As we most likely learned in school, carbon dioxide or CO2
is the gas we breathe out from the work that our cells accomplish in our body,
and the gas that plants need to absorb to thrive and produce the food that we
all eat. The more carbon dioxide (up to a point far higher than present) the
faster plants grow. There is geological evidence that there was far more carbon
dioxide and plant life during certain periods in the past.
This is the most likely reason there is an abundance of
carbon based fuel in the ground in the form of oil, gas and coal. This fuel
came from carbon dioxide in the air, used by plants, and stored in the ground
for us to reuse today. Scientists theorize that without plants there would be no
oxygen for us to breathe, food to eat or fuel to produce energy.
When this fuel is burned for heat and energy, the carbon is
oxidized forming carbon dioxide. Some of
this carbon dioxide is captured, stored as dry ice, used for cooling or blast
cleaning and cycled back into the atmosphere where it was previously absorbed
by the plants and stored in the ground for our fuel. It is amazing how this
carbon dioxide cycle can produce both heat and cooling energy for our use.
Carbon dioxide is also widely used in the beverage industry.
We all are familiar with it when we drink a soda – carbon dioxide makes the
fizz because it is water soluble. This means the ocean, covering over 70% of
the earth’s surface, also absorbs carbon dioxide and will dissolve most of the
additional carbon dioxide emitted by man. Carbon dioxide permits the growth of
ocean plant food necessary for plankton, fish, whales, and other sea life to
live.
ISLA
Earth reports a recent Smithsonian study showing an increased amount of
carbon dioxide will benefit wetlands all over the world by growing greater
biomass necessary for its survival, keeping incoming water from drowning the
wetlands.
Therefore we could be celebrating the very small percent
increase of carbon dioxide in earth’s atmosphere over the last fifty years, from
.0387% to .0400%, because of the benefits it offers us, instead of an alarmist’s
attitude of gloom and destruction.
