Carbon dioxide returns to centre stage WORKING WITH NATURAL REFRIGERANTS: PART 3

摘要

It's cheap, natural and universally available. Has the era of carbon dioxide arrived? If a decade could ever been defined by a chemical compound, the first decade of the twenty first century would surely belong to carbon dioxide. People buy books from the supermarket to calculate their 'carbon footprint', countries are listed by their carbon emissions, people are taxed by the size of their car emissions. And its increase in the atmosphere is blamed for global warming; if some environmentalists are to be believed, carbon dioxide is the bad guy that could ultimately destroy the human race. This infamous status is due to it being a greenhouse gas. Carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere when carbon-containing fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coals are burned in air. As a result of the tremendous worldwide consumption of the fossil fuels, and deforestation, the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased significantly.