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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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	Climate's changed before
	It's the sun
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	There is no consensus
	It's cooling
	Models are unreliable
	Temp record is unreliable
	Animals and plants can adapt
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Myth Deconstruction - Trace (EN)

Reference

Deconstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors
Cook, J., Ellerton, P., & Kinkead, D. (2018). Deconstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors. Environmental Research Letters, 13(2), 024018. Link to PDF & Link to Supplement

Step-by-step deconstruction

The table below is inspired by the simplified supplement and may differ slightly from what is shown in the GIF. This is mostly due to make the text fit into the available space which made it necessary to reword some of it.

1	Identify claim	CO₂ is a trace gas so its warming effect is minimal.
2	Argument structure	Premise 1: Carbon dioxide is a trace gas. Conclusion: The presence of carbon dioxide in trace* amounts in the atmosphere is not responsible for warming the earth.
3	Inferential Intent	Deduction
4	Validity	LOGICALLY INVALID Trace amounts of a substance can have an effect – the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise.
4a	Hidden premises	Premise 1: Carbon dioxide is a trace gas. Premise 2: Trace amounts of a substance can have no effect. Conclusion: The presence of carbon dioxide in trace* amounts in the atmosphere is not responsible for warming the earth.
5	Check premises	Premise 1 is true. Premise 2 is false and a red herring. The "trace" aspect of CO₂ is irrelevant to whether it can impact climate. Lethal doses of hydrogen cyanide are of slightly lower ppm than atmospheric CO₂.
6	Status of claim	FALSE The argument is made valid with an extra premise but the premise is false.
7	Summary of fallacies	Red Herring: The fact that CO₂ is a trace gas is irrelevant to whether it can impact climate. Trace amounts of substances can have a strong effect – lethal doses of hydrogen cyanide are of lower dosage than atmospheric CO₂. We know CO₂ causes warming because satellites measure its warming effect — the increased greenhouse effect is an observed reality..

* Trace amounts in analytical chemistry are those less than 100 ppm. While C02 levels are higher than this, we can use the term more colloquially for the purposes of this exercise.