As part of their return to paganism, leftists are determined to save Mother Earth from the parasite that is humankind. According to the leftists, our parasitism comes from the fact that, beginning with the industrial revolution and with accelerating speed as we built First World economies on fossil fuel, we poured so much CO2 into the atmosphere that we literally changed Mother Gaia’s climate. Even worse, we did so in a way that primarily affects marginalized people of color, women, and the gender confused. But what if the evidence shows that the Industrial Revolution and subsequent fossil fuel reliance didn’t trigger a massive CO2 increase? Well, we may find out.

Health Physics sounds like a new-age magazine dedicated to the health-giving properties of vegan or bug diets. It’s not, though. Instead, it’s a peer-reviewed medical journal founded in 1956 to study radiation safety and radiation’s role in healthcare. So, while I can’t vouch for its quality, I can vouch for its serious, not foolish and trendy, nature.

In February 2022, Health Physics published a little-noticed study that recently received so much attention, the publisher removed the paywall behind which the article previously hid. The article’s title is mind-numbing: “World Atmospheric CO₂, Its ¹⁴C Specific Activity, Non-fossil Component, Anthropogenic Fossil Component, and Emissions (1750–2018).” The three authors are all academics in the field of radiology with ties to the University of Massachusetts Lowell (something I figured out here.)

Image made by editing a freepik photo.

According to the study, it is true that CO2 began to increase a bit with the Industrial Revolution. However, the increase in CO2 because of human fossil fuel use has been negligible and could not have caused the climate to change. Here’s the authors’ abstract:

After 1750 and the onset of the industrial revolution, the anthropogenic fossil component and the non-fossil component in the total atmospheric CO₂ concentration, C(t), began to increase. Despite the lack of knowledge of these two components, claims that all or most of the increase in C(t) since 1800 has been due to the anthropogenic fossil component have continued since they began in 1960 with “Keeling Curve: Increase in CO₂ from burning fossil fuel.” Data and plots of annual anthropogenic fossil CO₂ emissions and concentrations, C(t), published by the Energy Information Administration, are expanded in this paper. Additions include annual mean values in 1750 through 2018 of the ¹⁴C specific activity, concentrations of the two components, and their changes from values in 1750. The specific activity of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere gets reduced by a dilution effect when fossil CO₂, which is devoid of ¹⁴C, enters the atmosphere. We have used the results of this effect to quantify the two components. All results covering the period from 1750 through 2018 are listed in a table and plotted in figures. These results negate claims that the increase in C(t) since 1800 has been dominated by the increase of the anthropogenic fossil component. We determined that in 2018, atmospheric anthropogenic fossil CO₂ represented 23% of the total emissions since 1750 with the remaining 77% in the exchange reservoirs. Our results show that the percentage of the total CO₂ due to the use of fossil fuels from 1750 to 2018 increased from 0% in 1750 to 12% in 2018, much too low to be the cause of global warming. (Emphasis mine.)

There are two actual, stubborn facts to note. First, the Earth’s climate has been changing without pause since it came into being. Indeed, the Earth is incredibly dynamic. I live near the South Carolina coast. Although I’m several miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean, there is sand everywhere. That’s because my neck of the woods used to be the bottom of a primeval ocean. In the same way, the Sahara Desert was once a verdant primeval forest. The Earth’s climate changed, and humans adapted because that’s what they do.

Second, plants need CO2. I happen to know some (legal) marijuana growers who pump CO2 into their indoor crop to facilitate its growth. More CO2, not less CO2, is good for human beings.

That leftists are so terrified of something that makes food more, rather than less, available for people across the planet tells you everything you need to know about their long-term agenda for humankind. The favored people will live in comfortable enclaves with good food of the type routinely served at World Economic Forum gatherings. The rest of us will be at the mercy of painfully hot or cold weather and survive on a diet of bugs and lab-grown sludge.