I always thought that the debate over climate change was pretty much over, and that we should now be focusing on mitigation. Maybe I just always stumble across the stuff, but it seems to me like there is quite the crowd still not buying it. That's fine, and they have the right to hold an informed opinion, but usually I find that the opinion is not too informed...

Basically, that means "Not wanting to give up your Hummer H2 and 3,000 square foot house" or "The planet is too big for 6.5 billion people all yearning for Hummer H2's and 3,000 square foot houses to affect it in any way!" are not valid reasons for anthropogenic global warming to "not exist" or be a hoax/scam/swindle/etc.

Quite often on bulletin boards and comment areas on web sites, I run into comments such as these:

"I'll DRIVE a SUV thank you. If the SOCIALISTS in EUROPE don't like it, I don't care - I can AFFORD the gas and I don't believe this 'GLOBAL WARMING' BULLS--T!
Thank you!
- America First"

"It is sickening how there are people out there who want to regulate what you exhale!"

"Are humans the cause? Inconclusive. What we do know is that the Earth has warmed before and at a time when you couldn't blame so called greenhouse gasses (which again include our exhaling of CO2)"

By the way, the big warmings were during times of very high greenhouse gas concentrations. There are many theories which blame mass extinctions on greenhouse warming causing subsequent outgassing of methane clathrates (in a positive feedback loop) in the ocean and subsequent changes in the oceans allowing for hydrogen-sulfide producing bacteria to flourish.

Not too many (if any? ) of the warming periods throughout Earth's history that we know about (going back hundreds of thousands of years and more) happened nearly as fast as the warming happening today. Those in the anti-AGW crowd love to complain about how we are "raising alarmism about a few little degrees!" and that "Earth has warmed before!" Yes, over the course of millennia, not centuries and decades! Such climate changes aren't really supposed to happen on human time scales sans events such as large volcanic eruptions (temporary), large-scale detonation of nuclear weapons, or impacts by large extraterrestrial objects. All of those events would produce a cooling effect, rather than a warming one, all because of dust and aerosols being kicked up into the air.

"Please, spare me. Why won't all of the "scientists" accept the fact that 97% of the CO2 in the air is a result of water vapor? And of the remaining 3% only 1.2% is from fossil fuels? We couldn't affect the world climate even if we fired up every used Volvo in the world. We don't have the technology or the knowledge. We need CO2 anyway for plant photosynthesis. I learned that way back in 6th grade. So get off your political grandstand, stop preaching the end of our economic future, and hey, Bush is OK. Republicans are OK. I like Democrats. I like Brits. Why don't they like America? Or me?"
(THIS WAS A REAL COMMENT MADE BY AN ACTUAL HUMAN BEING! This is the kind of mindset that we are often dealing with when people vote on these issues and try to make informed decisions.)

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has been running ads on TV and elsewhere with the tag line "Carbon Dioxide - They call it pollution, We call it life." Of course the CEI exists to fight any such regulations which might reduce the amount of resources we consume or the amount of unsustainable consumerism we partake in, therefore reducing the profits of corporations who thrive on making the highly disposable goods and services that we are used to.

It seems that many people don't understand the basic principles behind the carbon cycle, they have been fooled, or they are just ignorant, as was the case with a fellow who decided to challenge a comment I had made on a bulletin board. He basically could do nothing but say about how he has worked with ice cores and that I was "wrong" and did not have a doctorate climatology degree from an Ivy League university therefore had no right to talk.

It doesn't take hundreds of thousands of dollars and years worth of study to know how the carbon cycle works. The basics of the cycle itself are well understood. It's role in the AGW issue is also quite known.

Our exhaling of CO2 is NOT included in the anthropogenic global warming scenarios, because that carbon dioxide is part of the biogenic cycle and as it is basically in a continuous cycle between the atmosphere and biological material. The same goes for the carbon dioxide produced when we burn wood or when organic material decays. It is what we mean when we talk about "carbon-neutral" fuels, as opposed to "carbon-free" sources like hydro or wind. The rate of release to the air is balanced with the rate of absorption by photosynthesizing organisms. The net concentration in the air due to those sources therefore is constant.

Fluxes of carbon are shown in violet text. You can see that from fossil fuels and cement production, 5.5 billion tonnes (Gt) of carbon (NOT carbon dioxide) is sent to the atmosphere each year. Soils and Decay both sent 60 Gt the atmosphere, while Vegetation re-absorbed all of that and then some (121.3 Gt). The Oceans emitted 90 Gt and absorbed 92 Gt per year. Though not on this graphic, Volcanism emits about 0.13 Gt per year to the atmosphere.

Be aware that these numbers reflect the carbon content of the various parts of the cycle. The emissions of Carbon Dioxide are actually greater than the 5.5 Gt shown. The molar mass of carbon is 12 grams/mol. The molar mass of carbon dioxide is 44 grams/mol. So 44/12 = 3.6. That means one molecule of carbon dioxide has a mass 3.6 times that of one carbon atom, therefore CO₂ emissions from fossil energy are around 20 Gt/y according to this chart, and are probably closer to 25 Gt/y today.

Atmospheric Carbon Surplus: ~4 Gt/y

Estimated Carbon Content of Fossil Fuels: 4000 Gt

Deforestation and using wood without re-growing the trees, however, throws the cycle out of whack. Those absent trees' carbon is now hanging around in the atmosphere with nowhere to go.

Fossil fuels do the same because they are basically biomass that was piled up over millions of years and stored underground, out of the atmosphere. They were formed during a time of very high carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. Now we are taking them and burning them, returning their carbon to the atmosphere, in a blink of an eye (compared to how long it took to form them). Millions of years worth of carbon draw-down is going back into the air over the course of less than two centuries. It's a system overload.

Even though the carbon dioxide coming out of our mouths is not a direct contributor to this "system overload", remember that it takes about ten times as much fossil energy as the caloric value of the food to get the food from seeds in the field to our mouths. So if you are on the average 10500 kJ diet, then 105,000 kJ of fossil energy (the equivalent of 0.7 U.S. gallons of #2 diesel or 30 kWh of electricity) was used to get food from the field to your mouth today.

Now I can just link to this post when someone tries to say that we will be regulating what humans exhale, or that naturally decaying plant matter contributes to global warming. But, of course, since this web site is not hosted on the server of the climatology department at "princeton.edu" or "stanford.edu", I might not have too much luck getting people to view it, despite the fact that the carbon cycle and rising carbon dioxide levels are no one's opinion. The carbon dioxide levels and their sources cannot be denied. The rest, I'll leave up to you!