Carbon dioxide, or CO₂, is a colourless gas released into our atmosphere when carbon-containing fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas, and coal are burned. This can also occur naturally, like when a volcano’s eruption brings up carbon from deep below the earth’s surface, or as simply as limestone rocks eroding over time. Increased carbon dioxide emissions create a condition in the upper atmosphere, causing a trapping of excess heat and leading to increased surface temperatures. 

       ^{Source: J.R. Petit et al, “Vostok Ice Core Date for 420 000 Years”, IGBP PAGES/World Date Centre for
       Paleoclimatology Data Contribution series #21001-076. NOAA/NGDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder, 2001}

POWER PLANTS

Humans are pulling huge amounts of carbon fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas) from the ground and burning them, releasing masses of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over a very short period of time.

Power plants are the single largest emitters of carbon dioxide in Canada, which many scientists say is the primary culprit behind global warming. About one third of U.S. carbon emissions come from large point sources such as power plants.

      

Emissions from power plants are not controlled at a federal level. Currently, there are no limits as to how much CO₂ a company can produce.

Factories and cars are also a huge part of the equation. Coal is the most carbon-intensive of the fossil fuels. Burning coal to produce electricity is one of the largest man-made sources of global warming. Half of the electricity in the United States comes from coal. 25% of Ontario’s energy comes from coal.

 

   ^{Source: www.grida.no/climate.vital/32.html}


Right now there are 140 new coal plants being developed in the U.S., and 1,000 coal-fired power projects being planned around the world. If we know burning coal is seriously jeopardizing the health of the planet, why do we continue to push an environmental catastrophe closer to the point of no return?

CARS/TRUCKS/AIRPLANES/TRAFFIC

Next to electricity generation, road vehicles are the largest and fastest growing source of carbon dioxide emissions, producing 30 percent of emissions worldwide. For Canada, vehicle emissions represented about 34% of greenhouse gases in 2003.¹

Oil consumption produces nearly 42% of the world's fossil-fuel-related emissions of carbon dioxide. The majority of that comes from cars, trucks, and planes.


In Canada, 15% of CO₂ emissions come from light-duty vehicles (this is how SUVs are classified). They burn 45% more fuel than regular cars.


World aviation is on the rise from its current 3.5% CO₂ emissions. Air travel is responsible for about 2% of total global emissions of CO₂, releasing more than 600 million tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere each year. By 2050, air travel is expected to contribute 10-17% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Because CO₂ is released from planes at a higher altitude, its impact is greater.²

BUILDINGS/HOMES

The average household in Ontario spends about $2,000 per year on energy bills.³ However, much of that energy is wasted on lost heating, inefficient ventilating and air conditioning units, leaking windows, and over-conditioned air. And think about all those appliances—fridges, dishwashers, laundry machines, dryers. If they're not energy-efficient then they're doing tons of damage. You don't really have an old beer fridge in your basement do you? Refrigerators made before 1984 use three times more energy than those made today.⁴

It's not surprising that electricity generated by fossil fuels for a single home puts more carbon dioxide into the air than two average cars.⁵ Even building your home does damage. 40% of all CO2 releases come from the construction and operation of buildings.⁶

CARBON CYCLE: A separate issue, sort of.

There’s something called the carbon cycle that’s been at work on Earth for millions of years. Carbon, in its various forms, is constantly circulating between land, water, and the air. It’s a natural thing that used to function quite nicely, as long as the variables didn’t get too out of whack. Our forests and our oceans are known as carbon sinks, taking in excess carbon and keeping it from poisoning our atmosphere. Oceans take in a third of all human-produced carbon. Tropical forests, like the Brazilian rainforest, take in a vast amount of carbon as well. There’s a big BUT coming.  

        

Humans are messing with the carbon cycle like never before. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve been adding incredible amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere while decimating the earth’s forests that work so hard to remove it. Our oceans have taken in more carbon in the last century than they have in hundreds of thousands of years. This is causing ocean acidification, which occurs as carbon dioxide turns into carbonic acid in the water.

Coral reef skeletons are weakening and dying and 60% of the world's coral reefs are expected to disappear in the next few decades. Plankton, the base of the entire food chain in the world's oceans, is unable to proliferate in these conditions. Marine ecosystems all over the world face a very uncertain future if plankton disappears. Our fish stocks, which are already at the edge of collapse due to overfishing, might never recover. Sorry to say it, but our oceans, always thought to be so infinite and powerful, are in an incredibly vulnerable state.

     


Can it get much worse? Um, YES. Weakened carbon sinks can encourage something called "positive feedback," which in fact is a very, very negative thing. Positive feedback is the great unknown of global warming; it's what really troubles the scientists. It occurs when any change to one factor can effectively trigger a ricochet across many more natural processes that we cannot stop, driving greenhouse gases higher than any level human activity could.⁷

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^{1 Source: http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/publications/statistics/see06/energy-use.cfm?attr=0
2 Source: Aviation and the Global Atmosphere, IPCC, 1999
3 Source: http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/media/newsreleases/2004/200430_e.htm
4 Source: http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/english/tips/hometips_summer.cfm
5 Source: http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/info/homes/index.html
6 Source: http://greenbuilding.ca/iisbe/oslo/oslo.htm
7 Source: "The Stern Review", editor Jon Hughes, The Ecologist, Jan. 2007.}