HOPE AGAIN WITH BLUENOTE Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring gas that is integral to life and characterised by being colourless and odourless. Its chemical formula is CO2, made up of a carbon atom which is covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. In the Earth’s atmosphere, carbon dioxide exists at a concentration of around 0.04% (400 ppm) by volume. Carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere by dissolution from carbonate rocks, volcanoes, hot springs and geysers, as well as occurring in groundwater, glaciers, oceans, rivers and lakes. And all aerobic organisms produce carbon dioxide when breathing out while Plants and trees take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and is increased during the burning of carbon based fossil fuels, as well as the act of deforestation and is leading to higher rates of global warming as a result of more carbon being concentrated in the atmosphere. Since the industrial Revolution the generation of electricity is the largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the number one source of energy consumption for most industrial buildings. Greenhouse gases are relatively transparent to short wave infrared radiation (such as heat from the sun) which means they allow sunlight to enter the atmosphere and heat the Earth’s surface and these surfaces then radiate again the heat as long wave infrared radiation, which greenhouse gases tend to absorb rather than transmit. This results in the trapping of the long wave infrared radiation and accumulation of heat in the atmosphere causing global warming. This process is known as the ‘greenhouse’ effect. Now one can hardly tell what the temperature response to a given increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be but, there is a general consensus that: The earth’s climate has always changed over timescales ranging from thousands of years to millennia, also that Greenhouse gases from human activity are warming the world, Actions are neede...