Jonathan Cohler: “ Fossil fuel combustion drove essentially none of the atmospheric CO2 growth” #427

<p>Jonathan Cohler presents a newly submitted paper using mass conservation, isotopic signatures (delta 13C), and multiple datasets to apply the Keeling relation and infer a consistent intercept near -13.2‰ across sites and time spans. He argues this makes fossil fuels (signature ~-28‰) at most 26% of net atmospheric CO2 change and, using preindustrial constraints, essentially ~0–1.3%, contradicting claims by IPCC, NASA, NOAA, EPA, and the CO2 Coalition. He says CO2 residence time is ~3.8 years and attributes rising CO2 to natural temperature-driven ocean/soil outgassing. He criticizes the CO2 Coalition for conflating accounting identities with causation, describes harassment, and says he resigned.</p><p><br></p><p>00:00 New Paper Claim</p><p>01:29 Three Inputs Setup</p><p>03:25 Isotope Signatures 101</p><p>06:05 Keeling Relation Explained</p><p>10:17 Datasets And Intercepts</p><p>13:38 Solving For Fossil Fraction</p><p>22:22 Why Fossil Dominance Fails</p><p>25:16 Rejecting The Conclusion</p><p>28:04 Carbon Cycle Turnover</p><p>31:45 What Drives CO2 Rise</p><p>33:56 Ancient CO2 And Whataboutism</p><p>36:53 CO2 Coalition Errors Teaser</p><p>37:38 Accounting vs Causation</p><p>39:23 Feynman on Conservation</p><p>40:37 What Proves Causality</p><p>41:37 Atmospheric Balance Equation</p><p>42:53 Coalition Paper Misreads</p><p>46:25 Molecules Not Labeled</p><p>48:08 Residuals Aren&#39;t Attribution</p><p>49:56 Isotopes Discriminate Sources</p><p>51:27 Airborne Fraction Fallacy</p><p>53:41 Retention and Cycle Time</p><p>56:02 Harassment and Resignation</p><p>01:03:18 CO2 Forcing and Policy Costs</p><p>01:08:51 X Feedback and Contact</p><p>01:13:38 Wrap Up and Links</p><p><br></p><p><a href="https://x.com/cohler">https://x.com/cohler</a></p><p><a href="https://papers.jcohler.com/">https://papers.jcohler.com/</a></p><p>=========</p><p>Slides, summaries, references, and transcripts of my podcasts: <a href="https://tomn.substack.com/p/podcast-summaries">https://tomn.substack.com/p/podcast-summaries</a></p><p>My Linktree: <a href="https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1">https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1</a></p>