Is carbon dioxide really a greenhouse gas?
Earlier this year, the Democrat Senate Budget Committee's chairman invited Gus Schumacher, Olympic cross-country skier, to testify as an expert witness on climate change concerning "the impact of global warming on the $1.1 trillion outdoor recreation industry."
Mr. Schumacher stated that carbon dioxide is "a huge part of our atmosphere," but then expressed he was not sure what carbon dioxide (CO2) is. Sen. John Kennedy explained that "Democrats want to spend $50 TRILLION to become carbon neutral" and that committee testimony is meant to justify spending the money. Continuing, Kennedy explained that carbon dioxide only makes up about 0.04% of the gases of our atmosphere.
Earth's atmosphere consists of "78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide and small amounts of other gases." So, methane must be the problem, right? Methane is in that group of "small amounts of other gases" and actually is 0.000191% of the Earth's atmosphere, so it is even less of a problem.
Why, then, would anyone think CO2 is a problem greenhouse gas? In 1859 Irish physicist John Tyndall conducted an experiment showing that carbon dioxide and water vapor absorbed heat and radiated heat. He was attributed credit for demonstrating "the physical basis of the greenhouse effect."
Since then, ideas have been propagated by groups like National Geographic to express that "greenhouse gases allow the sun's light to shine onto Earth's surface … [and] trap the heat that reflects back from the surface …like the glass walls of a greenhouse."
Not until the 1940s was the first infrared (IR) spectrometer built. In 1957 PerkinElmer developed the first low-cost IR spectrometer. In 1969 Digilab (now Agilent technologies) pioneered the first FTIR (making this type of analysis available to laboratories). Why is this important? FTIR instrumentation shows the energies light molecules absorb.
Using FTIR instrumentation, the energy absorption of CO2 can be measured. "Carbon dioxide traps heat only within [very] narrow bands of the infrared spectrum," states an article entitled, "Top Study: Carbon Emissions CANNOT Cause 'Global Warming'." Figure 1 shows the IR absorption spectrum for both CO2 and water. This shows CO2 only absorbs energy in a very narrow range, meaning that it would never act like "glass walls of a greenhouse" reflecting the sun's energy back to Earth.
Figure 2 shows the total energy of the sun's rays coming to the earth consists of 7.35% UV light, 38.82% visible light and 52.15% IR light. In order to act as a "greenhouse gas" the first thing CO2 has to do, is absorb the sun's energy. Of the sun's total energy CO2 absorbs only about 0.13%, meaning 99.87% of the sun's energy passes through the CO2, hits the Earth and bounces back up without interacting with CO2 at all. Considering only the IR portion of the sun's energy, CO2 only absorbs 0.24% of the total IR energy from the sun. Again, that means 99.76% of the sun's energy is not affected by CO2 in the atmosphere. So, CO2 is not acting like a glass bubble around the Earth, increasing the Earth's temperature.
Then there's the saturation problem. This is reported in several recent peer-reviewed scientific articles (2024, 2022, 2020). The problem can be basically understood by considering attic insulation. Once insulation is above a certain height (the saturation limit), adding more insulation has no further effect on heating the house, as all the heat is already captured by the insulation already present. So, if CO2 did act as a greenhouse gas, once the saturation limit is achieved, adding more CO2 would have no further effect on warming the Earth.
"Current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are around 418 parts per million (ppm), but the scientists state that past 400 ppm, 'the CO2 concentration can no longer cause any increase in temperature.'" Therefore, "it simply isn't possible for increases in carbon dioxide to cause temperatures to rise." Note, "levels of gas have been up to 20 times higher in the past without any sign of runaway 'global warming.'"
"In 2022, German Physics Professor Dieter Schildknecht set the saturation limit of CO2 at just 300 ppm and concluded that beyond this, further increases cannot affect the Earth's climate."
Emeritus professor William Happer of Princeton believes the CO2 saturation hypothesis and stated that the current "science" enforcing the "Net Zero" agenda for carbon emissions by 2050 – is a "hoax," but he preferred the word, "scam."
Dr. John Clauser, 2022 Nobel Physics laureate, stated, "I assert there is no connection whatsoever between climate change and CO2 – it's all a crock of crap, in my opinion."
"Over 1600 scientists from around the world" have signed "a declaration stating that claims of a 'climate emergency' threatening the Earth are a hoax." This declaration is called the World Climate Declaration (WCD). It states, "Carbon dioxide is beneficial to Earth … there is no climate emergency [and] … climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific." "The coalition points out that Earth's climate has varied as long as it has existed, [and] … they stress that there is 'no statistical evidence' to support [climate alarmist] claims." Thus, "there is no climate emergency [and] … no cause for panic and alarm."
On the other hand, water vapor absorbs visible light and infrared light from the sun in broad bands. Water vapor could act as a greenhouse gas. So, do we need to get rid of all the clouds and stop production of Stanley Steamers automobiles? The only problem with thinking that water vapor is heating the Earth's atmosphere too much is the fact that water vapor only makes up about 1-3% of the atmosphere above the ocean and about 0-0.4% above the land. So, water vapor is not a problem either.
Carbon dioxide is not warming the Earth. To say it is to lie. It's cold in the winter and hot in the summer, and the sun has an 11-year cycle. Currently, we are at the peak of the cycle that will reverse between now and 2025.
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