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Hmm well that's an interesting perspective. Direct human contributions are just part of the natural cycle, but in order to support the large human population, we need to burn large amounts of fossil fuels.

However, if we got all of our energy from renewable sources, the human carbon contribution (beyond the natural carbon cycle) would be minimal. Theoretically we could support our population without burning fossil fuels. But then again realistically, your argument holds true. In order to support every person, we're burning fossil fuels.

So I see your point, but I think it's more constructive to focus on the primary problem (burning fossil fuels), because in theory, the human population could be supported without contributing to global warming.

As a side note, as Dawei points out, it's true that if we're converting the carbon to methane we are contributing a little bit to global warming.

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Not a great deal. Cows and other animals contribute in areas where they are highly concentrated and fed certain diets that cause higher methane release. These are areas such as very densely packed feedlots. I suppose it could be possible that human flatulence contributes a little bit to pollution and climate change, but it isn't really something we focus on. Right now we are a little more concerned with the billions of cars that produce much more pollution than people farts. If we did not have big factories and cars and whatnot to focus on and worry about, perhaps we would focus a big on flatulence, but we have bigger fish to fry. The reason it is mentioned for animals is because it is their only contribution to pollution, and therefore it is what we focus on when we discuss that animal's role in pollution and climate change. If it was our only form of pollution, we would focus on it. But then again, if people farts was our only source of pollution, we wouldn't be in the situation we are currently in. At least not at the moment, but perhaps later on, when global warming began to take place anyways (it is a natural phenomena as a part of the end phases of an ice age, we are simply accelerating and worsening the problem).

Yes. Simply argued, humans create imbalance. We decimate forest, a key carbon capture mechanism; much that was once "good" and part of the natural cycle has been altered. Where the planet had a vast system of carbon capture and sequestration, which took millions of years to create a warm, stable and widely habitable environment, which humans have eliminated and replaced with contributors to biospheric pollution, climate change, or instability which may be worse, tending towards regions once habitable becoming uninhabitable.

I think most of those questions are asking in regards to the gasses themselves, not the fact that humans require fossil fuels to be live and living entails emission of gasses.

Even if we are part of the carbon cycle though, if our biology turns the carbon into methane instead of CO2, then this does have a net effect. It doesn't increase the carbon content of the atmosphere, but it does increase its global warming potential.

lol... in a sense... any release of thermal energy can contribute..

methane is considered to be a greenhouse gas, there was a big "stink" (pardon the pun) surrounding the huge amounts of methane released by cow feces and how it was contributing to global warming.

Its not so much the carbon dioxide released by human breath I would think, as the thermal energy released into an already insulated atmosphere.

Plants produce energy from the sun and CO2, CO2 is released by all animals when they breath out, so carbon release shouldn't be a factor if the balance between plants and animals is maintained, HOWEVER, all releases of energy produce HEAT, the old physics law "energy cannot be destroyed or created", plays a part here, we're transmuting chemical energy into thermal energy, so I GUESS you could argue that as the human race grows and grows and grows that we ourselves are a source of a tremendous amount of thermal energy that is being caught by our already congested atmosphere and not dispersed quickly enough into space... so far as human flatulence producing methane emissions that contribute to the buildup of greenhouse gases.... I personally don't let one slip every 5 seconds, and I would think it was the waste that follows, that would contribute to this, far more than flatulence. LOL this question is funny :)

Considering the world is being overpopulated if man is causing global warming then I see it as plausible that us breathing probably doesn't help. We are not part of the carbon cycle b/c we just release CO2 not absorb it. We absorb oxygen and release CO2, plants do the opposite. So with deforestation we are releasing more CO2. Always remember that the planet does not need us to survive we need it.

To begin at the beginning; at the heart of the global warming hoax is the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. While it purports to represent the views of thousands of scientists, it does not. As Ashworth notes, "Most scientists do not agree with the CO2 global warming premise. In the United States 31,072 scientists, including the author, have signed a petition rejecting the Kyoto global warming agreement." An additional 1,000 scientists are being verified to be added to the list. Thousands more exist who find the assertion the CO2 will destroy the Earth totally absurd.

Here's what you need to know; if an increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) is directly related, i.e. causes changes in the Earth's temperature, there would be a direct correlation between the two. As CO2 rose, we would see a comparable rise in the Earth's temperature. This correlation does not exist.

Global warming liars, however, insist that CO2 builds up on the atmosphere over a 50 to 250 year period, but this is untrue. "Every year around April, increased CO2 absorption by plants in the Northern Hemisphere starts reducing the CO2 in the atmosphere," notes Ashworth, "and the reduction continues until around mid-to-late August when plants start to go dormant."

"It is clear that nature reacts very fast in its consumption of carbon dioxide." Farmers call this the growing season, followed by the harvest season, followed by snow and cold during which nothing grows. Modern civilization, beginning about 5,000 years ago, is predicated on the ability to provide food to both humans and livestock, all based on these obvious seasonal cycles.

The ancient Egyptians and Mayans understood the seasons, but they are apparently too difficult a concept for today's many ex-politicians, some PhD's, United Nation's flunkies, and high school teachers.

Warming and cooling cycles are well known throughout human history, reaching back to the days of ancient Rome. There were Viking settlements in Greenland because they arrived in warmer times. By 1410 the place froze up. Shakespeare lived during a Little Ice Age when the Thames would freeze too. The man-made emissions of CO2 had nothing, zero, to do with these climate events.

Here, then, is a fundamental fact about CO2 you need to commit to memory. "Nature absorbs 98.5% of the CO2 that is emitted by nature and man." Nature is a totally self-regulating mechanism that dwarfs any mindless effort to "control" the amount of CO2 produced by coal-fired utilities, steel manufacturers, autos and trucks, and gasoline fueled lawn mowers, not to forget fireplaces where logs glow or just about any human activity you can name, including exhaling two pounds of the stuff every day!

thank you for a very Provocative & philosophical question that could inspire hours of thinking.

but on a personal note I think it may be an indication that its time for you to get out of the house & find a boy friend.

as a loyal subject of the crown perhaps a vacation in jolly old England would return your feet to terra firma & give you a different perspective on things in general.

NO.

Our breath and flatulence?

I agree with most of your answers but are they answering the right question? Am I?