I did so because CO2 is scientifically listed, along with some 40+ other ‘trace gases’ to be part of the final less than 1% of the atmosphere of our planet. We, that is the planet and all of its many life-forms, need all of those 40+ gases to be present in the air we breathe. They all have a purpose and if any one or more were to no longer be present, it would not be ‘air’ that we breathe, but something else. That makes every single one of them ‘important’. In other words, every such trace gas is ‘important’, while also being ‘insignificant’.
Even more explicitly, it does not matter how much CO2 we pour into the atmosphere (although that is a poor and highly overblown description of what we do), or indeed any of the other major or minor atmospheric components, it will not make any difference to normal atmospheric composition – which is, to a high extent, materially impossible to alter to any degree that would have some deleterious effect on anything around planetary life – other than very locally and to a very limited extent. In other words, because it is important to get the meaning right, neither the smoke from fires large or small, the cloudy emissions from industrial towers, nor any invisible outbreaks of gaseous material from anywhere, including from exhaust pipes or from either end of large animals, can effect that balance for longer than it takes to disperse that gas for use in some other natural, industrial, agricultural or any other type of process. It, the emitted gas, cannot penetrate the atmosphere or become part of it beyond very minor individual adjustments within certain limited bounds. The complex web of life and other natural forces operating here and there, above, on, or below the planet’s surface, ensures that. If you need further convincing, the following amusing quote explains the situation, while also mocking the thoughtless logic of those who express a different method of reasoning. Read more on this at the link below. It is truly fascinating and may even be deemed enlightening, on this and other important matters.
Suppose you had decided that the most important issue facing our planet was saving it from the possibility that some trace gas in the atmosphere, currently constituting about 0.04% of the air, might increase to 0.05%, or maybe even (oh no!) to 0.06%. What’s your strategy?
A quote from – “Stupidest Litigation” Update – by Francis Menton (Manhattan Contrarian) via Climate- science.press – Sep 7, 2025
Incidentally, and just to show the extreme nonsense being bandied around today, the highest level of CO2 ever to occur in the Earth’s atmosphere, in living memory or even far beyond that, was 0.3% (over 7 times higher than today’s level), and when it lay between 0.1% (2.5 times higher) and 0.2% (5 times higher than today), that was when (a few tens of millions of years ago) the Earth was at its greenest and most productive period in history. Why, in heaven’s name (and that may be part of some twisted reasoning I suppose), are we trying to prevent that from reoccuring* naturally?
*’Reoccur’ is the correct word usage here. It means ‘repeat once’ (returning perhaps to a position of stability). ‘Recur’, on the other hand, means to repeat over and over again, which is not the ideal in this case, although such may be inevitable due to the seemingly cyclic nature of natural systems. We humans have never, in all our history, seen the planet at its very best and most pleasant. So all our decisions are based on a mindset of incomplete experience. I hope we can remain a viable species long enough to realise the foolishness of our current thinking. That is not a given, but we can hope.
Fortunately the planet has been around for much longer than we have, and is likely to have lived through such ineptitude from its fauna many times over.
Not Something Else 
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