(Click to enlarge.)
But correlation is not causation. In fact, CO2 rise seems to lag temperature increases by several hundred years in the paleoclimate data. This would suggest that the causation is the other way around: temperature causes CO2 rise. Now, CO2-defenders will respond that “yes, but CO2 has an amplifying effect, meaning that it produces further warming.” This seems plausible, but doesn’t seem like a complete explanation to me.
The question I have today, however, is one that struck me a while back while watching Gore’s movie. After he asked “Do they go together?” and extended the lines on the graph, when the lines stopped at the far right side of the graph I thought: “Well, they don’t seem to fit together very well at the end there.” Notice the steep spike in CO2 concentration. Now look at the temperature rise. See any difference in magnitude? Seems to me that, judging just from Gore’s graph, the temperature rise is within the normal range for a cyclical upturn despite the huge spike in CO2 concentration. My question is: why is that?
Geoffrey is an Aristotelian-Libertarian political philosopher, writer, editor, and web designer. He is the founder of the