Can Our Problem With CO2 (carbon Dioxide) Solve Our Global Warming Problem Itself?

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Fred Davis Profile
Fred Davis answered
Carbon dioxide can be sequestered by pumping it through water to grow algae with it. This is a new technology that is still being refined but there are large scale algae farms in California, Arizona and Texas right now. They feed the carbon dioxide to the algae in an algae farm and then extract oil from the algae that is grown. Algae can yield fuel oil, hi-test gasoline, jet fuel, a crude 'algae oil', ethanol or some combination, depending on the type of algae and how it is processed. It can be dried with the same residual heat power plants in Europe use for 'co-generation' and the solid material left over from processing can be used as feedstock or mulch. The algae oil is proving to have as many useful componants as crude oil and big companies like Dow Chemical and DuPont are working with it in test plants and research.
Once power plant operators start to realize that each ton of CO2 that they pump into the air (or pay to 'sequester') can yield six hundred pounds of fuel our problems with CO2 may reverse themselves, so the 'short answer' to your question is that in a way, it is possible that carbon dioxide will solve the global warming problem (at least it could if we start using it positively and stop wasting it and wrecking our air with it).
Anonymous Profile
Anonymous answered
No carbon dioxide is part of the problem. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, which means when its released by humans into the atmosphere, it stays there and whereas normally heat from the sun would enter the atmosphere then leave again, greenhouse gasses cause the heat to be trapped within the atmosphere, thus causing the earth to warm. Carbon dioxide is part of the problem causes global warming.
Craig Dillon Profile
Craig Dillon answered
Whoa. Lets understand what is going on. First of all, CO2 is a product of life. You exhale it with every breath.  You should be thankful for the greenhouse effect of CO2 for it is one of the factors that has kept earth a nice habitable place for the last 700 million years. (since iceball earth time). 

You need to know there is a carbon cycle. CO2 is taken up by plants, and converted into plant tissue. Animals eat it and convert it into their tissues (and organs, hence the term "organic chemistry" for carbon based chemistry.)
In the past, this was in balance. Millions of years ago, much of the carbon was sequestered in the earth as coal, oil, gas, permafrost, peat, clathrates, etc.

We are tampering with this carbon cycle. Digging it up, burning it, and dumping it into the atmosphere.  WE are upsetting the CARBON BALANCE.

So, CO2 is NOT a pollutant like mercury, or lead, or other toxins that are harmful to life.  CO2 is necessary to life.  Plants would love a high CO2 level. And, it will not harm us, except that too high levels will warm the earth, raise ocean levels, displace millions, make growing our crops difficult, and maybe resulting in a much smaller human population globally.  Other than that, its OK. 

It is a great experiment that mankind has started, and we all await the results.
Oddman Profile
Oddman answered
CO2 is one of many greenhouse gasses. In terms of contribution to the greenhouse effect, water vapor is by far the largest contributor. It has somewhere between 1.5 and 8 times the contribution of CO2.

Another huge contributor to global warming is the Earth's albedo, or lack of it. There is some pretty good scientific evidence that the abundance of low clouds in the atmosphere has more effect on global temperature than any greenhouse gas source. Those low clouds are often seeded by the interaction of cosmic rays and sulphur compounds produced by (among other sources) microscopic ocean life. Global temperatures have, for millions of years, tracked the abundance (or lack) of high-energy cosmic rays from space (outside the solar system).

The emphasis on CO2 is an opportunity for alarmists and governments to gain control of an ever-larger share of people's lives. The tragedy is that the effort that is spent on systems for trading and/or sequestering carbon could be put to better use solving real social problems--including overpopulation and malnutrition.

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