A Dec. 29, 2022, Facebook post (direct link, archive link) features a photosynthesis diagram, with a plant using light and carbon dioxide to produce oxygen and carbohydrates.
"Remember science," reads text overlaid on the image. "CO2 is not a problem."
It was shared over 500 times in two weeks.
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Carbon dioxide is used in photosynthesis, but plants and other natural processes can absorb only about half of the CO2 emitted yearly. The excess CO2 contributes to global warming.
By burning fossil fuels, humans are producing more CO2 than natural processes can remove.
Through photosynthesis on land and in the ocean, plus the absorption of carbon dioxide in seawater, natural processes remove just half of the carbon dioxide emitted yearly, according to Climate.gov data from 2011 to 2020. The remaining CO2 stays in the atmosphere and contributes to global warming.
Plants and soils together are responsible for absorbing just 30% of CO2 emissions.
Vegetation is "not even close to taking back up all the carbon dioxide we’re putting in the atmosphere," said University of Virginia environmental science department chair Howard Epstein.
The excess CO2 "acts like a blanket across the Earth," said Anthony Darrouzet-Nardi, an ecologist...
Washington, May 6 (IANS) India's Operation Sindoor, launched after the heinous terror attack that took place in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam on April 22 last year and witnessed Pakistan-backed ter...