Carbon Cycle
by Eric Peterson
| Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Fire leaves indisputable evidence that life on earth is carbon based. This charcoal is carbon, these pencil leads are carbon, diamonds are made out of carbon, too. |
| As are Wyoming’s fossil fuels like the hydrocarbons coming out of this oil well or Wyoming’s coal. |
| Huge amounts of carbon are banked in fossil fuels, our oceans, the limestones of our earth’s crust, the atmosphere, and in living matter. Carbon cycles through all of these banks. Living organisms move these stores of carbon through respiration and decomposition. |
| Combustion and diffusion are primary paths of movement in the atmosphere. Plants take up carbon dioxide in photosynthesis; animals fuel themselves by eating carbon-based foods, and we exhale carbon. The cycle continues. Wyoming’s range and forest lands are part of that carbon cycle. |
| It’s sort of a self-sustaining system that some worry we may have upset. Wyoming’s range and forest lands are important in withdrawing some of that carbon back out of the atmosphere. They are helping keep it cool! From the University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service, I’m Eric Peterson. |