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But CO2 is THOUGHT to punch well above its weight at warming the atmosphere.  Because of the way the molecule of CO2 is, it absorbs any warming, then re-emits it in all directions, rather than letting the warming drifting up through the atmosphere and escaping into space.  It is therefore (wrongly) said that it 'traps' the warming.  So, the idea goes that 'natural' CO2 in the atmosphere of, say 280 parts per million (ppm) is fine.  Overall, the level (280ppm) keeps the Earth's temperature at a certain level - let us say 14 degrees C average across the globe.  The argument is that if we increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by burning coal, gas, and oil, then (it is said) we have increased the percentage to 425ppm.  This, scientists say, will mean that the world will warm up.

However, it isn't that simple.  The way CO2 is THOUGHT to warm the atmosphere is logarithmic.   A logarithm is the power to which a number must be raised in order to get some other number.  In CO2 terms, it means that as you add CO2, it does less warming than it did before.  Think of putting a blind up at your window to keep the sun out.  Let's say that the first blind you put up reduces the sunlight by 50%.  You CANNOT therefore keep ALL the sun out by simply fitting another blind up on top of the first one.  The second blind will also keep out 50% of the light...but it means it will inhibit 50% of the REMAINING light.  So you have cut out 75% of the sunlight in total, not 100%.

CO2 is THOUGHT to warm the atmosphere in the following manor.

So imagine building a planet's atmosphere 'brick by brick'.  We've constructed a new planet and we need to add in an atmosphere.  When you add 100ppm of CO2 you get a warming addition to the atmosphere of almost 1.2 degrees C.  So far, so good.  But when you add another 100ppm (so we're up to 200ppm) you get an additional 0.5 degrees C of warming (not another 1.2 degrees).  If you add another 100ppm (so we're up to 300ppm) you only get an extra 0.3 degrees C.  Now add another 100ppm (so we're now up to 400ppm) at which we get just an additional 0.2 degrees C.  Let's see it in order, as if we started out with a planet we will call Earth 2.0.

We are going to start our new planet at 12 degrees C on average (absorbing sunlight) - which is roughly the distance from the Sun that our Earth 1.0 is at:

Add the first 100ppm (giving us and increase of almost 1.2 degrees C) and our planet is up to 13.2 degrees C.

Add another 100ppm (giving us and increase of almost 0.5 degrees C) and our planet is up to 13.7 degrees C.

Add another 100ppm (giving us and increase of almost 0.3 degrees C) and our planet is up to 14.0 degrees C.

Add another 100ppm (giving us and increase of almost 0.2 degrees C) and our planet is up to 14.2 degrees C.

So you can see that the largest amount of warming came from that initial 100ppm, and that despite adding 100ppm three times more, we can only get our new planet up to 14.2 degrees C.  Even if we doubled the current 425ppm that the Earth's atmosphere has, you can see from the graph that the warming hardly rises at all - it would raise our planet's temperature to 14.3 degrees C.  We've worked hard to double the CO2 in the atmosphere, but all we get is a measly increase from 14.2 to 14.3 degrees C!  Some scientists say that we would get more than that due to the way CO2 is THOUGHT to work when it is expanded.  We might not, as all of this depends on the water vapour in the atmosphere acting as a 'feedback'.  But water vapour may not do that.  Perhaps the best CO2 physicist we know of, Prof. William Happer, says that we will get to 14.3 degrees C.  But there are some physicists who say that we won't even get that - we'll get no increase at all.

So you may be asking why we are so worried about more CO2 in our atmosphere.  Well, you're not alone.  This is the primary argument between believers of man-made warming and sceptics (of which I am very much one).  But the arguments go MUCH deeper than that.

The above text includes the word 'thought' a few times.  This is because we don't actually understand how the atmosphere (the climate) works!  As astounding as that is, that is so.  New theories are emerging which say the greenhouse effect is no such thing, and that a planet's surface temperature is dependent on how dense the atmosphere is.  This is good food for thought.  Our atmosphere is just 0.04% CO2.  Mars and Venus both have atmospheres of 96% CO2!!!  Venus is closer to the Sun, and Mars is further away, but...Venus has an incredibly dense atmosphere and the planet is extremely hot (enough to melt lead).  Mars has a wispy atmosphere and is cold.

So, the 'warming' idea is that as we add more CO2, Earth's temperature rises.  But as we have said, it is far from certain - we don't even know if the atmosphere works that way.  And it gets 'worse'.  Some scientists are saying that CO2 doesn't work that way, anyway, and that something called 'thermalisation' knocks out any heat that the CO2 molecule has - so it cannot warm the surface.  If this is true, it means that CO2 doesn't even warm the atmosphere in the way I have shown above.  It would mean that we could emit as much CO2 as we want and the Earth wouldn't get any warmer at all.  Even if this was wrong...it is at least partially true!  There exist positive feedbacks (which warm the planet) and negative feedbacks (which cool the planet, or rather return it to its previous steady state).  We know that negative feedbacks must be controlling the planet's temperature through the climate system as the Earth (in its history) hasn't runaway to either a boiling hot one or a freezing cold one.  Something keeps it reasonably stable, responding to perturbations to right itself...otherwise we wouldn't (couldn't) be here!

