AGW: 6% - The Single Most Inconvenient Data Point (Part I of II)

The EPA has reached a proposed finding that

greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare because they contribute to climate change.

[Information on public hearings and how to submit written comment on this finding is here.]

Stated more succinctly, the EPA has fallen for the erroneous theory of anthropogenic global warming, which posits that man a.) causes global warming and b.) can stop global warming with only a reasonable expenditure of money and a quite modest sacrifice of lifestyle.

If the potential consequences of this ruling were not so drastic, their error would be understandable, if not excusable. After all, an international panel as well as many scientists and commentators have been saying over the course of several years with admirably energetic repetition, if not sufficient research or thought, that a.) man causes global warming and b.) man can stop global warming.

The hitch is that in their eagerness to confirm Al Gore's theory, these scientists and commentators have rushed past the single most important data point: the percentage of greenhouse gases that man contributes to the planet. It is six percent. Six (6%) Percent. Earth generates the other ninety four (94%) percent.

This is a simple yet crucial fact. Think about it. Think of the staggering amount of activity around the planet powered by coal, gasoline, diesel, natural gas. Factories, cars, heating, cooling, electricity. The millions of tons of goods and foodstuffs moved by ship, train, eighteen wheeler.

Yet it adds up to only 6% of greenhouse gases generated. Inexplicably, the theory of AGW has been passionately extolled, a US government agency has issued a potentially very expensive and onerous finding and ever more urgent alarms have been sounded about the need for action entirely in a vacuum without the acknowledgement of this most rudimentary of facts. Could it be that recognition of the tiny role that man plays in the generation of greenhouse gases would clarify too starkly the price that he would have to pay, even assuming that his paltry 6% is the tipping point for global warming, were he to "take action"?