The composition of air is vast. There is nitrogen, that occupies 78% and oxygen that occupies 21%. This in total occupies 99% of air. It is just that tiny 1% fraction that has everything else. Among that, carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide- a compound of carbon and oxygen ( CO2) and is talked about frequently. It is talked about in a bad way, that it pollutes the air. I have to say I disagree. Without carbon dioxide, there would be no photosynthesis in plants. If there was no photosynthesis, there would be no recycling of oxygen and we would never get food. So carbon dioxide in my point of view is helpful to the environment. Carbon dioxide is an insulator and traps heat. This keeps us warm during the night when the land continues to radiate heat but doesn’t receive heat. The carbon dioxide in the air traps the heat. Now lets rewind a bit. ‘Carbon dioxide is an insulator and traps heat.’

This is the sentence from which the term global warming can arise from. The definition of global warming- rise in the ambient temperature globally. Global warming comes from the greenhouse effect.

The greenhouse effect is the work of a greenhouse. It allows heat from the sun to pass through it, but the glass prevents it from escaping back into the atmosphere or space. Same for the greenhouse effect globally. The carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere allows heat from the sun to come to the Earth, but an amount of the heat that is radiated from the land is trapped by the carbon dioxide. This in turn causes global warming.

Since the carbon dioxide traps heat, and the content of it is increasing day by day, it will give a higher temperature to the Earth as a whole. Polar ice caps will melt, and the water in the oceans will expand. As a matter of fact, this had already started.

The content of carbon dioxide in the past was a mere 0.03% and now it is around 0.05%. This may not seem like major change, but it shows that the content is increasing. Who cares whether it is .02%?? It is still rising, is it not? This means we have to stop it, before it gets out of hand.

Solution- stop the excess of carbon dioxide. As simple as that. We can’t stop science, it is naturally occuring. Now how do we stop the continuous excess of carbon dioxide? I have two ways, and these are the methods that are trying to be used worldwide-

1. Stop overflow of carbon dioxide. Simple. The less carbon dioxide in the air, the less precaution taken towards global warming. This means less factory builds, more use of renewable energy sources as fossil fuels produce carbon dioxide and less use of a power plant.

2. Plant more… plants! This is talked about a lot. Autotrophs (green plants) use water, sunlight and carbon dioxide to make food and release oxygen. Notice the carbon dioxide part. More trees leads to more carbon dioxide used up, more oxygen content in the air and more food produced. A four in one offer that could change the world.

I conclude by saying global warming is talked about a lot. It is not explained often, but the solutions are readily given. Many nature friendly people say plant more trees! and stop carbon dioxide! I’m doing the same thing now, and yes I am nature friendly. Will this little article work? I hope it will. After all, it could change the world.