gw quiz #4
last question. i promise. where does carbon come from? this is kind of an ambiguous question. most of the carbon in the universe was created deep in stars that exploded and barfed their guts out into space. some of which found its way to planet earth. and your body. heh. yes, you're made of star vomit. anywho, carbon is created in the upper atmosphere by cosmic rays. carbon has two stable forms: c12 and c14. plants like to use c12 cause it takes less energy to move around. ice cores have tiny bubbles trapped in them. we can measure the ratio of atmospheric c12 to c14 at the time the ice froze. recently we are seeing more c12 in the air. one can reasonably conclude that the carbon in the air is coming from plants. specifically the destruction of plants. or stuff that used to be plants. burning fossil fuels is the common and obvious claim. however, it's not the only explanation. any kind of destruction of biomass will also do the trick. like say replacing forests with farmland. and oddly, erosion.