The Basic Science Of Carbon

A protest against carbon/CO2 cap and trade or tax proposals. This summary is being sent to politicians, media outlets, scientists, and others across the world. It is a protest against the madness of anti-carbon thought and policies.

By Wendell Krossa Apr 18, 2009

Editor's Note: As you can see I published Wendell's commentary 13 years ago, and now with the SCOTUS ruling curtailing the EPA's blatantly unconstitutional rule making, it seems more appropriate than ever to republish it. RK

The Basic Science of Carbon/CO2: a brief summary (Why are we trying to limit- cap and trade, tax- the basis of all life?)

All life is built from carbon. All life depends on carbon for its existence and functioning. “All living things, starting at the cellular level which is common to all life, is based on carbon compounds, including the DNA that carry the gene sequences of the genetic codes. Of the trillions of cells in the human body, there is not one of them that is not made of carbon.”   

 

We subsist almost entirely on carbon dioxide. “The food used by all living things, to grow and to live, is carbon dioxide…food is carbon dioxide…the food of all plants and animals is carbon dioxide”.   Everything is made of carbon and fueled by carbon. All things need carbon to grow and reproduce.

 
There is only one source of carbon for all life- CO2 in the atmosphere. Plants absorb CO2 from the atmosphere (“they consume almost entirely carbon dioxide for food”- www.bydesign.com) and process it into carbohydrates for the animal kingdom. We get our food from this chain of CO2/carbon processing. “The only gateway through which carbon can enter the food chain to enable the biosphere to exist is through the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There is no other way. It all starts with CO2 in the atmosphere. The entire chain of life starts with plants absorbing this entirely natural, colorless, odorless, absolutely non-toxic aerial gas called CO2…more than 90 % of the dry matter of plants is simply processed CO2. Whether it is a cow eating grass or humans eating cows, all are eating- and being fuelled- by processed CO2” (Brinsmead, The Vindication of Carbon).

Recent levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have been unprecedented and dangerously low. Plant growth shuts down at 200 ppm (parts per million in the atmosphere). Plant life is stressed and unhealthy at such low levels. Life evolved over the past 500 million years at levels of CO2 that were on average a more healthy 1500 ppm (see paleo-climate graphs at sites such as Geocraft.com). A dangerous upper limit of CO2 in the atmosphere would be from 5,000 to 10,000 ppm. We are in no danger of approaching these high levels. Our atmosphere is currently “CO2 deprived”.

Plants and crops are healthier at higher levels of CO2 than are currently present in our atmosphere (now 386 ppm). They produce significantly more biomass, and are able to cope better with such natural vagaries as drought, heat, and cold. “More CO2 makes plants more resistant to extreme weather conditions…and this expands the habitat of many plants…and enhances agricultural productivity…and helps tropical rainforests”. Animals also survive better with more plant life. The small increase in CO2 over the past century has significantly greened the earth and this has increased populations in the animal kingdom. It has also enhanced the impacts of the Green Revolution with notably increased crop production which has helped to feed the poor.

Higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are more normal and natural.

 

Current world average temperatures are also abnormally low. Higher temperatures on an ice-free earth (a warmer earth) are more normal and natural (see paleo-climate graphs at Geocraft.com). We are in one of earth’s infrequent and abnormally cold ice-age eras (the past two million years). A warmer earth would be better for all life.

CO2 is not a pollutant but is a rare gas (1 molecule to every 3,000 molecules of the atmosphere) that is the essential food of all life. “All plants and animals are growing and living on a rare gas”. And while there are other potential pollutants associated with fossil fuel use, CO2 and carbon are not among them.

CO2 does not cause dangerous global warming. Rising levels of CO2 follow warming periods and do not precede or cause warming periods. CO2 does not cause dangerous global warming. Rising levels of CO2 follow warming periods and do not precede or cause warming periods.

CO2 does not cause dangerous global warming. Rising levels of CO2 follow warming periods and do not precede or cause warming periods. See the Vostok Ice Core research. Oceans, which hold 90 times the CO2 that is in the atmosphere, release CO2 as they warm and this increases atmospheric CO2 levels. The CO2 increases tend to lag behind warming periods by about 800 years.

Oceans, which hold 90 times the CO2 that is in the atmosphere, release CO2 as they warm and this increases atmospheric CO2 levels. The CO2 increases tend to lag behind warming periods by about 800 years.

CO2 is a tiny part of the greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect.

 
The warming effect of CO2 gets lost among other much larger natural climate drivers. Human emissions of CO2 are even tinier (1 part per 100,000 parts of the atmosphere) and a human fingerprint causing warming is even more lost among natural influences. The human contribution to climate warming, if it were statistically detectable, would amount to nothing more than “a fart in a hurricane”. Natural climate drivers with strong, clear correlations to warming/cooling periods include cosmic rays (see Henrik Svensmark’s The Chilling Stars), solar flare cycles, related cloud cover, ocean current decadal oscillations (changing current patterns), earth’s 100,000 year wobble, and others.

CO2 levels have been as high as 7,000 ppm in the past and no dangerous global warming occurred. During the Late Ordovician Period (some 400 million years ago) CO2 levels were 4,400 ppm and Earth was as cold as it is now. Note also that Earth has been cooling since 2002 despite the fact that CO2 emissions have been increasing. “There is no valid correlation between CO2 emissions and global warming”, concludes geophysicist Norm Kalmanovitch.

Therefore, there is no scientific reason for us to worry about contributing to increasing CO2 levels. We do not need to reduce our carbon footprint. We do not need to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere or decarbonize our economies. As the 31,000 plus scientists who signed the the Protest Petition have stated, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth”

To demonize carbon/CO2, as environmentalists have done, is to demonize life itself. This is ridiculous hysteria and entirely unscientific. The only way to fully understand this anti-carbon movement is to recognize that it is ideologically-driven extremism now gone utterly mad. Its real goal is to slow, halt, and even reverse economic growth and development and it uses carbon as a proxy to fight growth and the human enterprise. But the Green movement in demonizing carbon has become anti-green, anti-life, and anti-nature.

Wendell Krossa wkrossa@shaw.ca