Yeah, so CO2 is your waste, not healthy for you. I don't care about plants. I don't hug trees, you can if you want though.
Waste is a truly bad choice of words. CO2 is a byproduct, and part of a cycle that is vital to all life, and is neither waste nor is it wasted.
I don't doubt a volcano CAN outdo in a short period what humans do in a long period, but as the even was recorded, it was A YEAR. Human contribution to climate change didn't and doesn't just go away.
In the great climate debate, the word contributions has two meanings, melded into one on the pro-AGW theory side. One is merely the fact of a contributed/generated amount, in PPM. Take the current estimate PPM, then erase humans from the face of the Earth, along with all the PPM contributions they've made, and if you can do that accurately, you can get a baseline for non-anthropogenic levels of CO2.
The second meaning for "contributions" is the circular argument part. This is where the leap of logic is made, as we don't merely say "human contributions to atmospheric CO2", but go one step further to "human contributions
to climate change". Not just CO2.
Well, that's not that much of a leap, is it? Indisputably even a SINGLE EXTRA C02 molecule, added to or taken away from the atmosphere, "affects" climate, no differently than the fact that the tiniest particle of dust orbiting the earth affects the entire orbit of the earth,
however negligibly. So to make the statement that "humans contribute to climate change" is entirely accurate. So do ants. So do microbes. So does every living thing on the planet. In fact, if only ONE human existed on the Earth, that one human could be said to affect climate change.
Political advocates for anthropogenic climate change theory can make it appear that science is "on their side" (of their entire theory that humans contribute SUBSTANTIALLY to climate change, primarily via CO2 emissions) by getting people to "deny" or "be deniers" that humans do in fact affect climate change
at all. Once you can get that denial, you've won!
Because they really are wrong. It's not a question of whether CO2 plays a part in climate variability. As a question of basic physics, that question really is not controversial, as it was settled LONG before (and with no thanks whatsoever to), those involved on any side of the anthropogenic climate change controversy. The
only question that is controversial is to what extent; how substantial is that human contribution, and how "sensitive" is the climate to that contribution? That's where
all empirical observations fall apart, into statistical insignificance. It is also where political advocates rely on lay ignorance of basic physics, with meaningless goalposts that most lay people aren't even aware exist. If I say that the kinetic energy of a jumping rat affects the entire heat budget of the Earth, I may sound ridiculous, but I can assure everyone that I am absolutely correct. The kinetic energy imparted to the Earth by jumping rats does, in fact, affect the heat budget of the entire Earth. Pay no attention to the fact that it is so negligible as to be immeasurable.
The focus is on human contributions to climate change, based on human contributions to CO2 in the atmosphere, which is in turn presumed will have a substantial effect on climate change IN THE FUTURE, based on assumptions of HIGH CLIMATE SENSITIVITY, even though no statistically significant climate change has occurred to date, and no empirical observations support such sensitivity claims. All such sensitivities are all imposed by the modelers.
So that's why saying the following is meaningless:
Again I will ask you, how DOES volcano affect climate? Choose your words carefully. You can't say volcano makes SO2, CO2, and then tell me that doesn't affect climate.
The short answer is, It does. Both do.
If you want to say CO2 doesn't affect climate, then you have to explain how a volcano can outdo 100 years of human affect on climate.
That's where the circular assumption comes into play, because what the previous answer (humans and volcanoes both contribute CO2 and other gases which do have an effect on climate variability) does not, and cannot tell you, is THE EXTENT to which
all those contributions combined actually does affect climate change, regardless of their relative proportions.
You're saying, "outdo 100 years of human affect on climate", without knowing anything about what that amount is, and completely ignoring the original fact, that no matter how ALL CONTRIBUTIONS COMBINED affect climate, it has not resulted in any variability whatsoever that is statistically significant! So you're splitting hairs in the all-important "attribution" phase. The ONLY PLACE where an actual Climate Change Bogeyman comes into play are in the actual models
of the future. Not the ancient past, the recent past, or the present. And that all goes back to unfounded assumptions, theories only which are not supported by empirical data, regarding climate sensitivity. And this is where those scientist who are still advocates of the AGW theory (substantial human contribution to variability), but are at least honest enough to know that this is the only area of real controversy, will resort to the "precautionary principle". Because ultimately, that's really all they have, and the science is NOT on their side where that is concerned.
