• Question: what is the biggest co2 producer

    Asked by to David, Johanna, Linda, Tamas, Tom on 19 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: David Davila

      David Davila answered on 19 Jun 2014:

      Probably animals breathing? I’m not sure.

      The latest info I found (on wikipedia) about ‘artificial’ co2 emissions showed that coal is the biggest source of CO2 by humans today. We burn coal to generate electricity (its own complicated process) and in the process release tons of CO2 in the air, which contributes to global warming!

    • Photo: Thomas Smith

      Thomas Smith answered on 25 Jun 2014:

      Over long periods of time and before humans were around, most CO2 came from volcanoes.

      You might be surprised to learn that the biggest producer of CO2 is plants (respiration), but they are also the biggest user of CO2 as well, so across a year, plants store about the same amount of CO2 as they produce.

      If you ignore plants because they store as much as they produce, unfortunately, humans are by far the biggest producers of CO2. We produce CO2 by burning fossil fuels for generating electricity and for other industrial purposes. We also burn forests which releases CO2. Currently humans are emitting about 100 times the amount of CO2 that comes from volcanoes.

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