PHIL Tuer notes the apparent paradox of carbon dioxide (The Cumberland News, letters, October 1).

On the one hand there isn’t enough, so causing problems with the supply of food and drink; and on the other there is too much, with the certainty that unless we can reduce the amount in the atmosphere, at some time in the future (maybe even in the time of our grandchildren) it will bring about the end of civilisation as we know it.

This dichotomy comes about because carbon dioxide is produced in two ways.

One way is from a process making something else – such as beer, fertiliser, cement or steel. And the other way it is produced is by burning fossil fuels to generate energy – petrol for transport, oil and gas to generate electricity, and to heat houses.

In the first case there will probably always some CO2 generation. Can Phil think of a way of making beer without any CO2 being made? There are ways of making fertiliser and steel without making any, but it takes time to make the change to the new technology. More challenging is building things without concrete.

But we can stop using fossil fuels – change to electric cars and trains – generate electricity from wind, solar and tidal power, and that is happening, but whether fast enough to avert a disaster is questionable.

Unfortunately, there are still some people like Donald Trump who think it’s all a hoax. But fortunately many of the younger generation do seem to understand how dire the situation is – witness their various demonstrations on motorways. Hopefully the conference in Glasgow next month will make some progress and help to avert a disaster for future generations.

Ian K. Watson,
Stanwix, Carlisle

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Philip Tuer asks whether climate change activists should be concerned about the production of carbon dioxide for industrial use, for example in the food industry. The short answer is yes, but only a little.

The global production of industrially-used CO2 was estimated at 230 million tonnes in 2019. This is about 0.6% of the 36 billion tonnes of CO2 released to the atmosphere in the same year by human activities, principally the burning of fossil fuels.

But not all of the CO2 generated and used by industry is subsequently released to the atmosphere, and so the 0.6% is an upper limit. Therefore the contribution to global warming of the CO2 generated for industrial applications (and then leaked into the atmosphere) is quite small.

A related point is that the industrially-used CO2 is a by-product of the Haber-Bosch process. This produces ammonia, mainly for fertiliser, while using a lot of energy.

The CO2 released to the atmosphere in creating that energy, by burning fossil fuels, amounts globally to about 500 million tonnes per year. This is about twice the CO2 generated for industrial use, and about 1.4% of total human-related emissions.

Ed Tipping
By email