a mysterious gas?

So you just took the media at their word did you? Come on man, do some research. Go to NASA, search CO2 and there you go, you will see many graphs about CO2 in the past 10,000 years, past 100,000 years, past million years and past 100 million years. Right now we have by far the lowest level of CO2 in the history of complex life on Earth, and is also one of the reasons why right now there are less species then in any period of the last 150 million years (except for snowball Earth which pretty much almost killed off all life on Earth). CO2 has been rising for the last 1000 years, by a tiny amount, nothing compared to the difference between high CO2 in the past and low CO2 now, and it's been rising for 1000 years, I wonder how many Mercedes were around then, or was it cows farting methane?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Phanerozoic_Carbon_Dioxide.png <-- CO2 from 500 million years ago to today, today is on the left. You'll be surprised.

BTW, while CO2 is a greenhouse gas (without which we wouldn't be here), it is responsible for less then 5% of the heating effect, water vapour is by far #1 at over 80% and methane is also much more important.

CO2 is just a tax grab, like they tried with scaring you with the ice age in the 70s and the ozone layer in the 80s. Climate change happens all the time, this is why they use this word now, because science of course must agree, but AGW is not only completely wrong, it is extremely arrogant of humans to think we can affect the planet on a global scale in this way (we are affecting it in other destructive ways, but ultimately, not the planet, the planet will be fine no matter what we do, but we won't be if we continue cutting down forests when hemp is readily available and grows anywhere and is infinitely more useful, and if we continue polluting the air and oceans/waterways, humans will suffer (the Earth, not at all considering the time scale, it would take less then 1000 years to recover completely after we're gone, and that is literally a blink of an eye). The planet has been through such disasters that our existence's effect on it is no more then an after-thought.

CO2 is completely non-toxic and the more of it there is, the less deserts there are because plants take over. When there was no ice on Earth, even on the poles, the weather wasn't wild like they are predicting, and it wasn't dry, in fact, it was lacking deserts, jungle and forests everywhere. That being said, CO2 had nothing to do with that, it is just a tiny greenhouse gas with a very small effect on the heating of the Earth, not to mention that all graphs show that temperature affects CO2 and not the other way around (Gore has apologized for flipping the chart in his movie, lol, but he should be charged with fraud).

You know that big ball of fusion that you see every day for half the hours or so? Yeah, the one that has 99% of all mass of the whole solar system. ALL THE STUFF AROUND THE SUN, including all planets (yes, including the big gas giants Jupiter/Saturn too), all billions upon billions of asteroids and moons and dwarf planets, and even the trillions upon trillions of comets in the Oort cloud, all that stuff makes up 1% of total mass, the rest is the SUN! You want to be impressed, think about that. It has been known in climate science that the sun drives the climate almost exclusively, the rest only contributes a bit. Study the sun if you want to really be blown away, it is an incredible object, truly worthy of worship which is why every religion has it as its highest God (including Abrahamic, but they have since changed the story), and this was before they even knew the true power and majesty of the sun and its effect. We are all star-dust, stars are truly incredible, if I start talking about them (stars include all stages of evolution, from birth to death (so a white dwarf, neutron/quark/strange/preon stars, red and blue giants, and of course black holes), I will be typing for hours, lol (astrophysicist remember!)

BTW, Venus is hot due to CO2, but it's concentration is 96%!!!!! Earth? Less then 400 parts per million, Venus in those units has 960,000 parts per million of CO2, the rest is nitrogen, Earth in Venus's units would be 0.036% or 0.00036 of the atmosphere. So yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and at such concentrations as on Venus it keeps heat in amazingly well.

