Show this to your Alarmist friends!
See original PDF here. Click image to enlarge.
Explanation: Based on reports, atmospheric carbon dioxide is on the rise.
And we’re given to understand that our activities are driving this growth. But is this true?
We can assess how much we’re contributing by referring to global anthropogenic emission estimates from year to year.
These are usually expressed in Gigatons of Carbon (Gt C), and it’s easy to determine the difference from the year before, as I’ve depicted here.
| Year | Gt C | Gt change |
| 1946 | 1.24 | 0.08 |
| 1947 | 1.39 | 0.15 |
| 1948 | 1.47 | 0.08 |
| 1949 | 1.42 | -0.05 |
| 1950 | 1.63 | 0.21 |
| 1951 | 1.77 | 0.14 |
| 1952 | 1.8 | 0.03 |
CO2 data is usually expressed in parts per million in the atmosphere. But the government’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) offers a simple conversion factor to obtain the equivalent gigatons of carbon. Having that, one may once again determine annual differences, as I’ve depicted here.
| Year | ppm | Gt C | Gt change |
| 1946 | 310.1 | 660.51 | 0 |
| 1947 | 310.2 | 660.73 | 0.21 |
| 1948 | 310.3 | 660.94 | 0.21 |
| 1949 | 310.5 | 661.37 | 0.43 |
| 1950 | 310.7 | 661.79 | 0.43 |
| 1951 | 311.1 | 662.64 | 0.85 |
| 1952 | 311.5 | 663.5 | 0.85 |
So then, drawing on sources like the CDIAC and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, one merely compares two respective columns of the year-by-year differences. The chart above is the result.
The average human contribution over this span is 0.135 gigatons, while the atmosphere’s average carbon change is 3.202 gigatons, which makes the human contribution 4.2{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}. This 4.2{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} is consistent with previous U.S. government/IPCC reports that attributed about 2.9 to 4.5{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of yearly emissions to humans. For instance:
Source: Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States 1987-1994, October 1995
Are the human emission estimates accurate? Is Mauna Loa’s techniques sound? I don’t know. Assuming they are, though, my impression is that we’re not driving a trend at all — but rather riding alongside a lurching kind of CO2 increase that seems to have a mind of its own.