Right, the "the big picture, I have a question.
Do you believe every Molecule of CO2 released into the atmosphere stays there forever?
No.
Sigh, this gets tiresome.
We never will have facts. Theories don't get proven. They are supported or refuted. They are accepted or rejected. No proofs in the natural sciences - they would require a comprehensive examination of the entire universe.
Here is a fact, any particle from space, as in radiation that strikes a molecule of CO2, radiation from the sun, solar radiation loses energy after striking CO2.
Stuff is not bouncing around making things hot, its as simple as Billiards, or even a nuclear reaction, it gets weak, quickly. Hell, one can actually stand next to spent nuclear fuel and not get burnt to a crisp, its a simple principle, once a molecule or neutron or whatever strikes something, it loses its strength, even its heat.
CO2, a freind of life, which makes it an enemy of....................
Wow... now there's an analysis I've never heard before. And I bet your bottom dollar I'll never hear it again. I'm not even sure I know what you're trying to say. You're not a young Coloradan are you?
Okay, here goes... jeez, where to start.
When particles - or anything else - collides, energy is transferred. In a simple collision, one particle usually gains energy while the other particle loses energy. Sometimes, there's no change in either particle's energy. Sometimes things get complicated because one of the particles breaks into multiple, smaller particles. But there is one thing that is ALWAYS true of these collisions and it is the key that allows physicists and scientists and students to figure out what happened or what will happen in any given collision: the total amount of energy in the system will remain constant. This comes from the physical law that tells us "energy can neither be created nor destroyed". Energy can only be tranferred from place to place or transformed from one type to another or even transformed into matter and back from matter. But you can't create it out of thin air and you can't destroy it no matter how hard you try.
So, when you have a collision, the particles will all leave it with some fraction of the total energy the system (the system = all the particles under examination) possessed prior to the collision. The sum of that post-collision energy: from the potential and kinetic energy of the particles, of any energy that tried to sneak off as ejected photons of light or heat or some other EM radiation, of the added mass - it all remains the same, no matter what.
Now this is related and I wouldn't bring it up but you did. What does it mean when we talk about the temperature of some mass? What is the difference between a cubic foot of air at 85F and one at -15F? The answer is in the energy content of the individual gas molecules that make up cube. Each of them in the warmer cube has more kinetic energy. They fly around inside the cube at higher speed and more energy is transferred about as they collide with each other. And since they are all moving faster, they collide more often. If we had the same number of molecules in each block, the increased number of collisions, particularly with the surface of whatever container we're using, would increase the pressure the gas exerted against its restraints. If the gas were uncontained - unrestrained - the increased kinetic energy and resultant increased collisions would cause the molecules to spread apart. The gas expands and becomes less dense.
So, what's happening with the CO2 in our atmosphere. Well, as you know, CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It absorbs certain portions of the infrared light spectrum. It absorbs just these frequencies because, in effect, some of the dimensions of its molecule match the wavelengths of those 'colors' of light. That allows the molecule to resonate with those kinds of light and in doing so, absorb their energy almost perfectly. So, I am a CO2 molecule just floating along and what happens. The sun shines on, say, a nearby rock, and warms it up. Being warm, it emits some infrared photons (light). The photon strikes me and I suck it up like a dry sponge. Well, that increases my energy content. I am now warmer myself. That added warmth will make it more likely that I will emit my own photon and rid myself of that extra energy. The photon I emit might get soaked up by another rock, some water, some human's hand or maybe another CO2 molecule. It doesn't really matter. What does matter is that if I - or some other GHG molecule hadn't absorbed that rock's emitted photon, it would have flown off into space. That energy would have been lost to the Earth. But instead I hung on to it. And over the long run, as energy comes in from the sun, but does not leave again because of CO2's absorption, the temperature of the Earth goes up.
Welcome to Global Warming.
Human are responsible for dang near every single molecule of CO2 that's been added to the atmosphere since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in 1750 or so.
Welcome to Anthropogenic Global Warming or AGW.
