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Glossary of Terms

Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
A colorless, odorless, water-soluble gas composed of one carbon and two oxygen atoms. Plants metabolize CO2, while animals exhale it. The main way CO2 enters the earth’s atmosphere is through carbon combustion, usually as the waste product of burning fossil fuels for electrical generation and transportation. Poor land use practices – such as deforestation - also create CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions.

CO2 is a very powerful greenhouse gas. Due to human activities interfering in the normal ebb and flow of the carbon cycle, CO2 is now found in increasing concentrations throughout the earth’s atmosphere, where it lasts for around one hundred years. By absorbing the sun’s radiation, CO2 holds heat in the earth’s atmosphere.

CO2 also intensifies the atmosphere’s ability to hold water vapor, another powerful greenhouse gas that holds heat in the atmosphere (and this is one example of a feedback loop that complicates climate models). Thus CO2 is a major factor in the global warming which in turn leads to climate change.

Also see carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon liability, carbon offsets, carbon regulation, carbon sequestration, carbon sink, and carbon tax.
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“While abrupt climate changes have occurred throughout the Earth's history, human civilization arose during a period of relative climate stability.”

– EPA website on climate science
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