In fact, the Earth's temperature is remarkably stable.  It has been hot, but never anything that humans couldn't endure, and we know that we have gone through many 'Ice Ages'.  However, modern humans have lived through two ice ages, and our primitive species lived through many.  Here is the temperature of the Earth over the past 500 million years.

It's a bit of a see-saw, but considering that Earth is subject to asteroid impact, volcanoes, and ice ages, it is amazingly consistent.  It shows us that the Earth's climate system cannot be too upset - that it rights itself.  For much of the time since the dinosaurs were snuffed out, Earth has only been around 10 degrees C warmer than it is today.  You experience a range of temperature about 30 degrees between summer and winter, by comparison.

And there's a really important point that we should know about CO2 before we leave it...it is at an incredibly low level in history...and that's worrying.  You'll hear bollocks from the BBC and others that we must reduce the Earth's CO2 level, but we risk extinction.  Plant life (and therefore us) depend on CO2.  Without it, we're dead.  At 150ppm (remember it's 425ppm now) all plant life dies...and we die very shortly after.  Here (the black line) is CO2 over the past 550 million years...we're low!  530 million years ago it was at 7,000ppm - and life bloomed in what is called the Cambrian Explosion (of life).  Look at the worrying black line...

CO2 is essential to life.  The more we have in our atmosphere, the better trees, plants, and crops grow.  We have a global population of 9 billion - the very last thing we want to do is to reduce crop yields!  In order to get plants to grow, growers pump CO2 into their greenhouses.  By the way, the CO2 level in your home will be around 1,000ppm, possibly higher.  It's one reason why plants grow better indoors.

So what if it isn't true - that CO2 will continue to warm the planet?  If it's not true, then we're about to spend trillions absolutely pointlessly - wasted money that could be spent on very many other things.  CO2 taxes have been with us a long time.  You cannot go one day without paying a CO2 charge on something - especially your energy bill.  And as everything you do or purchase requires energy (at the factory) then you are paying a lot of CO2 taxes.  We're now at the stage where our government cannot do without them.  If scientists were to suddenly admit they were wrong, and that CO2 does nothing, our government would have to significantly raise all other taxes to make up the shortfall that it could no longer charge.  And while were busy paying for 'green' energy with low CO2 emissions, China and India are pumping out massive amounts of it.  So anything we do means it is pointless, anyway.  Take Australia as an example.  It isn't using its coal reserves to generate its electricity; it sells the coal to China...which uses it to generate electricity to manufacture solar panels and wind turbines...which it sells to Australia!!!  It is absurd nonsense.  So even when Australia sets up these solar panels and wind turbines, the overall CO2 balance is zero - it may as well have used the coal to generate electricity rather than the green stuff.

But we have our own patch of utter stupidity, right here in the UK.  The Drax power station in North Yorkshire stopped burning coal and, instead, burns wood pellets shipped all the way across the Atlantic from South Carolina in the US.  It takes a larger cost to do that than it saves.  And ready for the punchline...Drax sits right on top of 300 years worth of coal deposits.  You really couldn't make this shit up.

But what if it is true, and that our planet is warming due to us?  Ok, what should we do?  Should we raise CO2 taxes to be able to future-generate electricity which doesn't emit CO2, and leave the coal, gas, and oil in the ground?  Or should we just carry on as we are - emitting CO2 by burning coal, gas, and oil, and use the money we would have spent on mitigation - to cope with the weather that the scientists say is coming our way?  Isn't that a 'better' way?  I say this because Britain alone is about to spend almost £4 trillion on changing our power generation over to non-CO2 emitting ways to raise power.  This is what Net Zero is - nuclear, wind, solar, and anything else yet to be invented - rather than coal, gas, and oil.  We won't be emitting any more CO2.  That's the plan.  But £4 trillion would give us a lot of mitigation.  It would pay for sea walls, for 'climate-damage' insurance, and lots of other stuff.  Instead, British governments have opted to spend £4 trillion to stop emitting CO2...even though China and India just laugh at us.  They can manufacture their goods cheaply using coal.  We manufacture our goods in the most-expensive way possible.  That's why they're laughing.  Despite all the agreements to lower CO2 emissions, it just keeps going up - because China and India have zero intention of following us (good for them!).

So what we're doing - spending £4 trillion - is absolutely pointless.  However, it's even worse than that.  In Britain we have a prestigious scientific establishment called the Royal Society.  They are strong advocates for the cessation of CO2 into the atmosphere.  In fact, they go to great lengths to convince us and the world that we must stop emitting CO2.  So what do they say?  They produced a document on CO2 and climate change, a Q&A.

"If emissions of greenhouse gases were stopped, would the climate return to the conditions of 200 years ago?

