Carbon dioxide may not be the cause of global warming

Oil on canvas by Ashok

It seems that the burning of fossil fuels that produce carbon dioxide may be incorrectly blamed in the media and by many others for global warming. Carbon dioxide accounts for just 0.038% of the atmosphere. The amount is too minuscule to have any significant effect on global warming. In fact water vapor is a stronger greenhouse component of the atmosphere. In fact the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has fallen to suffocatingly dangerous levels for plants. They need it for photosynthesis and are a source of food for animals and humans. Greenhouse owners who raise carbon dioxide content about three times find that plants grow fifty percent faster.

(Update April 7, 2014) A lay person assumes that because carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas  its increase must lead to increased heat absorption in the atmosphere and therefore increased temperatures but the more relevant question to explore is how much increase. Admittedly the full calculations are complex but rough estimates are not. It appears on the basis of rough estimates that a one percent rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may give rise to less than one degree centigrade rise in temperature. Therefore, if the present approximately 0.04 percent becomes two and a half times the rise in temperature shall be only 0.1 degree centigrade, an amount much smaller than even short term cyclical changes on the planet due to solar activity.

Scientists have concluded that human activity over the last century has probably contributed to global warming. If so, then the probable cause is deforestation and not the production of carbon dioxide through burning of fossil fuels.

UPDATE: April 7, 2014

But what about carbon emissions? What if they are a major contributor since the final word on the issues has not yet emerged? Do we not need to do anything about it? The answer to that is when the greatest per capita emitters like USA and Europe have not been able to bring it down significantly yet, it would be too much to expect far lower per capita emitters like India and China, where a major proportion of the world population lives, as well as other countries of Latin America, Asia and Africa, to cut down on their development and poverty reduction. They still have a long way to go and many more hungry mouths to feed with hundreds of millions suffering from malnutrition. Over the years emissions will continue To some especially those in developed countries this view would be a dangerous one but to very many millions of mothers and children suffering from malnutrition it would be a welcomed view. In the end it is costs that will dictate and ensure a switch over. But the good news is that :- fossil fuel cost are increasing as that resource runs out and alternative energy costs coming down.The second good news is that the world has become more aware of the devastating effects of deforestation and over the last few years efforts to undo damage in this direction have also accelerated. This blogger is happy to note that this blog as well as a more general one ( http://someitemshave.blogspot.com)  was one of the early voices that contributed towards a change in this last direction.

For the scientifically minded a University of Bristol press release of 2009 is worth looking up . It concludes:

"Yet here we are, on the brink of economy crippling legislation to tackle a problem we don’t fully understand and the science is most certainly not settled on."

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/10/bombshell-from-bristol-is-the-airborne-fraction-of-anthropogenic-co2-emissions-increasing-study-says-no/