If most of the CO2 is natural, why is it being blamed on man?

Question

Isn't there a way to seperate the two and what proportion of each contributes to warming?

Answer 1

You can't 'separate' natural from human produced CO2; they're chemically identical.  What you can do is measure - or at least estimate - the relative contributions.  Humans produce less than 10% of all CO2, which in turn creates less than 4% of the total greenhouse effect.

The global warming crusaders either are so scientifically incompetent that they don't know this; or willfully mislead people because the truth is, shall we say, too inconvenient.  Their goal is not to save the planet; but to enslave mankind 'for our own good.'

Answer 2

Well, lots of people are accounting nature for global warming, but if this is so, then why is it that before mankind decided to pump trillions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, nature was fine, and there was no build up of CO2, or raising temperatures? Is it just purely coincidence that the temperatures started to rise, and global warming came to be only AFTER humans began to emit CO2 as a rapid rate? I really don't think so. An many people claim that this is just the Earth's natural heating and cooling cycles, but this is also untrue. Yes, the earth does go through cycles, but around 40 years ago- according to the graphs that proves the cycles- we should have gone in to a cooling cycle. So, if you have any other reason that global warming isn't caused by humans, e-mail me.

Answer 3

Because the natural carbon cycle absorbs as much (actually slightly more) CO2 than it emits.  When humans burn fossil fuels, it releases carbon that's been trapped for millions of years, which accumulates in the atmosphere.  See Myth #7 here:

http://greenhome.huddler.com/wiki/global...

We know the increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to human emissions by looking at the isotope ratios.  See here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=8...

Answer 4

as dana says, we can tell them apart by the proportion of different carbon isotopes.

nobody is 'blaming' humans for the normal carbon cycle, but we have turned it into a 'cascade'.

the normal processes that remove CO2 from the atmosphere and from the oceans are being overwhelmed by all the extra carbon we put into the system.

Answer 5

The temperature effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide is logarithmic, not exponential.

The potential planetary warming from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide from pre-Industrial Revolution levels of ~280ppmv to 560ppmv (possible some time later this century - perhaps) is generally estimated at around 1 °C.

The guesses of significantly larger warming are dependent on "feedback" (supplementary) mechanisms programmed into climate models. The existence of these "feedback" mechanisms is uncertain and the cumulative sign of which is unknown (they may add to warming from increased atmospheric carbon dioxide or, equally likely, might suppress it).

The total warming since measurements have been attempted is thought to be about 0.6 degrees Centigrade. At least half of the estimated temperature increment occurred before 1950, prior to significant change in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Assuming the unlikely case that all the natural drivers of planetary temperature change ceased to operate at the time of measured atmospheric change then a 30% increment in atmospheric carbon dioxide caused about one-third of one degree temperature increment since and thus provides empirical support for less than one degree increment due to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

There is no linear relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide change and global mean temperature or global mean temperature trend -- global mean temperature has both risen and fallen during the period atmospheric carbon dioxide has been rising.

The natural world has tolerated greater than one-degree fluctuations in mean temperature during the relatively recent past and thus current changes are within the range of natural variation. (See, for example, ice core and sea surface temperature reconstructions.)

Other anthropogenic effects are vastly more important, at least on local and regional scales.

Fixation on atmospheric carbon dioxide is a distraction from these more important anthropogenic effects.

Despite attempts to label atmospheric carbon dioxide a "pollutant" it is, in fact, an essential trace gas, the increasing abundance of which is a bonus for the bulk of the biosphere.

There is no reason to believe that slightly lower temperatures are somehow preferable to slightly higher temperatures - there is no known "optimal" nor any known means of knowingly and predictably adjusting some sort of planetary thermostat.

Fluctuations in atmospheric carbon dioxide are of little relevance in the short to medium term (although should levels fall too low it could prove problematic in the longer-term).

Activists and zealots constantly shrilling over atmospheric carbon dioxide are misdirecting attention and effort from real and potentially addressable local, regional and planetary problems.

Answer 6

People get the blame for the *increase*.  The *change* in amount of CO2 (which the plants are not stopping) is what we expect to cause "global climate change".

Answer 7

Of course co2 is natural.  Who's ever hard of unnatural co2?

If calamity can be blamed on man, then people will give up their freedoms and money to solve the "problem"

Answer 8

Because Liberals can't tax Nature, or get her to volunteer to give them money.

When plants are presented with an atmosphere containing more CO2, they respond by GROWING FASTER. Freeway plants have been carbon 14 tested, and found to "be" millions of years old. And they're still green and growing!

Answer 9

Excellent question!

Like many questions it answers itself.

No difference.

It goes on the list of reasons why global warming is a fraud.