Want to dicuss an ISCFC-related topic that you don't see listed yet? Here is your page for that!
The ISCFC team will then choose some of these student-envisioned discussions to feature on their own discussion page.
Open Forum >
Some History of Carbon Dioxide
The carbon emissions started back when the industrial era started. In the year 1750, people started to manufacture goods using coal, rather than by hand. The amount of emissions slowly increased when steam engines were created. In the year 1824, scientists started to make theories of global warming and how it would be caused. The amount of carbon dioxide had been increasing even faster by then, especially when resources such as oil and gas were used. Automobiles and airplanes took another large leap by almost doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Cars and the need for energy to power homes increased in the 1970s. This keeps increasing, and only by 1990 did people notice the climate change occurring. In the 2000s, most people live in urban areas, consuming about 70% of the world’s energy, and another 2.8 billion people from developing countries will join the urban world.
Today, most of the carbon dioxide emissions are coming from two main sources; the burning of fuels and the conversion of land. The fuels include coal and oil as the biggest contributo rs, while gas, cement, and gas flaring form a smaller portion of the fuel burning portion. The land conversion portion comes mainly from forests being turned to pastures and crops. Only half of these overall emissions stay in the atmosphere, causing climate change and global warming. The other half is either absorbed into the ocean by wind and the currents, or is absorbed by the plants and soils of the land. These processes slow down the rate of climate change greatly. If no actions are taken to slow climate change, the sea level will increase due to glaciers melting, and there could be widespread coral mortality, or coral extinction. Animals will be unable to migrate fast enough with the weather, and many species will die out. Deserts will increase and there will be many more extreme weather conditions compared to before. We must take action or else we will ruin the planet to a dangerous point.
Source: http://globalcarbonatlas.org/?q=outreach
Date Posted: 9/28/17