>Why bother? CO2 is not a poison or polluter. Without it, plants and humans
>will die. I grow tomatoes in an atmosphere of around 1000 ppm CO2 and
>they love it! We breathe out CO2 at around 40,000 ppm. Mankind's 3% CO2
>contribution affects Mother Nature's 97%? Really?
Do the numbers yourself...
Not sure where you get your 3% from but CO2 levels have risen from 315ppm in 1960 to around 360ppm today (Source
http://science.nefferport.com/image008.jpg) That suggests at least 100 x (360-315)/315 = 14% could be man made.
Without the atmosphere earth would be some 30-32C colder than it is (source
Greenhouse effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). Water vapour accounts for 36-70% of that and CO2 from all sources is believed to account for between 9% and 26%. Huge uncertainty I'm afraid but lets assume CO2 accounts for 17% (average of 9-26).
So without any CO2 the earth would be 0.17 x 31C = 5.3C colder. Mans contribution is 14% of that or 0.14 x 5.3C = 0.7C
That appears to agree remarkably well with what the temperature record suggests. (Source
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporat...hs/myth6_1.gif)
By the way that's the first time I've done that calculation. I didn't work backwards from the answer honest.