“CO₂ has nothing to do with climate change,” is a common argument I see all the time. There’s a grain of truth there—but only a grain.
Climate change isn’t driven by CO₂ alone. Methane, nitrous oxide, and other heat-trapping gases all play a role. But when scientists look at what’s actually causing the warming we’re seeing today, carbon dioxide is responsible for roughly 65% of it.
So why do we keep seeing claims that carbon is plant food, that humans breathe out CO₂ so it doesn’t matter, or that it would take ten times more of it to warm the planet as much as we’ve seen?
In this video, I break down what CO₂ actually does in the atmosphere, why the planet has a heat-release “window,” how burning fossil fuels disrupts the carbon cycle, and why these hot takes keep showing up in the comments—despite decades of clear science.
