What You Already Knew
Posted on | July 6, 2007
A little familiarity with basic chemistry shows that the rise of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is indeed due to human activity. Oxygen levels are decreasing as plants fail to keep up with all that combustion, and the tell-tale ratio of carbon-13 to carbon-12 proves that the fuel is a “dead” one, a fossil fuel rather than wood.
What makes any given atom a specific element is the number of protons in its nucleus. A carbon atom contains six protons. But carbon can have different numbers of neutrons. These are the “isotopes” of carbon. About 99 percent of all the carbon on the earth is carbon-12 - that is, it has six protons and six neutrons. About 1 percent is carbon-13, with seven neutrons instead of six.
How does this help in determining the source of CO2 increase? The ratio of carbon-13 to carbon-12 in atmospheric CO2 is larger than the ratio in fossil fuel. If atmospheric CO2 is increasing due to burning fossil fuels, then the ratio of carbon-13 to carbon-12 should be decreasing. And that is exactly what is happening.
With the addict’s denial, though, humanity will drive on, demanding “proof” of what is self-evident as a prerequisite to any change.
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