An Interview with Carbon Dioxide: Going 1-On-1 with CO2

“Now I don’t mean to brag…but I’m hot. And the more of me in your atmosphere, the warmer your earth will get…” – CO₂

This morning, I had the unprecedented pleasure of sitting down with the most famous chemical compound in the world. This game-changer is not only invisible to the naked eye but also omnipresent in our atmosphere. He’s a tree’s best friend. We breath him in. We breath him out. You know him best by his nickname, CO₂. I’m alluding to that unrivaled warmer of globes that never seems to stop multiplying, Carbon Dioxide.

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Me: Hello, Mr. Dioxide, it’s an honor to host such a prestigious guest. First, the question that’s on everyone’s mind. Given that I exhale you with every breath, do you know what I’m going to say before I–

CO₂: Yes.

Me: Okay. That ought to make this easier. Records show that you now fill up 391 parts-per-million in our atmosphere, adjusted for seasonal shifts, and you keep on growing. How do you accomplish this astonishing growth?

CO₂: Well, I’m born of a my-two-moms kind of situation, formed when two oxygen atoms mate with a single carbon. We call it covalent bonding. And we do it like rabbits, faster than any rabbit could dream, actually. So many things turn us on — any and all plant life, respiration, oh, and burning fossil fuels like oil and coal are a few examples.

Me: Ah yes, that’s where we humans really come into the equation. I mean beyond natural processes.

CO₂: Indeed, you people are obsessed with me and mine. Not only do we carbonate your soft drinks, make Pop Rocks possible, work with yeast to make bread rise, facilitate pneumatic tools, decaffeinate coffee, help create plastics, make lasers, refrigerate food and make the best Beaujolais wine, among other skills, but humans love to burn fossil fuels so much that now we’re taking over the atmosphere!

Me: And you’re not happy with that?

CO₂: It’s not that I don’t enjoy multiplying. I mean it’s what I do…Hell, I don’t even think about it anymore it’s become so routine. But at the same time I understand my place in the natural world — the necessary balance that must be maintained even as days, weeks, seasons and ages of the Earth change and fluctuate. When humans introduced industry, then powered it by combustion of coal and petroleum and started throwing things out of balance. Remember, as much as I might have my wishes and desires, I’m not the one in control. Fewer trees and more burning equals more me, good ol’ CO₂, but too much of me is bad for you.

Me: How’s that?

CO₂: Tsk tsk. You should know this by now. Those people you call “greenies” have been screaming it for decades.

Now I don’t mean to brag…but I’m hot. And the more of me in your atmosphere, the warmer your Earth will get, as it already is. If my overabundance isn’t creating it, it sure is accelerating a climate change that could hurt the human race and the natural world in general. When the climate balance — I’ve heard some of you romantically call it the Rhythms of the Earth — is thrown off even a little bit, catastrophic events ensue, some of which your people may already be witnessing with the extra violent tsunamis, earthquakes and hurricanes of recent years. Although, even Natural Order enjoys a little song and dance from time to time if you know what I mean.

Me: Uh-huh. So how much is too much of you, my friend?

CO₂: Well, as you mentioned, we are up to about 390 parts-per-million, way higher than you want us to be and honestly, higher than we should be. In 2009, says your Earth System Research Laboratory, we the CO₂ increased by 2 ppm. That’s up a bit from the previous year but fairly average over the last 30 years or so. The problem is your scientists are saying the we need to fall back to 350 ppm or less in order to avoid the worst repercussions of climate change. By the way, that would help me out a lot, too. You may not be able to see me, but believe me when I say that it’s getting crowded up here. I can barely hear you there’s so much CO₂ buzzing about around me.

Me: Here, let me turn my mic up.

CO₂: Oh, don’t do that. I’ll be fine. Besides, it would just use more energy and, from what I understand, you people need to use a lot less. I have noticed that you’re using more renewable energy like solar power, wind power and such. That’s good. You need to keep that up. In fact, go faster! Understand that you can combat Global Warming with the very ball in the sky that’s warming the globe.

Me: What about those who say that the whole Climate Change/Global Warming thing is just a liberal conspiracy, a long line of BS designed to curtail the global economy, make everybody pay more for everything, and institute government control over the people?

CO₂: Ha! Some of those people are seriously funny, if you know what I mean. Look, I’ve been around since before there was life on this planet. I’ve seen you evolve from the Little-Fish-That-Could who crawled up out of the ocean and started the whole damn roller coaster. The fact of the matter is that there have always been detractors of any sort of change, especially among humans.

Once upon a time, people killed or excommunicated people so they wouldn’t have to accept that the Earth was round. Hell, some of you humans still can’t accept that different-looking humans are even humans at all!

So, I’m not surprised by a certain reluctance to accept evidence as it presents itself. And let’s not forget the deep pockets and tall piles of money invested in the old way of making energy (and more money). You people never seem too keen on taking a pay cut.

Me: A very good point. Anything else you’d like to add before I let you get back to your smokestack?

CO₂: Just remember what I told you about finding other ways to make and use energy. Don’t drive, ride. Don’t burn fuels, collect renewable energy. And get your kids to turn the light off when they leave the room! We CO₂s, we’re very uniform, which is nice. You humans are all over the place; everybody is different yet the same. It’s strange….but I digress. In summation, reduce, reuse, recycle and all that jazz. You know what to do…and for goodness sake, tell your politicians to take those paper bags off their heads. There’s a lot of CO₂ in there! It makes you sleepy, and now, more than ever, humans need to wake up.

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With that, I let Mr. Dioxide get back to his covalent bonding over a factory somewhere in our heartland. Let me just reiterate what a pleasure it was to talk to the compound behind climate change. Perhaps I’ll be able to land some of his cohorts in the Greenhouse Gas coalition, including his cousins Nitrous Oxide, Methane (the Madonna of GHGs, I hear), and the CFC family. Stay tuned.

Special thanks to Joe Mohr and his environmental editorial cartoons for the inspiration: CO2 Isn’t Good for You…It’s GREAT!!!

Photo Credit: Top News & Calvin Cycle

Posted on May 18th in Solar Information by Dan.