Carbon is carbon. This is a carbon-based planet. Al Gore made millions on his scare tactic in trying to portray fossil fuels as a "poison" to society. Climate science is having problems predicting future climate states because they are living on a "theory" of how greenhouse gases work in our atmosphere and carbon is the main character. They have to dedicate their research to it and the IP CC has its instructions (i.e. to prove humans are causing the planet to warm with their use of fossil fuels). It's sad how some can be duped so easily.

Maybe you should consider the "financial elites" as the propagators of such claims. Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister of England proclaimed in 1988 that there was "money for climate scientists to prove that CO2 emitted by humans was causing 'Global Warming'". This money went to the IP CC. Thatcher wanted to secure the energy for the United Kingdom and wanted Nuclear Power to be its main energy source and she didn't want to deal with the Oil Cartels nor the Coal Miners Union. When people of Government power make declarations as she did, markets move.

The science is founded with a political and monetary objective. Information is easily manipulated to form a consensus. Financial elites are the true problem and unfortunately Al Gore is one who loves power and money in all areas.

I wish you fortune in finding a "true" answer to your question, but I'm afraid you are dealing with a website with many propagators for an honest answer. Bryce Johnson (a nuclear scientist) has brought forth the best explanation of how CO2 works that I know of. I have included a couple of links that explain his analysis of how CO2 works in our atmosphere.

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antarcticice - Are you a complete idiot or are you just "work in progress"? I'm happy to play your game of maiming and defiling the enemy. You're definitely a total friggin idiot! Did your parents dig you out of the toilet after a good meal and call you a child of nature? I know that you have a hard time understanding the way things are, but do you have to multiply your stupidity by not having literature skills? I've been here less than a year and find you one of the most repulsive "Natural Climate Variability" deniers here. You have no class whatsoever! Maybe your father jacked off in a flower pot and raised a blooming friggin idiot? Let's see if someone can get a consensus on that conclusion. I'll vote yes! You're a total moron! Maybe you should study human sperm cells that don't make it to the egg? Just a thought for your stupid comments.

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Al - 7 billion people are not the problem. Half of the world's population lives well below poverty. They are not the perpetrators of the so-called "Global Warming". Most can't afford a gallon of gas and usually take the train or bus. Mass transit? Ever heard of it? In depressed nations they depend on 1 serving the masses for survival. It's unbelievable that people like you and antarcticice were even thought of (conceived). I would consider you another "flower pot child".

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Jeff M - I see that you use a liberal teacher's tool to explain your side of the argument which leaves out many important facts about fossil fuel CO2. Typical alarmist trait!

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Chem Flunky - What does your desk look like today? Shape-shifting alien again? Al Gore has everything to do with presenting evidence against the use of fossil fuels. He made a big deal about what happened on Long Island! "An Inconvenient Truth"? It's 'an inconvenient truth' that alarmists deny. Maybe you should get the carpenter's name who built that table underneath your computer (or is it still a shape-shifting alien as you implied before?)? Another "flower pot child"?

Well, no. We dont breathe out much CO2 so it isnt harming the planet. Also, plants take in any CO2 and produce O2 which we then breathe in. Its a never ending cycle. So what we should be doing is planting more trees rather than cutting them down.

There is the same money in your checking account as in your 401-k. Your economic behavior will be radically different if you continually take from your 401k and use it for current spending.

The fossil CO2 we're adding to the environment now, most of humanity's CO2 output, has been in long-term savings accounts for 100's of millions of years, and we are putting it back into the environment at over a million times the speed at which it was stored.

You need to understand the difference between biological carbon and fossil carbon.

The CO2 in your breath is biological carbon. It came from carbon-based fuels (like starches and fats) that you ate. Unless you're eating petroleum products or something, the carbon in those carbon-based fuels came from the biological carbon cycle. That means it came from plants that made long chain carbons (like starches and fats) from CO2 that they took out of the air. So by breathing, you're only returning CO2 that was already in the air before the plant grabbed it, and thus you're not increasing the (average) amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, you're just recycling it.

Fossil carbon, however, is carbon that hasn't been in the biological carbon cycle. When you burn coal or oil, you are adding the carbon it contains to the biological carbon cycle. Some of that excess carbon will be absorbed by plants, but some will not. So, in general, burning a fossil fuel will increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

You can think of the biological carbon cycle as a little like a fountain. The CO2 pouring into the air from things breathing (or from forest fires and the like) is like the water pouring into the bottom basin of the fountain from the top. But, all that water is water that was pumped *out* of the bottom basin of the fountain, it's just being recirculated. No matter how fast the fountain is flowing, it will never overflow just from that circulation.

Now, CO2 from burning fossil fuels is like a hose dribbling water into that same fountain. It may be a much, much, much smaller flow of water than the water from the top of the fountain, but it *can* eventually make the fountain overflow.

In other words, it's not that there's something *chemically* different between carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and carbon dioxide from breathing. It's just that the fossil fuel CO2 is "new", and the breathing CO2 isn't.

And, frankly, what Al Gore does or doesn't do has *absolutely nothing* to do with the truth or falsehood of AGW.

If you want more information, try here:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/

http://aip.org/history/climate/summary.h...

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...

http://www.realclimate.org/

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;... (a while back, I asked people to post links to sources at various experience levels)

I guess the use of buzz words like "SHEEPLE" probably mark you as a troll as that is a phase popular with one of our more prolific trolls here.

But for those interested in science rather that denier BS Co2 is indeed Co2 whether it is sourced form volcanoes or plants and it has the same respiratory and greenhouse effects. But this is where deniers fibs get shaky as there is a difference in the isotopes of Co2 depending on it's source, that is how we know that that humans are the major contributor to the rise in Co2 (at ~100 times the rate volcanoes are adding Co2)

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11...

The Co2 we breath out is not something we produce it is taken from what we eat, which in one way or another is derived from plants, whether you eat plants or meats the Co2 came from plants and in turn from the atmosphere.

But I guess you know the weakness of what you are saying, which is why you are quoting bill gates (a computer geek) rather than an actual scientist. Sadly a common denier play, quote crackpot English lords, science fiction writers, radio weather men and English bloggers who think they are journalists.

For goodness sake take a science class, your embarrassing yourself (again) the names may change but the lack of scientific understanding shines through.

there is a big difference between CO2 released from fossil fuels where carbon was buried for millions of years and CO2 from breathing that is a cycle between plants/animals people eat.

that being said, 7 billion people, all consuming and demanding more resources is not sustainable.

there will always be CO2, and without it, the planet would be freezing, so 0% is not an option.

No, there is no difference. CO2 is CO2. We breath out such tiny amounts though, that it doesnt make that much difference, even though there is lots of us.

The carbon dioxide which we exhale comes from photosynthesis and is in a balanced cycle which adds no net carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide which comes from fossil fuels has been stored over a period of hundreds of millions of years and is disturbing the carbon balance.

Plant-life will use any CO2 that is available, they don't care if we breathed it out or it was released from the oceans or released due to decaying vegetation or from combustion. They just don't care.

Also, about 97% of all CO2 in the air is from natural sources, man-made emissions are too small to make any difference.

Now watch this nice lady demonstrate in crystal clear terms how little CO2 humans contribute to the air. All in a short 2 minute video.