A widespread and common belief is that the increased level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere since pre-Industrial times is responsible for Climate Change which is causing increased droughts, floods, excessive heat, ocean warming and sea level rise.
This is a mark of the success of the Climate Change Anointed's indoctrination campaign.
However, CO2 is not the villain it is commonly held to be - this is part of the false-consensus referred to to President Obama’s 2016 tweet “Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree that Climate Change is real, man-made and dangerous”.
This is neither a true 'consensus' nor about a true statement about climate variability. At best it may be excused as a political statement by a virtue-signalling President who is a firm member of the Climate Change Anointed..
The mechanism is the Greenhouse effect that allegedly is strongly augmented by the additional leevel of CO2 in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times.
Some of the heat radiated from Earth’s hot surface is trapped by a process described in the page “The Greenhouse Effect”. This directly warms the atmosphere and indirectly the surface of the Earth.
It is generally believed that the Greenhouse effect keeps the Earth about 33⁰C warmer than it would be with no atmosphere. This, is based on calculations which consider the observed total Greenhouse effect along with a theoretical calculation of an Earth with no atmosphere.
Most of this total Greenhouse effect comes from atmospheric water vapour and CO2. Other gases like methane, nitrous oxide and ozone add a little.
This calculation gives rise to the relationship that 1⁰C of surface temperature is equivalent to 4.71 Watts per square metre (WM-2) which is the usual metric for considering Earth’s energy budget as it affects surface temperature.
Not every climate scientist would agree with the detail of this assesment but almost all will concur on the generallity.
The currently experienced ‘Modern Warm Period’ since pre-industrial times and particularly the 1976 to 2020 and 2016 to 2025 periods total about +1.5⁰C.
This warming has almost exclusively been blamed on rising CO2 levels (coming from burning fossil fuels) where CO2 has gone from 277ppm to ~420ppm (in 2025).
By linking the temperature rise to the Greenhouse Effect of the incremental (since pre-industrial times) CO2 the belief has become so widespread that many people, including many scientists, now ‘know’, without question, that burning fossil fuels causes Climate Change. They furthe 'know' that if we don't stop burning fossil fuels, the Earth will be plunged into ‘Climate Armageddon’.
This false (indoctrinated) knowledge enables completely insane 'de-carbonisation' policies like Net Zero to be implemented with their economy-wrecking consequences. This enabling of economic destruction by insane policies that will not improve the environment (for humans) in any measurable way is a measure of the anti-freedom and undemocratic thrust of Western Globalist Technocratic Governments.
This belief and certain knowledge comes from asserting that it is so - without challenge.
The page ‘What is Climate Change’ looks at the belief system of Climate Change, its dogma and the rise to dominance of its influence on energy policy.
All studies that start assuming the assertion 'anthropogenic emissions cause Climate Change' to be true will end up with ‘proof’ that it is true. This is a fine example of circular logic. These studies jump to the conclusion that burning fossil fuels is causing heat waves, drought, flood, hurricanes & other bad weather, melting ice, sea level rise and ocean warming without questioning the axiomatic inclusion of the assumtion.
It pains me to accuse the genuine researchers, many of which would not get funding if they dissented, of intellectual laziness and abanddonment of the scientific method.
The logic presented in the sub-pages overturns this damaging conclusion.
Elevated CO2 levels since pre-industrial times contribute ~0.07⁰C to the approximately 1.5⁰C warming of the ‘modern warming period’.
That is less than 5% of blame placed by the Anointed on Villainous CO2.
It is very clear to me that elevated CO2 and burning fossil fuels is only a minor factor in the Modern Warm Period.
The policies dictated to us by unelected quangos and enacted by feeble minded Governments spurred on by Climate Change Zealots' will have no effect whatsoever on the course taken by the current warming over the coming decades and centuries.
The vast trillion pounds of resources consumed by these ineffective policies woul be better re-directed to local climate variation issues.
There is no Climate guilt as there is no Climate crime so any tendency to transfer resources to self-identified-victims in the 'Global South' has no merit.
That climate will contine to vary naturally and ice continue to melt and sea-level continue to rise is inevitable at this stage in the interglacial Holocene warm period.
The best advice I can offer is to sit back, do what we can locally and enjoy it!