[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 34 (Wednesday, March 17, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H1212]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  THE CARBON CYCLE AND CLIMATE CHANGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest) is recognized for 5 minutes
  Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I would like to present what I hope you 
will find as fascinating facts about the carbon cycle. There has been a 
great deal of discussion over the last several years about climate 
change: Is human activity causing the climate to change or is that not 
the case?
  What I would like to present tonight, Mr. Speaker, is somewhat of a 
science lesson about the carbon cycle. Carbon, when burned, turns into 
a gas called CO2, and CO2 is a gas in the 
atmosphere that is needed to sustain life in its cycle. Excessive 
CO2 would add to the greenhouse effect or cause the climate 
to warm. Thus, the climate would change.
  What I would like to do tonight, Mr. Speaker, is to give some 
interesting facts, almost like a 7th grade science class; and I would 
like to go back to 1771, where an English minister named Reverend 
Priestley performed an experiment. Now, this is 1771.
  He took a glass jar, about a foot high and about 8 inches in 
diameter, and he wanted to see how long air would stay good in that 
glass jar. And he discovered the air stayed good as long as he sealed 
it. Whether it was a week, a month, 3 months, it was always good air. 
What he did next, though, was put a flame next to that glass jar, which 
he found immediately fouled the air.
  After that, he got another glass jar, and he put a mouse in that 
glass jar, and he sealed the glass jar. And it was not too long before 
the air was fouled again and the mouse died.
  What he did next was pretty extraordinary. He took a glass jar, put a 
sprig of mint, a small green growing vegetable in that glass jar. Then 
he saw that the air stayed fine for a long time. He then put a flame to 
it. And we know that CO2 comes from burning wood. The air 
stayed fine.
  Then he put the mouse in the glass jar with that mint sprig and the 
mouse stayed in there for a long time and the air stayed fine.

                              {time}  2115

  Now Reverend Priestley did not realize what he had in that glass jar 
with the mint sprig and the mouse was a carbon cycle. The mint absorbed 
the carbon, built up its woody structure and exuded oxygen and so the 
mouse could live.
  Trees across the planet breathe in carbon dioxide. They turn it into 
leaves and wood and breathe out oxygen. If we tested around the globe 
different areas and tried to discover the level of the CO2 
in the atmosphere, which is less than 1 percent, you would discover if 
you are near a forest, the CO2 level is less than in other 
areas, if you are in an urban area. The trees breathe in 
CO2, make wood and breathe out oxygen. This is the carbon 
cycle.
  Every time you start your car, turn on a light, turn up the 
thermostat, you contribute more CO2 to the atmosphere 
because you are burning carbon. Coal, oil, and natural gas fuel the 
world's economy, and they all use carbon dioxide which are inhaled by 
our forests and they turn that into oxygen.
  But when we burn a lump of coal, when we burn oil, when we burn 
natural gas, we are releasing into our environment what took the 
natural processes, 20 million years ago, millions of years to lock up. 
So we are releasing into the atmosphere the same amount of 
CO2 that took millions of years to lock up in about 150 
years. So we are being excessive more than we have seen in eons of time 
by putting excessive extra amounts of CO2 that goes against 
the grain of the natural cycle into our atmosphere.
  Are there consequences to that faster releasing of CO2? 
There are. The consequences are we see coral reefs around the world 
dying. We see deserts expanding, and we see the ocean currents 
themselves changing and in some cases slowing down. We see sea levels 
rise. In the northern parts of Canada, Alaska, and Russia, beetles are 
infesting millions of acres of forest that never infested those forests 
before because it was not that warm in the Northern Hemisphere. 
Forests, grasslands, and even our oceans absorb CO2 that we 
emit into the atmosphere as humans.
  If we diminish those carbon sinks, we accelerate CO2 
release into the atmosphere, and the consequences are that we are 
changing our climate.

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