Carbon: The Foundation of Life

All life is based on carbon. Carbon is the foundation of life. The source of carbon for life comes from carbon dioxide. All plants breathe in carbon dioxide for carbon. Carbon dioxide was very abundant in atmosphere before life emerged on the earth. Since carbon dioxide is in great demand for life, its concentration in atmosphere gradually decline most of the time. Currently, its concentration is very low, around 0.04%. Because carbon dioxide is in such a short supply, plants evolve a new mode of absorbing it called C4, which is more efficient at retaining carbon dioxide with extra energy cost. Some familiar crops, such as corn, sugarcane, sorghum and millet, are C4 plants. The very evolution of C4 plants indicates that plants are starving for carbon dioxides.

Human beings have been using energy stored in coal for a long time. The technology advance in the last two hundred years enables us to use coal and other fossil fuels on a large scale. The fossil fuels are dead bodies of life, which have retained much energy and material of living systems. They have been laying underground quietly for millions of years and are now been brought up into the surface. The energy and material from the ancient life embodied in fossil fuels have been driving most of our activities since.  Large quantities of carbon dioxide, the final product from the working of fossil fuels, are released and returned into the atmosphere. This increases the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, temporarily reversing its long term trend of declining.

The increase of carbon dioxide makes the plants breathe easier. This makes plants grow better and grow more. Carbon dioxide is called a greenhouse gas. Higher concentration of carbon dioxide makes the earth a greener place. All animals, directly or indirectly, depends on plants to survive. The increase of carbon dioxide increases the amount of plants, which in turn increases the amount of animals. In 1930, human population was at 2 billion. Today, human population is around 8 billion. The increase of the carrying capacity is due to the increase of crop output, which dues to the increase of use of fossil fuels and the increase of concentration of carbon dioxide, a final product from fossil fuels. The increase of carbon dioxide increases the carrying capacity of life on the earth.

The increase of carbon dioxide has other profound impacts. Carbon dioxide can retain heat better than most other gases. The increase of carbon dioxide warms up the earth. After industrial revolution, some people began to wonder if the increase of carbon dioxide will warm up the earth. Around 1895, Svante Arrhenius, a scientist from Sweden, dreamed that his frigid country will one day be warmer and more hospitable due to the increase of carbon dioxide.  This warming effect is especially significant in colder areas, where part of the year is covered with white snow. Snow and ice reflect much of the sun light back into the space. The melting of snow exposes soil, which absorbs more solar energy than white snow. In warmer areas, higher temperature speeds up the vaporization of water, which has a cooling effect. This reduces the warming impact of carbon dioxide in warmer areas. Overall, the increase of carbon dioxide increases the amount of plants. Plants evaporate large amount of water into the atmosphere. This moderates the temperature increase. Plants also transform large amount of solar energy into chemical energy and store it as potential energy. This further reduces temperature increase.

Higher concentration of carbon dioxide warms up the earth. Some ice on the land melt with higher temperature. Ice melting could raise the sea level. At the same time, warmer temperature increases water vaporization and moisture in the air. This generates more rain fall and snow fall. More ice will be formed due to increased precipitation. The increase of ice formation could lower the sea level. What is the overall impact of warmer temperature to sea level?

Most of the land ice is at Antarctica. We will concentrate our discussion on there. Warmer temperature erodes part of ice sheet around ocean water. At the same time, warmer temperature increases rain fall and snow fall, making the ice sheet higher in Antarctica. Overall, the sea level change has been mild since 1990s, when the ideas of global warming and its catastrophic impacts have become popular. Land prices in New York City, which is supposed to be submerged under water by now, has increased substantially since 1990.  

When we strive to predict the future, we want to look for the patterns in the recent past. In the past one hundred years, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air has been increasing steadily, due to the increase of fossil fuel consumption. During the same period of time, the carrying capacity of the earth has been increasing tremendously and the sea level has risen mildly. The overall impact of fossil fuel consumption and increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been beneficial to human beings. While we don’t expect the past trend to continue indefinitely, we should be careful to assert that the future overall impacts of the increase of carbon will be catastrophic. After all, carbon is the foundation of all life. At 0.04% in atmosphere, carbon dioxide is a very scarce and precious resource for plants.

Carbon is essential to life. Why are many of us so oblivious to this obvious fact? Long ago, George Orwell asked a similar question in his 1937 book, The Road to Wigan Pier. He concluded,

Practically everything we do, from eating an ice to crossing the Atlantic, and from baking a loaf to writing a novel, involves the use of coal, directly or indirectly. … But most of the time, of course, we should prefer to forget that they were doing it. It is so with all types of manual work; it keeps us alive, and we are oblivious of its existence.

it is only because miners sweat their guts out that superior persons can remain superior. … all of us really owe the comparative decency of our lives to poor drudges underground, blackened to the eyes, with their throats full of coal dust, driving their shovels forward with arms and belly muscles of steel. (P 31)

If we acknowledge the essential role of coal and carbon in our life, we can no longer ignore the harsh life of essential workers, the coal miners and other frontline workers. If we improve the working conditions and pay for the essential workers, many of us will no more afford the luxury of modern life. This is why we ignore the essential role of coal in the past. This is also why we demonize coal and carbon today.