the Carbon-Oxygen Cycle

---The Carbon-Oxygen Cycle

     Carbon dioxide has always been a component of our Earth’s atmosphere.  We learned about the carbon-oxygen cycle in school.  Carbon dioxide is absorbed by plants and used, along with sunlight, to form the building blocks of plant life.  That process, called photosynthesis produces oxygen as a byproduct.  People and the animal kingdom use that oxygen from the atmosphere and replace it with carbon dioxide as we breathe and live.  When common organic matter (wood, leaves, grass, etc.) decomposes or is burned, that also takes oxygen out of the atmosphere and adds carbon dioxide.  Since humankind discovered how to burn coal and oil to produce useful heat and energy, especially recently, the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has been increasing.

     Running out of oxygen for people and animals to breathe is not expected to be a problem any time soon.  The problem is that carbon dioxide is one of those gases in our atmosphere, which does not let the warm Earth radiate its extra heat on out into space.  It reflects the heat waves back down to the Earth’s surface.  Temperature measurements in thousands of locations indicate that the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere has been rising.  The Earth needs for us to reduce the carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere.

Developed by the Care for Creation task force Peter Hovland, Paul Larson, Martin Carlson.  If you would like to join the task force, talk to one of them.