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39.48, -82.98 | Let's keep this non-political.
Carbon is in constant circulation. Somewhere -- every day -- millions of trees die and millions more sprout. Grasses grow and grasses burn. Across the planet, it is in a close balance.
This is all part of a quick carbon cycle -- quick, in geological terms. There is a much slower cycle that includes fossil carbon. It spans millions of years and, ultimately, involves plate tectonics.
This long cycle plays out as carbon-rich plates are subducted under adjoining plates. The subducting plates melts, forming a buoyant magma that pushes toward the surface, where it causes a volcanic eruption, releasing carbon dioxide. Over millions of years, this long cycle also balances out.
By extracting and burning fossil carbon, we are taking millions of years of carbon from this long cycle and putting it into the atmosphere all at once, in geological terms. This is why we are pushing up atmospheric carbon dioxide, but burning forests or grasslands do not. | |
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Holy smokes
