Question: how do humans affect the atmosphere#

Steven Thomson answered on 18 Jun 2015:

Excellent question – humans definitely affect the atmosphere, and it’s really important that we understand more about how.

The main way we affect it is through what we call ‘carbon emissions’. When we burn fuels like petrol or gas, the petrol molecules turn into carbon dioxide and other carbon compounds. Carbon dioxide is what you breathe out – it’s a gas, so it floats off into the atmosphere. Plants and other animals absorb it, but if we burn too much fuel and cut down too many trees then all this carbon just hangs around in the atmosphere. Too much carbon in the atmosphere can lead to global warming, which is a big problem right now.

We need to burn less fuels, use less energy, plant more trees and try to figure out how to remove some of that carbon from the atmosphere so that we can stop global warming!