Arguments
Software
Resources
Comments
The Consensus Project
Translations
About
Support
Latest Posts
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #47 2024
- Durability of carbon dioxide removal is critical for stabilizing temperatures
- Sabin 33 #3 - Solar panels generate too much waste and will overwhelm landfills
- Here’s how governments could fix their Paris climate commitment failures
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #46 2024
- 20 fact briefs published in collaboration with Gigafact!
- Sabin 33 #2 - Are toxic heavy metals from solar panels posing a threat to human health?
- 2024 will be the first year above 1.5°C
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #45
- Fact brief - Is there an expert consensus on human-caused global warming?
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #45 2024
- The planet is ‘on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster,’ scientists warn
- Sabin 33 #1 - Are electromagnetic fields from solar farms harmful to human health?
- Volunteer activity: Evaluate automated climate misinformation debunkings
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44
- Fact brief - Are most glaciers growing?
- Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles thanks to the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #44 2024
- The hidden health toll of hurricanes
- Climate Adam: Is climate change fuelling mega hurricanes?
- Jobs in wind, solar, and energy storage are booming. Is your state keeping up?
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #43
- Fact brief - Do volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans?
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #43 2024
- Why widening highways doesn’t reduce traffic congestion
- Climate Risk
- Welcome to the world of personal air conditioning
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #42 2024
Archived Rebuttal
This is the archived Basic rebuttal to the climate myth "Increasing CO2 has little to no effect". Click here to view the latest rebuttal.
What the science says...
| The strong CO2 effect has been observed by many different measurements. |
A common argument made by those who do not believe in Man Made Global Warming is that, since Carbon Dioxide makes up such a small part of our atmosphere, it cannot possibly have a major effect on our temperature.
This belief is based on the very simplistic idea that the smaller something is in size, the less capable it is of having any effect on the world in general. This idea can be easily seen to be wrong by using poison as an example.
Imagine that you need a teaspoonful of Poison X in order to kill yourself. There are many poisons though and they are all different from each other, with different abilities. So you can now imagine Poison Y being able to kill you with just a single drop.
Why would far less of one poison be able to kill you compared with another poison? Because their chemistry and abilities vary so very much from each other they can affect the Human body in different ways.
Now imagine a person who, for some strange reason, insists that Poison Y mentioned above, cannot possibly kill you, with a tiny drop simply because he believes that there is not enough of it. You will realize, right away, that this person has a very simple minded view of the world in general. We all know that different things can have greater effects than others regardless of their size.
Greenhouse gases, like Carbon Dioxide, are no different. The design of the molecule, not how much of it there is in the atmosphere, is what gives it much greater ability to retain heat than other gases.
Updated on 2010-08-20 by villabolo.
THE ESCALATOR
(free to republish)