Synergy of C02, the carbon cycle, nature, and man

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The Carbon Cycle and Demonization of CO2

Source: Randall Carlson
91 pages distilled into 8 pages

This essay and review of research into the carbon cycle and its effect upon the biosphere, more specifically upon the realm of plants and vegetation, is intended to provide a synopsis of evidence and information generally neglected in mainstream discussions of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) and to provide an enhanced and more realistic perspective on the effects of increasing concentrations of atmospheric of carbon dioxide upon the world of nature and the world of society, which, of course, are inextricably linked.

Excerpts

Page 2 The ocean acts as a powerful pump, constantly extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and ultimately sequestering it into carbonate sedimentary rocks, where it remains for a very long time. The natural process of oceanic uptake is constantly depleting Earth’s atmosphere of carbon dioxide, and if not replenished it would quickly reduce the amount of CO2 to a concentration too low for effective photosynthesis.

Page 3 Given that the total anthropogenic contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere is on the order of 6 Gt (gigatons) it is obvious that half of it is missing in action, so to speak.

In addition to fossil fuel combustion, carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere through biomass burning. We are informed that the rise in carbon dioxide based solely on anthropogenic emissions should be occurring at 3.5 parts per million per year. The measured increase, however, is only 1.5 parts per million each year. In this study it was found that only 42.8% of total anthropogenic emissions of CO2 was actually residing in the atmosphere. The remaining 57.2 % was, and is, being sequestered on land and in the oceans by natural processes. Cement production actually results in a net carbon dioxide sink rather than source, because, even though CO2 is released during cement production, concrete, it turns out, reabsorbs even more of it over the long term.

Page 6 The total annual amounts are given as 6.2 gigatons and 2.8 gigatons, or, in other words, 55% percent of human emissions of carbon dioxide are missing, gone, no longer part of the atmosphere, consumed by the biosphere.

“Emission rates of CO2 from combustion of fossil fuel have increased almost 40 percent in the past 20 years, but the amount of CO2 accumulating in the atmosphere has stayed the same, or even declined slightly. The reason for this discrepancy is that increasing amounts of anthropogenic CO2 are being removed by forests and other components of the biosphere. It is estimated that more than 2 billion metric tons of carbon – equivalent to 25 percent of the carbon emitted by fossil fuel combustion – are sequestered by forests each year.”

Page 7 It is apparent that Nature has the ability to remove large amounts of carbon dioxide from the global atmosphere. It is this uptake of CO2 that removes at least half the amount that is being emitted through fossil fuel combustion. Whatever the exact distribution of CO2 into the various sinks it is clear that a substantial portion of it is being consumed by the biosphere in the process of photosynthesis. It is also apparent to many researchers that if not continuously replenished the ocean alone would quickly sequester so much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere that it would severely affect photosynthetic processes.

Page 9 Each year anthropogenic fossil fuel combustion releases roughly 6 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Of this amount nature is rapidly consuming, or sequestering, about half, leaving only about 3 gigatons of residual human sourced CO2 remaining in the atmosphere. The proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is measured in parts per million and at present stands at about 400 parts per million. (4 parts out of 10,000) Here is one way to look at the matter: For every 1 million molecules of air, (made up of primarily nitrogen and oxygen) there are 400 molecules of carbon dioxide. For comparison, of oxygen there would be 209,500 molecules, of nitrogen 780,900 with about 9300 remaining for argon gas and a few other gases. In other words, the total mass of the atmosphere is over 2500 times greater than the carbon dioxide within it and some 625,000 times greater than the total amount of anthropogenically sourced atmospheric CO2. The mass of this 400 parts per million of CO2 taken altogether makes up the total of about 753 gigatons residing in or transiting through the atmosphere at any given time. 3 of these 753 gigatons, then, are the consequence of human activity, the rest is the result of the natural activity of the carbon cycle, a difference of 250 to 1. Let’s take a moment to do a bit of math. Dividing 400 by 1 million gives us the figure of .0004, the decimal fraction for the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. To see the amount of atmospheric CO2 resulting from human activity divide this number in turn by 250. The result is the decimal fraction .0000016. This is a very small number, not much greater than nothing at all when compared to the whole atmosphere. Are we then supposed to accept the conclusion, without question or debate, that this miniscule additional amount of CO2 to the atmosphere is going to provoke such a horrendous planetary catastrophe that we must completely overhaul our energy system, in effect, according to some of the more extreme proposals, dismantle our industrial infrastructure altogether?

Page 10 Let’s return to the other side of the issue, neglected in most mainstream discussions of climate change − the positive, yes positive, role of carbon dioxide in critical biological processes. As pointed out above, in the work of T. C. Chamberlin and A. G. Norman, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is very low relative to its importance for the health of the biosphere because of its fundamental role in photosynthesis. Reduce the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide by even a small amount and plant life suffers, and hence, the entire chain of life. In fact, the amount of reduction that would begin to have serious effects on plant life is a mere 2 parts out of 10 thousand. So, given that a small decrease in the amount of carbon dioxide in the global atmosphere would be detrimental to plant life, what about the biological and environmental effects of increasing the amount available to plants? As it turns out there exists an enormous body of research into this question and to that important matter we will now turn.

