entire fossil fuel electricity infrastructure over the next four decades with CO2-free sources – a multitrillion dollar proposition, if it can be done at all.