Describe Mechanics of GCC / Solutions through Gummy Bears

[hggh3]

You should do this experiment to further explain Solutions or Mechanics of GCC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txkRCIPSsjM

How engaging! Same demonstration, with an actual explanation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVRBDRAsP6U

The only carbon sources that result in a net gain of CO2 in the atmosphere are those from sequestered sources, such as fossil fuels. If you eat that gummy bear, you will produce the same amount of CO2 as that reaction did, which will be harnessed by a plant to make sugar, which can be used to make another gummy bear, etc.

By sequestered, I mean removed from the carbon cycle. Fossil fuels contain carbon that has been removed from the carbon cycle for millions of years. Gummy bears contain carbon that was in the atmosphere a couple of months ago. They are still part of the carbon cycle.

If you continually pump fossil fuels out of the earth and combust it, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere will increase. Fossil fuels are not cyclical; that is, you can't create more fossil fuels from the CO2 released into the atmosphere unless you wait millions of years. On the other hand, the CO2 released from a gummy bear can be made into another gummy bear within months. If we consume gummy bears faster than we can create new ones with sugar from plants, then and only then will there be a net gain of CO2. However, that is impossible. Plants are our only source of gummy bears. If we consumed gummy bears faster than plants could make them, we would run out.

CO2 released from organic sources of carbon does not result in a net gain in the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. This is the entire basis of the move towards biofuels like ethanol, which are made from corn and other plants.

It's not the nature of the carbon that makes a difference, it's where it came from. If you take carbon that has been out of the cycle for millions of year and put it back into the cycle, you will end up with more carbon in the cycle and more CO2 in the atmosphere.

When people talk about "organic" sources of carbon, they're referring to carbon from living things. Living things get their carbon from the atmosphere, either directly or indirectly by eating plants or other organisms. This means their carbon was recently in the atmosphere.

If it helps, try to think about it in terms of new carbon and old carbon, where the "newness" is determined by the time that the carbon came out of the atmosphere. To obtain more "new" carbon, you have to plant more plants that pull carbon out of the atmosphere. When you burn that "new" carbon, you end up with the same amount of CO2 in the atmosphere that you started with.

Fossil fuels are old carbon. That CO2 was removed from the atmosphere millions of years ago. If you burn old carbon, you're putting carbon in the atmosphere that was already removed from the cycle. The carbon was in the cycle millions of years ago, so you're returning the CO2 levels closer to what they were at that point. That is widely considered to be a bad thing.

- http://reddit.com/info/66s6n/comments/

If we consumed gummy bears faster than plants could make them, we would run out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_Cycle Or if they exhaust themselves of each other http://www.media-post.net/gummi_bear_murders.php

Great way of explaining to the masses with the engaging demolitions of anthropomorphic-looking high fructose corn syrup. The more logic people are exposed too, the *more* emotionally connected they will be (emotionally invested); and the *less* skeptical they will be.