Nature creates a lot of carbon dioxide, whether from volcanoes giving off gasses, the burning of dry forests caused by lighting strikes or the breathing out of plants. People are also responsible for the creation of carbon dioxide through the burning of plants, trees and coal.
When we dig up coal or peat and burn it or when we burn logs from trees, all the carbon trapped inside is released back into our air as a gas called carbon dioxide.
Why does burning trees or coal create carbon dioxide?
This happens because the fire causes a chemical reaction where the oxygen in the air we breath is combined with the carbon from the coal or trees because of the heat of the fire.
Heat and fire cause a lot of chemical reactions this way, for example when we bake a cake in an oven, we mix some ingredients to make a gooey mixture. Then we add heat from the oven. What comes out is usually a pretty firm cake because of the heat from the oven, which caused the goo to react and become a cake.
To make aluminium we have to heat a large amount of earth containing aluminium within the dirt, a raw material which is called bauxite. To get the aluminium out of the dirt, we use a large amount of electric power to heat it up. The heat causes a chemical reaction which separates the aluminium metal from the dirt.
If the earth cleans itself, why is carbon dioxide in the news?
The carbon dioxide produced as part of the natural operation of the earth tend to balance each other out over a long amount of time.
For example when a volcano erupts it releases a lot of carbon dioxide but the earth has so many trees they are able to convert the carbon dioxide back into carbon which builds up the size of tree trunks and branches. This is photosynthesis. The trees use light from the sun to convert carbon dioxide into carbon for their trunks and oxygen which goes back into the atmosphere.
The longer a tree lives, the taller it grows and the more carbon dioxide it converts into it’s own trunk and branches and roots and leaves. A mature tree which is a few decades old can weight a few tons. Most of this weight is made up of carbon and the water the tree keeps inside to keep itself alive, like humans do with our blood and bones.
The great thing is that all tree and plant life captures carbon dioxide and carbon this way, including all the plants in our oceans, rivers and lakes. This is a big deal because water covers about 70% of the earth and the amount of plant life in our water bodies and waterways is enormous. Therefore the earths plants are pretty good at removing carbon dioxide from the air. In fact shallow swamps and wetlands contain so many plants they are also critical to getting rid of carbon dioxide from the air. Our soil also contains a large amount of carbon dioxide.
When natural bush fires or forest fires occur because of dry lightning strikes, the fires can be enormous. Again the earth is pretty good at getting rid of the carbon dioxide which is produced because we have so many trees and plants and wetlands converting the released carbon dioxide back into carbon inside the plants.
We have learnt how to observe other gasses in our atmosphere like the CFC gasses used inside our refrigerators. The gas stays trapped in the refrigerators pipes because the refrigerator needs it to work. But as they become old, refrigerators start to leak CFC gas which then needs to be replaced. All the leaked CFC goes straight up into into our atmosphere. We worked out that CFC gasses that leaked or were refreshed with new gas had the effect of depleting our ozone layer high above the earth. The ozone layer is a layer of a type of oxygen called ozone, which protects our skin from getting burnt by our suns rays. A worldwide ban on CFC’s was imposed in <year of ban> and we found that our ozone layer quickly recovered. The ozone layer now covers more of the earth since the CFC ban started because it is no longer reacting with those CFC gasses.
What can we do about getting rid of excess carbon dioxide ?
- We as individuals
- We as an organisation
- We as a nation