Climate Policy

[Concillian]

Wouldn't biological activity (presuming plant growth?) be a net reduction in CO2, not a net increase?

Plants consume CO2. Reduction in plants (deforestation) should be a net increase in CO2... and something that would be attributable to mankind.

I refuse to believe that historic CO2 PPM levels were static for thousands of years until the common steam engine was invented, then coincidentally saw exponential growth in the PPM starting right at that moment for natural reasons... almost parallel all the way with exponential growth curve of human population growth and fossil fuel usage... too coincidental to pin the majority of the CO2 increase on anything else, nature doesn't have conspiracies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Co2-te...e-plot.svg

Just ignore the temperature data. The current level of CO2 is a clear statistical anomoly when compared with any time in the last roughly million years (give or take). Now kandrathe is saying (if I read correctly) that the majority of the CO2 increase is natural due to the recent temperature increases. The Vostok ice core data does not support this conclusion at all. Temperatures are lower than historic maximums and CO2 levels are a huge statistical outlier higher than in the past 500,000 to 1 million years. You can't look at the data that exists and come to the logical conclusion that the recent CO2 increases since the birth of the industrial revolution are natural.