The victimised element (From Bucks Free Press)
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"I'm an 18-year-old guy who's lived in Wycombe all my life and I'm pretty happy with the place. In these blogs I hope to explore important (and not so important) issues including the history of the area. I hope you enjoy them."
The victimised element
10:09pm Wednesday 9th March 2011
Think of diamonds, the graphite in our pencils and every cell in our bodies? What do they share in common? One word: carbon. Diamonds and graphite are both pure carbon, just in different arrangements giving them their vastly different physical properties; one is in stacked layers enabling it to rub off on paper, the other is a more complex structure forming the hardest natural substance known to man. As for cells, they’re all made up of organic molecules; organic chemistry is the study of carbon based compounds.
As you may know, carbon is easily one of the most important elements to do with everything, from jewellery to industrial buzz saws embedded with diamond. And us, from our hair, a protein with carbon as one of its central molecules, to our urine, urea being a simple carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen chemical.
And yet carbon doesn’t have the best reputation amongst the masses. After all, we’re all trying to reduce our carbon footprints, aren’t we? And those carbon emissions are terrible. Not the mention those rising CO2 levels. But is it fair to label carbon as a monster because of what its dioxide and tetrahydride can do? Carbon dioxide and methane are dangerous pollutants in mass quantities yes. But that doesn’t make them evil.
If there was no CO2 it’s pretty likely that no plant life would be able to exist, for there would be no photosynthates for us animals to gain our energy from, and as such it’s rather unlikely that animals would be able to get along either.
My main point is that carbon is not a unit of pollution, it itself is not the problem. The worst carbon can do is clog our lungs with soot- it’s the gaseous compounds that are the ones to watch, but even they should not be attacked completely. That’s why I find such terms as ‘carbon footprint’ to be misleading and irritating. Carbon is not bad, it’s majorly important, so much so that it has its own sub division in chemistry. Furthermore, the carbon baddies don’t even fall into this category: CO2 and CH4 are inorganic compounds. Carbon is so big it can’t even fit into its own category!
Of course that’s still no excuse to emit excessive levels of the gases, such as burning coal at home or carrying a piano around in your car when no one’s playing it; lightening the load is a good idea, literally and figuratively!
Oh and just in case anyone’s wondering, I do take trains if they’re going where I need them to go. I drive carefully and don’t brake suddenly. I recycle when I can.
So don’t judge carbon too harshly. Don’t hate carbon dioxide too much or you may as well stop breathing; that way your carbon emissions will plummet. But they wouldn’t would they, as everything degrades eventually, emitting all that naughty carbon back to the earth.
Instead love carbon for the wonder it is.
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Comments(4)
brachyura
says...
10:20pm Wed 9 Mar 11
J B Blackett
says...
2:14pm Thu 10 Mar 11
MisterH
says...
3:46pm Fri 11 Mar 11
These large reservoirs of specific material were generated and gradually stored up over the course of millions of years. It is not natural to suddenly re-distribute matter in a delicately balanced ecosystem in this way. There are bound to be side effects.
The human imagination is capable of examining a situation, and predicting what might happen as a result. That is why we are where we are today.
Until we can leave this planet and start screwing up somewhere else, we as a species, have to live with the consequences, whether we guessed correctly what they would be or not.
I am not saying anyone is right or wrong about climate change or what's causing it. The fact is that approximately 6 billion people have been added to this planet in the last 200 years. we don't store as much carbon in our bodies as we liberate from the earth in our lifetime so the excess has to go somewhere and it will inevitably result in something changing.
Given that the planet is estimated to be about 4.5 billion years old don't you think it's odd that the population has suddenly exploded at such a rate? It is because we have found the means to exploit all that energy.
Now imagine you had been driving your car along a straight road for 4.5 billion seconds and someone suddenly sucked out all the oil from your engine and burnt it in the cabin for three minutes, would it make any difference?
OllieNewbury
says...
10:54pm Fri 11 Mar 11
MisterH wrote:This is not a blog about climate change and I did not wish to enter a debate about it, simply because I find it a dry dull subject. Here I am only trying to highlight that carbon itself is not "bad"- too many people are unaware that we are made of it, and that it is not just found in carbon dioxide.
As a fairly scientific person I never thought that people might assume carbon is toxic. It's an interesting point. However, you have to remember that the process of mining, refining and burning hydrocarbon based fossil fuel is moving billions of carbon and hydrogen atoms from under the surface of our planet into the atmosphere.
These large reservoirs of specific material were generated and gradually stored up over the course of millions of years. It is not natural to suddenly re-distribute matter in a delicately balanced ecosystem in this way. There are bound to be side effects.
The human imagination is capable of examining a situation, and predicting what might happen as a result. That is why we are where we are today.
Until we can leave this planet and start screwing up somewhere else, we as a species, have to live with the consequences, whether we guessed correctly what they would be or not.
I am not saying anyone is right or wrong about climate change or what's causing it. The fact is that approximately 6 billion people have been added to this planet in the last 200 years. we don't store as much carbon in our bodies as we liberate from the earth in our lifetime so the excess has to go somewhere and it will inevitably result in something changing.
Given that the planet is estimated to be about 4.5 billion years old don't you think it's odd that the population has suddenly exploded at such a rate? It is because we have found the means to exploit all that energy.
Now imagine you had been driving your car along a straight road for 4.5 billion seconds and someone suddenly sucked out all the oil from your engine and burnt it in the cabin for three minutes, would it make any difference?
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