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> Human breathing produces about 2.5 billion tons of CO2 per year. The carbon emitted in human breathing came from the food, and the carbon in the food came fr
by cesarb 7y ago
> Human breathing produces about 2.5 billion tons of CO2 per year.
The carbon emitted in human breathing came from the food, and the carbon in the food came from the atmosphere. It's a closed cycle. It doesn't matter if it's a billion or two, an identical amount of carbon had to be captured first.
- zaroth 7y agoWell technically it’s all a closed cycle. Humans consume carbon sinks, whether it’s for glucose or joules, to survive. The carbon sinks we consume to produce glucose do tend to be ones that pulled their carbon from to atmosphere in the last couple years, rather than millions of years ago. And I agree, moving fresh carbon between atmosphere, organisms, and back into the atmosphere doesn’t have a net effect that builds up over time like burning fossil fuels. So it wasn’t a great comparison.