Carbon Dioxide Emissions

The United States is facing a serious problem in the course of the next twenty years. Carbon Dioxide is going to the atmosphere at an astonishing rate. The most major player in those emissions are not the power companies as some may have guessed, but it is the agriculture industry. The agriculture industry sends up 50% of the nations carbon dioxide emissions. How does this happen you ask? Through the use of tillage the farming community oxidizes the carbon in the soil, which then turns into carbon dioxide and escapes to the atmosphere.

 

As carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere increase, the temperature follows. This causes a serious dilemma for breadbasket of the United States. Projections show that within the next 20 years the climate will change in southern Minnesota so that the summers will be like northern Oklahoma and the winters will be like Chicago. This will seriously impact the crops that can be grown and the growing season.

 

 

 

 

Another problem we face is that as the temperature gets warmer the ice caps melt and fill the ocean with more water. An illustration of this can be seen here. We can be part of the solution. If we make ethanol from biomass studies have shown that we can cut carbon dioxide emissions by up to 85%.

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