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Hello, ClimateRealists.com:

The following is an outline for my video, the goal of which is to give viewers a visual understanding of the numbers used to describe trace gas concentrations.

I think providing this kind of help is necessary because most people simply do not understand the numbers. No matter how often and how well we provide the correct numbers, most people don’t “get the picture,” because they aren’t familiar with parts per million. They are familiar with percent, and we should extend that familiarity to parts per million. The hockey stick graph was used to get a false message across effectively; it was called “visually arresting” and “iconic.” We should have a visually compelling video that provides an immediate understanding of the surprisingly small contribution of carbon dioxide from human activity.

If people could see visual representations of the tiny concentrations, I think the chances are good that they would also see the absurdity of the claims of impending climate disaster from only 12-15 parts per million of carbon dioxide from human activity.

Elisa Pardo


I’d like to show you, visually, what is meant by ppmv. You may have seen numbers like 385 ppmv given as the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air. When you see this number, and these letters, do you have a picture in your mind about what it represents? I’ll show you right now what it looks like. Here I have a fairly good approximation of 1 million grains of rice. We’re going to assume that each grain is the same size, that it has the same volume. So that means we have one million equal parts, and they represent 1 million equal volumes of air.

Now let’s imagine that we can see the parts that are carbon dioxide, that they have a color. Here are 385 parts, colored with food coloring. This is what it looks like: 385 parts, representing carbon dioxide, and these plus the others total one million parts by volume. The white grains represent nitrogen and oxygen in the air. It’s not one million plus an additional 385, let’s be careful about that. I mean to represent 385 parts of carbon dioxide as part of a total of one million parts of air, and of course they would be evenly dispersed throughout, because weather mixes everything up. Now you can see exactly what 385 ppmv means, and it’s pretty simple. The mystery is gone, it’s just that simple. You should have the confidence that you have accurately understood ppmv, and you now have a clear picture in your mind of 385 ppmv. Just like percent is dividing something into 100 equal parts, and could even be called parts per hundred, parts per million is dividing something into a million equal parts.

How much of this carbon dioxide comes from the earth naturally, and how much comes from human activity? 96% of this comes from natural sources. Carbon dioxide is given off by the oceans and by decaying vegetation everywhere, and there are other natural sources. There’s nothing people can do to stop those processes.

Human activity contributes 4% of the carbon dioxide in the air. 4% of 385 comes out to be about 15 ppmv, and here you see it, as a visual representation. Billions and billions of people, and it’s only 15 ppmv. See the 15 grains of rice? 15 parts in a million parts. Actually, the real value is somewhere between 12 and 15 ppmv. This is the only part that humans could control. It’s quite small, isn’t it, it’s only 4% of that. How reasonable does it seem to you that this 15 ppmv is about to make the climate of the earth go haywire? We are asked to believe, no, rather told to believe that 15 extra parts per million, added to 370 from natural sources, will cause the earth to heat uncontrollably. What is wrong with this picture? Nothing, the picture is correct.

Its the idea that is absurd!

Let’s consider the concentration of nitrous oxide to get a picture of what is meant by ppbv. You’re going to have to imagine 1 billion grains of rice. There are 1000 millions in a billion. I’ll need 999 more of these, for a total of 1000 million. If you would imagine a cube, 10 high, 10 across, and 10 deep, 10 by 10 by 10, that would be a thousand million, 1 billion parts. Okay, you see them? Now I’m going to show you the nitrous oxide. Here are the 310 parts of nitrous oxide, dispersed throughout that billion. Indeed, you would have to look at (almost) 3 and a quarter million parts, just to be sure of finding one part of nitrous oxide. I hope that 310 ppbv is quite clear to you.

When I look at one billion parts of air, I can find 310 parts of nitrous oxide. If I look at just this one million here, I can only find 0.310 parts. Make sense?

Putting them all in ppmv, what would it look like? Okay, the numbers are over, this is the main goal of this demonstration: let us visually show the concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and water vapor side by side. Here is the 1.8 ppmv of methane, shown by about two grains of rice, and this is 0.31 ppmv for nitrous oxide, only about one third of one part. And here is the water vapor. Yes, 1% is the same as 10,000 ppmv. This is getting substantial, so let’s do it this way: 1 percent, 2 percent, 3 percent, 4 percent, it’s really humid today! Let’s go back to just 1% water vapor. 10,000 is going to be an easier number to work with.

What percent is water vapor, and what percent is all other? Be clear, we are now not paying any attention to the nitrogen and oxygen, we just want to consider these, the so-called greenhouse gases. By the way, they are all transparent gases. The clouds are made of small drops of liquid water or ice, clouds are another topic. Water vapor is a transparent gas. A simple calculation shows that all the non-water vapor gases make up about 4 %. Water vapor is about 96%.

The “warming” effect of water vapor is comparable to (actually greater than) that of carbon dioxide. Water vapor is the major greenhouse gas, with regard to both its concentration and its total warming effect. Carbon dioxide comes in at a very distant second place. Human activity contributes a tiny portion, between 12 and 15 ppmv, of the total carbon dioxide in the air.

How could such tiny concentrations of trace gases cause climate catastrophe? They simply cannot. It is time for the climate change hoax to implode at last. Any legislation enacted, based on this hoax, must be reversed.

I have some other remarks printed below, which I feel might bore some viewers to tears, so if you are interested, you can read those.

Thank you for listening.


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