The mechanism by which CO2 traps heat is not controversial. It's basically opaque to thermal radiation, meaning--the ultraviolet light from the sun can pass through it, but the thermal radiation reflected from the Earth is trapped by it. Just like a tarp over a greenhouse, it traps heat, thus the name greenhouse gas. If this is 3rd grade science to readers, forgive me, but that part of it is really that simple. Methane actually warms even more than CO2, but we pump vastly less of the stuff out, and it's life is much shorter. So it has an intense but short(er) lived effect. Water vapor is the most prolific greenhouse gas, and there is a natural feedback mechanism between CO2 and water vapor, which is why I referred to CO2 as a volume dial. Because we humans control a very important variable in the CO2/water vapor loop. If you don't understand that as a basic fact, then you also don't understand that we have at least some say in how to turn the volume down, so to speak, although the control is not precise and we will presumably have less of it the longer we put this off.

You made the claim, "As global temperatures rise CO2 follows." Well, sorta. You're not wrong that the data shows the spherical/elliptical pattern/proximity to the sun causes an initial rise in temperature, and we've observed that in the past, but you're missing a huge part of the picture. Once the Earth warms a little, more CO2 is released from the oceans and it's AFTER this influx of CO2 that 90% of the warming in past periods has occurred. In other words, the Milankovitch cycle (spherical/elliptical/precessional rotation) doesn't have the energy to account for 90% of the warming, it's the CO2 forcing that does. Then, over an enormously long time scale, rock weathering puts the CO2 back into the oceans, and voila, cooling. Another feedback effect. Fast forward to modern times and therein lies the rub. We're artificially pumping out scads of CO2 and the Earth's natural mechanisms for filtering it out, which have taken thousands of years to do so in the past, are being relied on to do the same job in hundreds. So it's not just the warming that's a problem. It's the rate of warming and the fact that we're accelerating CO2 output with little regard for the long term.

My opinions about the above facts:

1. Armed with these facts alone, one should be on his guard about emissions, not just because that's what the industrialized world pumps into the atmosphere at an alarming and accelerating rate, but because prior to green(ish) energy, that's what businesses have to do to turn a profit. It doesn't mean people are evil that businesses' primary objective is to turn a profit, but it does mean that without some sort of regulation, there can be, by definition, no incentive to draw down on CO2 emissions to a level below the profit margin of a business.

2. Poor people get screwed first and the worst from everything. Including climate change. This is partially why this is a humanitarian issue. I've seen this recently down here in Texas. In Houston and Rockport, which just got their asses handed to them by Hurricane Harvey, the poor people fared the worst. This is partly due to the fact that the poorer areas in Houston, for example, also had the worst water drainage and infrastructure. But it's really just common sense. If you are poor and barely have the resources to deal with life, and some disaster comes along and wipes out what little you have, then you are fucked. And that's just Texas poor. The world's poor are REMARKABLY poorer than that. By the way, I'm not claiming that the hurricanes were directly due to climate change, and you should be skeptical of anyone claiming a direct link in that way without an incredible amount of data. However, the severity of hurricanes should increase with a warmer climate and higher sea levels. Harvey had record breaking rainfall and Irma had record breaking sustained winds. So you should also be skeptical of blowhards that seem proud to dismiss correlation or causality out of hand.


Jason