Page 24 The health of the whole system depends upon the health of the plant kingdom, and the health of the plant kingdom is substantially enhanced with an increased supply of carbon dioxide.

“The energy made available by photosynthesis drives the machinery of the ecosystem.” And what drives photosynthesis? CARBON DIOXIDE + LIGHT. With an input of light energy plants perform a miracle of transformation, converting the incoming light energy into chemical energy and in the process combining carbon dioxide with water to form organic compounds out of two inorganic compounds. These organic compounds take the form of a simple glucose sugar that can store energy for later release as it is needed by living things.

Page 28 “Not only is CO2 essential for plant life but it also enhances growth and yield.” Botanists have known this for at least a century. It is the consistent and relentless message of many hundreds of tests, experiments, studies and observations going back as much as two centuries. It is the 800 pound gorilla in the room that proponents of anthropogenically induced catastrophic greenhouse warming refuse to admit or to talk about.

Page 42 “An elevated CO2 environment seems to ameliorate the adverse effects of elevated O3 [ozone] on both photosynthesis and growth, regardless of photosynthetic pathway or plant functional group.” Potentially positive consequences ignored or dismissed by proponents of AGW (anthropogenic global warming) without further consideration.

Page 52 The two things these authors emphasize should be kept in mind before continuing: the immensity of the natural carbon cycle relative to the contributions of humans and the fact that this immense natural phenomenon, which, in the authors’ words, “is still poorly understood” is central to the question of climatic consequences. If the authors are right, that the immense natural carbon cycle is “still poorly understood,” how is it possible to be so absolutely certain of outcomes that we can declare the debate over and the science settled with respect to the matter of climate change?

Page 55 “As greenhouse warming experts try to predict how much of the world’s climate may heat up in the next century, they keep bumping up against a mystery: Where does much of the carbon dioxide pumped into the air actually end up? . . . In what is shaping up as one of the most controversial findings yet to emerge in the greenhouse gas debate, a team of researchers . . . present evidence that North America sops up a whopping 1.7 petagrams (1.7 billion tons) of carbon a year – enough to suck up every ton of carbon discharged annually by fossil fuel burning in Canada and the United States.”

Obviously, these results have enormous implications relative to the whole global warming debate. And, obviously “greenhouse warming experts” are not as omniscient as the mainstream press and varied promoters of propaganda would have us believe. It is time to recognize that the IPCC is NOT infallible, that the so-called “consensus” is a complete fiction, and, that an effort to impose a global regulatory scheme based upon uncertain science would be a certain blunder.

Page 62 NASA’s website featured an account of the work of this team under the heading “Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds.” The account proceeds to describe the work of the team: “From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25. An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions.

See NASA’s website at https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/goddard/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth-study-finds/

Page 64-65 One thing is absolutely certain. The world we live in is going to change. It has changed on all meaningful time scales we are capable of measuring. It is going to continue to undergo a variety of changes no matter what we humans do, no matter what kind of regulations, legislation, taxes, subsidies or carbon remediation schemes are ordained by the high priests of climate change. Sometimes those changes will be catastrophic.

Pages 65-66 Against this astonishing display of positive effects of increasing carbon dioxide must be weighed potentially negative ones. It should be kept in mind the positive effects are the result of hundreds of empirical studies, that is, real world studies on the effects of carbon dioxide on vegetation. Most of the negative consequences of increasing carbon dioxide concentrations at this point are conjectural, based upon projections accruing from computer simulations and are purely hypothetical, for example, speculated rise in temperature driving an increase in storm and hurricane activity, or an increase in the intensity and duration of drought, or the rising of sea level caused by the melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

Page 67 This is not to say that there are not limitations on the benefits, and most likely contraindications of elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide, and these, of course, need to be addressed. Nevertheless, an honest discussion of the consequences of more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere needs to include all dimensions of the problem, and not be limited to only hypothetical negative effects.

How much of the temperature rise since the mid-19th century is natural and how much is CO2 driven? It is typical to plot data on temperature rise during the period from mid-19th century to the present as the dependent variable and plotting the time span on the x-axis only from the end of the LIA [Little Ice Age] to present, which is going to misleadingly exaggerate the appearance of the y-axis, making the temperature increase look more dramatic than it would appear if graphed with a longer time frame.

Page 70 The change for which more than ample evidence has accumulated has to do with a deeper understanding of the forces of global change and realization that change on all scales has been a dominant factor in climatology, geology, biology, and in human history. However, vested interests have intervened in the scientific process to promote an agenda in which anthropogenic forces are now seen as the prevailing driver of global change to the virtual exclusion of natural factors that have been operational on all time scales since the world began.