No. Even if emissions of greenhouse gases were to suddenly stop, Earth’s surface temperature would require thousands of years to cool and return to the level in the pre-industrial era.  If emissions of CO2 stopped altogether, it would take many thousands of years for atmospheric CO2 to return to “pre-industrial” levels due to its very slow transfer to the deep ocean and ultimate burial in ocean sediments. Surface temperatures would stay elevated for at least a thousand years, implying a long-term commitment to a warmer planet due to past and current emissions.  Sea level would likely continue to rise for many centuries even after temperature stopped increasing.  Significant cooling would be required to reverse melting of glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet, which formed during past cold climates.  The current CO2-induced warming of Earth is therefore essentially irreversible on human timescales.  The amount and rate of further warming will depend almost entirely on how much more CO2 humankind emits.”

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So what is the point, then…of spending trillions of dollars?  And this is if the emissions were stopped altogether.  They have unwittingly and brilliantly summed up the utter futility of doing anything at all.  What would be the point of adhering to any CO2 mandate?  The Royal Society scientists just packaged it up succinctly; it would be futile.  So if ALL the nations of the world stopped emissions tomorrow afternoon, it would do NOTHING (by their own admission).  So then what is the point of one nation doing anything at all?  While we in the UK have been busy closing our coal-fired power stations, China has built 1,200 of them.

So we're spending £4 trillion for nothing in two differing ways: one because China and India are not doing what we're doing, and two, because what we will do (even if China and India did it, too) won't return atmospheric CO2 to a previous level, and global temperatures will stay elevated for at least a thousand years (their words, not mine).  The whole thing is futile.  It is literally a total waste of money.  I'm not even clever enough to make the tea at the Royal Society, but that doesn't stop me thinking that they are talking complete shit.  I happen to believe that our temperature is regulated by clouds - by sunlight.  I also happen to believe that solar cycles play a truly major part in that, and that we are heading for very cool times in just 15 years from now (solar cycle 26).  But that's just me.  One of us (either the Royal Society or me) is talking complete shit.  We'll see.  I have nothing to lose because no one cares what I think.  They have everything to lose as, if they're wrong, they will cease to be credible as a scientific organisation, and will be a laughing stock.  No one will remember what I said!  But I cannot leave this without showing you why I believe it is clouds...if there really is any warming at all.

The uppermost graph is UK sunshine duration (annual).  The bottom graph is UK annual temperature.  These are on the Met Office's own website.  The German equivalent of the Met Office did their own analysis and found very similar results, there.  So, wouldn't you say that the (extra) warming is very simply due to the (extra) sunshine?  When increased sunshine duration began around 1980, the temperature rose.  What a coincidence?  Surface temperatures WOULD go up if there's more sunshine!  If you would like it in a mathematical fashion, sunshine duration has risen around 12%.  Want to know how much the temperature has risen?...around 12%.  The Met Office (despite their own graphs) say that sunshine has nothing to do with global warming!  Oh, wait, I hear you say, what about CO2, how much has that risen?  That would be 25%.  So CO2 has risen significantly, and yet UK temperature has risen by the same amount as sunshine has.  Which is it that causes warming, again?

As we draw this to a close, I want remind you of the focus point of all my webpages here; that of lying.  The whole CO2 debate is filled with lies (if you were to ask me!).  I will remind you that earlier on, we talked about CO2 and the so-called 'greenhouse effect'.  This is the idea of how scientists believe the Earth's atmosphere works.  It does this, according to the theory, by the properties of the gases in the atmosphere - the Greenhouse Gases (GHGs).  Here is the US government's EIA - the US Energy Information Administration describing the composition of the greenhouses gases:

If you read elsewhere on my blog, you'll see how I talk about lies and obfuscation.  This is a trick used to fool you - quite deliberately.  The BBC uses it when they want to force you to believe that black people were always in Britain.  What they do is talk about 'African' people - hoping that what you won't realise that they are talking about NORTH Africans - the olive-skinned people of Tunisia and Libya, for example, and NOT actually sub-Saharan black people.  Anyway, I digress!  The above webpage purports to show you the 'types of greenhouse gases'.  But (as they admit) they have completely left out water vapour...ready?...even though water vapour accounts for 97% of the greenhouse effect.  They have completely ignored it.  The reason is that we don't emit water vapour - so we (humans) aren't responsible for any effect within the atmosphere.  So instead they list carbon dioxide (CO2) as the primary GHG driver...which it most definitely is not, it is water vapour as you'll see further down.

The US Environmental Protection Agency does exactly the same:

If you cast just a glance over it, you'll see that they PURPORT to tell you an overview of greenhouse gases (that's their title).  But then they write of 'greenhouse gas emissions' not the actual composition of the greenhouse gases and the list.  Water vapour, despite making up 97% of GHGs, is absent.  This is because they moved on from the title to talk about 'effect from emissions' - they even openly list that under 'On this page:'.  The big blue circle shows no water vapour at all.  Because if it were honest, this is what it would look like: