Oswaldtwistle Community Action News

Carbon dioxide is a tasteless, oderless gas containing one atom of carbon bonded to two atoms of oxygen O=C=O.

In school we learned that if you bubble carbon dioxide through lime water the lime water becomes milky. If you put a lighted splint into a test tube of carbon dioxide it will be extinguished. Carbon dioxide is used in fire extinguishers to extinguish electrical fires.

Carbon dioxide is produced when compounds of carbon are burned in air. The carbon in the compound combines with oxygen from the air to produce carbon dioxide. This process gives out heat energy which can be used for heating, electricity generation or to power vehicles.

The common compounds of carbon which are burned to produce power are compounds of carbon and hydrogen known as hydrocarbons. These are contained in 'fossil fuels' such as oil, natural gas and coal. They are also contained in 'biomass' materials such as wood and straw.
Effectively burning releases energy trapped by plant life which originally came from the sun.

Carbon dioxide is a 'greenhouse' gas. This means that it tends to trap heat from the sun which would otherwise be reflected back into space.

Current thinking is that the burning of fossil fuels is causing an increase in the levels of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere which in turn is leading to an increase in temperatures known as 'global warming'.

This is thought to cause changes in the atmospheric and ocean currents which will lead to profound changes in weather and climate. Evidence for global warming comes from shrinking glaciers and the melting of the polar ice caps.

Melting of the polar ice cap will release carbon dioxide which is trapped in the ice and the water released will raise sea levels worldwide.

The polar ice caps act as huge mirrors which reflect the sun's heat back into space and so a reduction in the area covered by the polar ice caps may in turn lead to an increase in global warming.

Humans, along with virtually all living creatures on Earth, breath in oxygen and then breath out carbon dioxide.

Plants and trees are capable of extracting carbon from the air in the form of carbon dioxide and breathing out oxygen as a by product. This process is called photosynthesis. Plants only do this during the day when they can use the Sun's energy to drive the process.

Huge tracts of forest are being cut down in Amazonian regions to make way for agriculture thus reducing the potential for plant life to replenish the oxygen in our atmosphere.

Volcanos issue vast quantities of carbon dioxide when they erupt.

The Earth's oceans can dissolve vast amounts of carbon dioxide but as ocean temperatures rise the capability of the oceans to hold carbon dioxide is much reduced.

The Government have set a carbon dioxide reduction target of 5 tonnes of carbon dioxide for each of us every year.