What is wrong with carbon dioxide? Isn't that what plants breathe in and humans breathe out?

Question

Don't we just need to keep a lot of plants and trees around?

Answer 1

Carbon dioxide is what plants breath in and humans breath out.  Plants also breath oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide at night.

C02 is one of several greenhouse gases scientists are worried about.  A greenhouse gas essentially traps the infrared light from the sun (heat), in our atmosphere.Too much c02 is believed many scientists to be the biggest contributor to global warming.

Ice cores drilled in the arctic, which are up to two miles long, contain tiny air bubbles that are used by scientists to compare c02 levels in the atmosphere until the past 400,000 years.  They can also tell us the temperature that the earth was at the time, in each sample collected, because the amount of c02 is found to be directly related to temperature,... with a small variance caused by seasonal temperature changes of course.  The amount of c02 in the atmosphere was relatively stable for about 399,900 years.  A dramatic rise of c02 was only found to occur about 1 decade after the start of the industrial revolution, and has continued to rise since that time.  With the rise in concentration of c02 an elevated temperature is expected as well (global warming).  With global warming comes the melting of arctic see ice.  Arctic sea ice works as a mirror and reflects much of the suns rays off of the ocean.  With the depletion of sea ice we get an increased rate of warming as well.

Answer 2

it's not carbon dioxide to worry about it's carbon monoxide.

Answer 3

Carbon dioxide is sometimes referred to as a "greenhouse" gas.  It's a gas that's able to retain heat.  The concern is heat causes global warming and resulting changes in our weather patterns.

Plants do use carbon dioxide and converts it to oxygen, but the concern there is that areas, in the rainforest, are being deforested which will reduce the ability to absorb CO2 and the world is putting out a lot more CO2 (burning fossil fuels, natural gas and coal) than what can be absorbed by plants.  All of this has a global effect.

Answer 4

there are obviously different forms of it. and no we are cutting trees and plants down at alarming rates in america to make way for nasty suburban sprawl. the carbon dioxide from polluting factories obviously isnt the same as the carbon dioxide we breathe out. the dirty form from factories, cars and waste is polluting our earth as we cut more and more trees down the air quality is only going to get worse.

Answer 5

many of the bacteria and fungi that plants depend on for nutrients, can only handle certain levels of CO2.

go beyond the maximum, and the plant growth slows and continues to slow, until they begin to die.

Answer 6

Did you know that 71% of the carbon of the world is concentrated in CO2 dissolved in the oceans of the world?  What happens to gases dissolved in liquids as the temperature goes up (think of the carbonation in a soda, is it more carbonoated when warm or cold)?  As global temperatures go up, we lose the ability to control the release of a lot of CO2 into the air.  The release of CO2 from respiration is impossible to curtail; I, for one, want to go on breathing.  BTW, since photosynthesis (plants taking in CO2 and H2O and combining them to get cellulose, starch, etc.) requires sunlight, what do plants do at night?  Answer:  they also respire, that is take in O2 and release CO2.  

The problem with CO2 is that it is a greenhouse gas.  What that means is that when Infrared Radiation (IR or heat energy) encounters a CO2 molecule, the molecule absorbs the energy and re-emits it, thus effectively "trapping" the energy.  This works for radiation from the sun hitting earth and for energy the earth is reflecting.  Think of a car on a hot day with the windows rolled up.  Since there is a lot of CO2 emission we can't control, we should think about ways to limit the CO2 emission we can control.  A very difficult but not insurmountable task.

Answer 7

There are a great many natural sources and sinks for carbon dioxide.  But the present global warming is (mostly) the result of man made CO2 from burning fossil fuels.

There is a natural "carbon cycle" that recycles CO2.  But it's a delicate balance and we're messing it up.

Look at this graph.

http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_gall...

The little squiggles are nature doing its' thing. CO2 falls a bit during summer when plants are active, and rises during the winter. The huge increase is us, burning fossil fuels (in addition to the shape of the graph, the increase numerically matches the increase in fossil fuel use). The scientists can actually show that the increased CO2 in the air comes from burning fossil fuels by using "isotopic ratios" to identify that CO2.  The natural carbon cycle buried carbon in fossil fuels over a very long time, little bit by little bit. We dig them up and burn them, real fast.  That's a problem.

Man is upsetting the balance of nature.  We need to fix that.

Answer 8

It suffocates you if you breathe too much, and you would need to live in a forest to get rid of only half of the make of it in the air.

Answer 9

but we are not keeping plants alive. everyday a forest the size of new york is being cut down. in a short while we won't have any forests left. that's the problem deforestation!

Answer 10

having too much of it is what's bad. it's great for our plants and enviroment but you don't want to get alot of it.

Answer 11

A little carbon dioxide is not the problem. This is taken care of by the carbon cycle.  But when there's too much of it - the earth gets heated up.

Answer 12

Carbon dioxide is good in small amounts.  But the amounts that the world is producing is not a healthy amount. The Carbon dioxide builds up in the atmosphere and keeps the sunlight in instead of letting it reflect into outer space.  Which results in the global warming theory.

Answer 13

CO2 isnt bad, naturally, but we are producing so much that plants cant handle it all, the average human would need about

7 acres per human to become carbon neutral. there are over 3 billion people in the world, do the math.

Answer 14

That's just why I ride my dirtbike as much as I can... can't let those plants down!

Answer 15

The Seas and Forests convert CO2, but we are killing the Seas and Forests-

We are our own worst enemy.

Answer 16

CO2 is great, but too much isn't. The plants can't handle it all, and so we are getting more.

Answer 17

Nothing is wrong with it. Many try to tie it to today's warming problem to sum it up in a simple way. Well, guess what folks, it isn't that simple.

10000years or so ago, guess what, all of North America was covered in ice, but it isn't now. Do you know what happened? Natural Warming! During that time there was no industrialization, so that is the only possible scenario.

Basically the answer is we aren't sure if there is anything wrong with carbon dioxide or if a certain amount is bad. Again, global warming is super-complex, unlike some people who want to believe it is super easy and super simple to comprehend. Think for yourselves, don't let Al Gore think for you.

Answer 18

way more humans are breathing it out than plants breathing it in