There are two things modern environmentalists fail to realize: First, they fail to comprehend the extent to which planet Earth has been subjected to frequent and brutal assaults as part of a larger cosmic environment, assaults that generate intense global upheavals, extreme environmental and climatological alterations, biospheric disruptions, and mass extinctions that far exceed anything mankind has yet visited upon the planet, and, that these catastrophic disruptions of the planetary natural order occur with alarming frequency. The second thing environmentalists fail to realize is that humankind is an integral part of the natural order, and that by creating a scientifically advanced, technological and industrial civilization on Earth, humans are performing the precise function for which God, Gaia, or Natural Selection − take your pick − created the species homo sapiens sapiens.

Page 72-73 “For the individual plant, water-use efficiency is almost directly proportional to the level of CO2 for a given regime of temperature and humidity.” Put another way, doubling the CO2 concentration is almost like doublings the rainfall as far as plant water availability is concerned.”

Page 82 I refer back to Rogers and Dahlman, authors of Crop responses to CO2 enrichment from which I quoted earlier. Reiterating the words of these authors, the two factors absolutely essential for proper function of vital plant processes are photosynthetic activity and water use, both which are enhanced in a carbon dioxide enriched environment, and, most importantly, as far as the human perspective is concerned, they say, “The proper function of these two vital plant processes can spell the difference between feast and famine,” a circumstance that ought to be pondered deeply by those with a vested interest in the future.

Adequate food and water are two of the most critical issues facing a large portion of the human race. With Earth’s population approaching 10 billion within two generations an increase of 30% in the global food supply could spell the difference between successfully avoiding mass starvation and extreme famine. It should be borne in mind that famine often precedes the outbreak of widespread epidemics due to malnourishment compromising human immune systems. Widespread hunger could be the factor that kindles the global pandemic that so concerns some medical professionals. To some eco-fanatics a major depopulation might be construed as a good thing. On the other hand it need not happen and there is no doubt whatsoever that the human species can learn to live in harmony with the Earth.

Page 84 What I think is the first and most glaringly obvious first step in getting our human act together on planet Earth: The abolition of war. Secondly, an unleashing of the creative, entrepreneurial, inventive spirit that was once the primary animating force of the great enterprise called America will be the essential and indispensable prerequisite for achieving conversion to a post-carbon future. This will come about as a natural consequence of the restoration of freedom, in spirit and in fact, freedom which is now being progressively and continuously abridged, degraded and stifled by the disproportionate growth of political, governmental and corporate bodies that consume ever greater amounts of our planet’s natural capital in the commission of unproductive, counterproductive and destructive activities.

We need debate. Lots of debate. These misguided individuals would, in the implementation of their agenda, render the Earth vulnerable to the next cosmic encounter that will disrupt the balance of nature far beyond the meagre influence of human beings. If you think this idea is far-fetched, or belongs in the realm of science fiction, all I can say is that you haven’t been paying attention. The scars of uncountable cosmic catastrophes are all around us, but few of us have eyes to see; the agents of these cosmic catastrophes are profusely abundant in our celestial neighborhood and are now showing themselves with disconcerting frequency. Evidence of the real threat to the environment of this planet is preserved beneath our feet and displayed over our heads, it is undeniable and it is there for all to see. But billions of dollars are being spent every year to create the illusion that human activities are destroying the Earth, and too many people are falling for the computerized smoke and mirrors and statistical sleight of hand that has transformed a precious, life-sustaining trace gas into a ghastly demon of planetary destruction that can only be subdued by totalitarian control of society and a massive wealth transfer into the hands of government and vested interests.

Page 85 To borrow Hermann Flohn’s metaphor, there IS a Sword of Damocles that threatens the Earth, but our fixation on this life-giving trace gas as the agent of doom diverts our attention from the cosmic beast who lurks in the great deep, the beast that our ancestors knew all too well, and whose progeny hovers just outside the range of our perception in the realm of Ouroboros.

21st Century Translation: Here is Wisdom: Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the Beast, for it is the number of carbon based life. https://randallcarlson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/The-Redemption-of-the-Beast.pdf

Artic see/sea ice

Climate realist Tony Heller took to X to highlight the climate misinformation and disinformation campaigns waged by far-left corporate media on the global public.

Heller then cited NOAA Sea Ice Extent data of the Arctic from Sept. 16, 2012, and Sept. 7, 2024, and found:

"This year's minimum Arctic sea ice extent was 26% larger than 2012. @BBCNews said the Arctic would be ice-free by 2013."

https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/doesnt-fit-msm-narrative-latest-arctic-ice-data-shows-26-larger-2012

Feast or famine

Please read page 82 again to see how you can contribute to supporting nature and fellow man.

Perhaps start by sharing the above link with a few words of your own at climate alarmism videos, podcasts, blogs, social media platforms, carbon publications, carbon restrictions/taxes. Inform family, friends, all levels of government and other entities supporting climate alarmism. TY!

Without prejudice and without recourse
Doreen Agostino
Our Greater Destiny Blog
climatism/carbon