You're funny, onon. You compare me to a creationist when you're the one making broad definitive statements on very little evidence. The little evidence you do have is on time scales so miniscule as to be simply irrelevent when trying to understand a system that operates in timescales of billions of years. You take that very little evidence, over a very short timeframe, then claim you know everything there is to know about this vastly chaotic system. When anyone tries to shine the light of logic and reason on your arguments, you ignore their questions and call them names. And I'm the close minded contrarian?

I've spent more than the amount of time I should have spent on this. I realized I was getting involved in another debate with a member of the Church, but I figured you would be honest and bright enough to realize your statements were logically false and would simply amend them. I was wrong. Your faith runs deep.

You don't know the planet is sequestering more CO2 than it emits over any relevant time period. In a system that transfers, naturally, billions of tons of carbon every year, with inputs and outputs still unknown and unknowable, being off a fraction in your estimates could well account for the 15 gigatons you claim.

Imagining the planet acts in some predefined and definite way at all times sounds more like deism than science to me. The planet doesn't act this way. You argue that temperature causes CO2 concentrations to rise. Not always, and not on the short timeframes you're depending upon. You argue that CO2 warms the atmosphere. Not always, and not on the short timeframes you're depending upon. You argue that Man adds CO2 to the atmosphere. I agree. You then imagine these are the only forcings of CO2, which is impossible. Since there are other forcings of CO2, then we can not definitively state that taking Man out of the equation would result in any specific action.

But, it doesn't really matter to me. I wasn't trying to, nor would I want to, shake your belief in any way. That would simply be heartless. So, you're right. Nearly all the CO2 in the atmosphere was put there by Man, if you took Man out of the picture, CO2 would revert to its preferred level of 280ppm. Since the Earth tilts on its axis, CO2 always follows a set path of fluctuation as ordained by Gaia. And it takes exactly 10C of temperature change to cause a 100ppm CO2 change, or a 200ppm CO2 change, or whatever numbers you want to plug in there to make your theory work.

In reality, all you needed to do was amend your statements to:
Over the past 50 years, nature probably removed more CO2 from the atmosphere than it added. It's likely that, were Man to stop CO2 emissions today, CO2 levels in the atmosphere would begin to fall.

Both of which you fairly agreed upon over the course of our discussion, but hesitate to state flat out because you favor these broad, definitive statements. Much like creationists will brook no doubt in their beliefs. But, I'm the contrarian, onon. I'm the contrarian.