Page 16 - Off Grid East Cost Spring 2017

Carbon and climate change:
here’s all you need to know
by Carl Duivenvoorden
Carbon, the sixth element on the periodic table, is at the heart of climate change. Here’s all you need to know to understand why.
Basis of life
Carbon is the basis of all life on this planet, from the tiniest single cell organism to blue whales
and giant sequoia trees. It’s a central element in proteins, sugars, starches, fats, cellulose, lignin and more. Carbon-containing compounds are also called organic compounds, as if to underline their importance in our global life systems.
Carbon is the main element in fossil fuels, too. Oil, coal and natural gas are actually the remnants of organisms that lived on Earth millions of years ago. Upon dying, they were transformed by extreme heat, pressure and time into the products we burn today to power our world.
Fossil fuels may have originated from plants, but they are considered non-renewable because they take millions of years to form. Most of today’s coal originated 300 million years ago, during the aptly- named Carboniferous Period, when the world was a hot, humid, people-less place.
Carbon cycle
Unlike most elements on Earth, carbon is very mobile. Vast amounts are constantly cycling between land, atmosphere and ocean.
Image: UCAR Center for Science Education
It moves from atmosphere to land when green plants absorb carbon dioxide from the air and, using the energy of sunlight, turn it into leaves, straw, wood and other plant materials. Left undisturbed, those materials eventually die and rot, and carbon is added to the soil.
Similarly, carbon moves from atmosphere to ocean when plankton – tiny marine algae – absorb carbon dioxide. Plankton forms the first link of an ocean food chain that sustains life all the way up to whales and sharks.
Carbon moves back up into the atmosphere in several ways:
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