Tom Nelson

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

September 8, 2026·1h 14m
Episode Description from the Publisher

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.00:00 New Paper Claim01:29 Three Inputs Setup03:25 Isotope Signatures 10106:05 Keeling Relation Explained10:17 Datasets And Intercepts13:38 Solving For Fossil Fraction22:22 Why Fossil Dominance Fails25:16 Rejecting The Conclusion28:04 Carbon Cycle Turnover31:45 What Drives CO2 Rise33:56 Ancient CO2 And Whataboutism36:53 CO2 Coalition Errors Teaser37:38 Accounting vs Causation39:23 Feynman on Conservation40:37 What Proves Causality41:37 Atmospheric Balance Equation42:53 Coalition Paper Misreads46:25 Molecules Not Labeled48:08 Residuals Aren't Attribution49:56 Isotopes Discriminate Sources51:27 Airborne Fraction Fallacy53:41 Retention and Cycle Time56:02 Harassment and Resignation01:03:18 CO2 Forcing and Policy Costs01:08:51 X Feedback and Contact01:13:38 Wrap Up and Linkshttps://x.com/cohlerhttps://papers.jcohler.com/=========Slides, summaries, references, and transcripts of my podcasts: https://tomn.substack.com/p/podcast-summariesMy Linktree: https://linktr.ee/tomanelson1

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