Burying the Gas of Life

No life can exist on earth without carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, nature has been capturing and burying this valuable plant food for millions of years. Carbon dioxide is very soluble in water, especially cold water. So it is continually being captured from the atmosphere by rain, rivers and the oceans as well as in growing vegetation. Much of this captured carbon gets buried at sea as extensive deposits of hydrocarbons such as coal, shales, oil, and natural gas, as thick beds of carbonates such as chalk, limestone and dolomite, and in sea shells, bones and coral reefs. This natural carbon capture and burial caused atmospheric carbon dioxide to reach a dangerous low of about 275 ppm by the end of the Little Ice Age about 200 years ago. At this level, plants suffer carbon starvation and growth slows. Like all cold eras, these times were grim. Luckily the climate cycles changed, and earth started warming – some ice melted, oceans warmed and carbon dioxide was expelled from the warming oceans to provide more food for plants. Green vegetation started to invade the deserts and crop yields improved. Man’s industrial activities aided this natural green revolution over the last century by returning some naturally-buried carbon from coal and limestone to the biosphere. The pace of earth-greening has increased - even the giant redwoods are growing faster in this more-fertile atmosphere. This serendipitous greening of our world is now threatened by misguided efforts to rob the atmosphere of man-made carbon dioxide using a bizarre process called carbon capture and burial – truly a suicidal mission for life on earth. All life thrives when there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Do the carbon haters also hate life? Viv Forbes, Rosewood, Qld, Australia