Whether CO2 rise in the last 50 years is caused by humans is debatable, in fact, it could very well be true, but that it is causing climate change is truly laughable to any scientist, especially climate and atmospheric scientists. Tell you what, I wish it was that easy, then we could avoid the ice age, just pump CO2 and that's that. But it's not, and we can only hope (or pray if that is what you do) that temperature goes up permanently and not down, because society cannot survive an ice age, but can easily handle even a high rise in global temperature (which would take 1000 years or 100x that anyway), but some would have you believe that 1-2 degrees will destroy the Earth. Guess what, it will have a big impact, yes, on HUMANS, because those who live at sea level will have to relocate, and yes, it will be expensive, etc. But Earth? It will welcome it with open arms so that it can again become the paradise it once was (it still is, but we're raping it so that we may not be able to continue our civilization, but even if we strategically exploded every single nuclear bomb around the globe, guess what, the Earth would hardly blink and it would be back to it's fruitful self. Humans and current species, not so lucky in that scenario. The asteroid that wasted the dinos was not even that big, size of Everest (tiny, insignificant compared to Earth), and it wiped out the most successful species in history, and 90% of other species, but in just a blink of an eye, the Earth was back and better and more alive then ever.

The only real threat the Earth ever faced in history was the snowball Earth, where the only place without ice year-round was a thin layer around the equator, and even there there was snow and ice in the winter. But that was an extreme, one time event.

However, can you imagine even the current ice age we're in (yes, we're in an ice age, an interglacial period that is relatively short compared to the cold periods, and it's getting colder (Greenland was given that name for a reason, it was warmer 1000 years ago, despite there being less CO2 then today, omg I don't know what these Gore people are smoking, the evidence is everywhere)} going into another cold period and having a mile high glacier in NYC? Or Vienna? Which do you prefer, the oceans rising by a metre and having a livable Siberia and northern Canada (which could easily take in a billion or even 10 billion souls and support them, with soil rather then permafrost, the area is 100x bigger then where those people live now, on islands and low lying places), or would you prefer ice down 40 latitude in the north and south? Not much of a choice really. Even a small ice age could be the end of us, let alone a full blown cold period which I'm really hoping we don't get into. I'm hoping the ice age is over and the cycle has ended and the last cold period of this last long lasting ice age is indeed the last.

That being said, pollution is a very real problem and we have to fix that. I wonder if CO2 is not only about money, but also to take the focus off real issues like toxic waste dumping and air pollution in cities which do real damage (not to Earth of course, but to us, humans).

I'm a heavy environmentalist, but have been forced to not use that word because these buttheads have hijacked the word to mean non-toxic essential CO2, not real pollutants which I have been fighting against all my life.

Oh, and just some homework, go confirm this, during the 100 million reign of the dinosaurs, the Earth was full of life, much more then today, and there was 10x as much CO2 (almost, 3000 ppm) as today. That is the level I want today, that would be perfect. Like I said, imagine all of Canada and Siberia open to agriculture and colonization, while deserts would turn into jungles and forests. Wild.

"You were assimilated, resistance was futile!"

really? you don't say. try breathing pure 100% oxygen. I'll do CO2 and you do O2 and we'll see who lasts longer, yeah? what in the world are you trying to say? Any pure gas will kill you, lack of oxygen to the brain, and the brain can only handle molecular oxygen (O2), and not ozone (O3) or atomic (O). You would probably last a few minutes breathing helium, but lack of oxygen would get you in the end. CO2 is not toxic, but oxygen is. Funny, a life giving gas (well, both CO2 and oxygen are life givers, one to plants, one to animals), but it is also highly toxic to cells, it is the reason we age and die earlier then we should, and is also the reason why rich people breath 8% oxygen while sleeping, to slow down the degradation of cells.

"You were assimilated, resistance was futile!"

Well, 200,000 years is like a second in a day, what does it matter? In the last 800,000 years it has over 500ppm and under 200ppm, right now its like 375ppm right? I was talking about a 200 million year period, from the great dying until today (the greatest extinction, the great dying, I'm sure you're aware of it). In any case, it's too low, it needs to get to at least 1000ppm then I'll feel at least a bit safer, although CO2 is such a minor greenhouse gas on Earth (compared to water vapour and methane) that even at 1000 I don't think it can do anything, let alone offset the glacial period of the ice age we're in now, so all we can hope for that the ice age is over and not just a warm period. It's all up to the sun. It won't affect us, but future generations will be in serious trouble if that happens. Global warming would be a true blessing for the biosphere and humanity, but I fear my wish is just that, a wish. Oh well, it's not my fault we scrapped our destiny of exploring and going into space, you put all your eggs in one basket and you know what happens.

"You were assimilated, resistance was futile!"