Climate Policy

[kandrathe]

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

There may be some other factors here to consider; 1) biomass density per acre might actually have increased in some areas, 2) carbon sequestration in soil through conservation tillage, 3) changes in photosynthesis due to increased CO2 levels, 4) changes in algae biomass due to increased "fertilizers".

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.

I would also note that nature is not all that predictable either.

It certainly seems that something is changing. People probably have had some level of impact, and maybe jostled the equilibrium. Or, maybe there is some other long wave explanation for an increase in temperature, which is also resulting in a proportional related decrease in CO2 fixation. That scenario also seems to have merit. It is easy to show statistical causal relationships, but this does not mean it is actually true. For example, chart the expansion of deserts over the past 300 years to populations. Are we the cause?