Manipulating greenhouse gas data visually

In general, I like the Web site of the federal Energy Information Administration, but the EIA in this case uses a chart that I found a little bit misleading. No, a lot misleading.

What's the problem with this chart?

In my college statistics class, the textbook referred to this as a "gee whiz" chart. Look at the legend on the righthand column. It begins at zero and increases at regular increments. Now look at the left side. The legend begins at zero and then skips to 260. The result is a line that increases sharply. Now if the legend on the left started at zero and increased in regular increments without skipping, the line of atmospheric CO2 in the atmosphere would look a lot less dramatic, and you would be less likely to say ... you know.

The CO2 concentrations really increased by about 36 percent, but the way the left axis is manipulated, it looks like they are 3 times higher than what they once were. Visually, it looks like the CO2 concentrations track CO2 emissions, when really they don't track nearly as closely as the line looks.

Again, the EIA site is one of my favorites, but in this case, someone dropped the honesty ball.