Fossil fuels played a negligible role in the rise of atmospheric CO₂

The text argues that fossil-fuel burning contributed almost nothing to the rise in atmospheric CO₂. It treats carbon’s ratio of heavier to lighter isotopes as a source “fingerprint”: fossil fuels are assigned a value near −28, ocean carbon near −8, and the measured atmospheric addition about −13.2. From this, it uses mixing calculations to claim that modern measurements allow at most a 26% fossil-fuel contribution. It then cites sponge growth layers and Antarctic ice-core records, which it says show the same fingerprint back to 1500, and concludes that fossil fuels account for only about 1% of the added carbon - effectively zero. It also challenges the IPCC and other scientific agencies’ attribution of the rise to fossil-fuel emissions.

The argument further claims that fossil-fuel CO₂ remains in the atmosphere for only about four years before plants or oceans absorb it, so it cannot build up; it estimates that fossil carbon makes up just 4% of today’s atmospheric carbon. These conclusions conflict with established evidence. A molecule’s average time in the atmosphere is not the time required for excess CO₂ to be removed, and rapid exchange does not prevent accumulation. The observed rise in CO₂, its shift toward the lighter isotope signature of fossil fuels, declining atmospheric oxygen, and carbon-budget measurements all show that fossil-fuel emissions are the primary cause of the increase, while oceans and land ecosystems are net absorbers.