Carbon dioxide (CO₂) may be thickening the atmosphere and warming the planet, but it’s not evil. In fact, it’s part of what makes the planet a nice, livable temperature. The problem with CO₂ is…

Today, students did an experiment where they compared the  CO₂ content in five different samples of air: indoor air, outdoor air, human breath, air from burning wood, and car exhaust. By injecting the air through limewater, which reacts with CO₂, they were able to actually see which samples contained the most carbon dioxide.

Most groups found that — no surprise here! — car exhaust had the highest amount of CO₂. And human breath had a lot too. But that doesn’t mean human breath is contributing to global warming. The carbon from human breath comes from our food, which starts off as a plant, which gets its carbon out of the air in the first place! That’s no problem at all. But when you take carbon that’s been trapped underground for millions of years (oil, coal, natural gas) and you burn it, you are adding greenhouse gases that the living creatures on Earth just aren’t ready for. The problem with CO₂ is not that it’s evil, it’s that all of a sudden we have too much! And our warm, comfortable planet is getting hotter by the day.

May 2 – The Problem with CO2 Is… (pg704)