And it's also one of the negative factors in e.g. the current California wildfires. Lots of plant biomass from the spring is now withering and thus releasing previously stored CO2 again, and it is additionally providing an excellent fuel source for wildfires.
BTW, we're discussing the excess CO2 production that can be considered as a pollutant, not the CO2 that's part of the natural cycles.
Cheers,
Bart
Bart,
You seem to be implying that the human being (of Homo Sapiens species) is not a natural creature. The carbon that we're releasing into the atmosphere was previously sequestered into the soil, or upprer crust, from vegetation that flourished millions of years ago.
Coal was formed through the fossilization of forest trees and other plants, and oil through the interaction of bacteria, algae and plankton.
The carbon in these fossils is now being re-released into the atmosphere as a result of a natural evolutionary process that has taken place during the development of life on earth, which has resulted in the great prevalence of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, a sub species of Homo Sapiens, which is current humanity.
There are always positives and negatives about natural cycles. In fact, the positive cannot exist without the negative, and the negative cannot exist without the positive. Electricity cannot flow without the existence of both a positive and a negative.
The major negatives about the burning of fossil fuels are the real pollutants of harmful chemical emissions into the atmosphere, which directly affect human health, and the degradation of the environment through unrestricted mining and waste products that are not properly dealt with, and land which is not properly rehabilitated after the mining has ceased.
The major positives are increased human welfare and economic development through the use of cheap and efficient energy sources, and the greening of the planet due to the reintroduction of sequestered CO2 into the atmosphere.
Some of the negatives also apply to the mining of Lithium and rare earth metals for battery storage, in order to combat the partially illusive threat of increasing CO2 levels.
A science of climate change which only focuses on the negative aspects of CO2 emissions, is very poor science.
The following video of a TED talk, by a qualified ecologist, provides an interesting solution to the problems we face in the future, by using the positive effects of elevated CO2 levels in combination with a change in farming practices.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI