No organisms are as good at this as we have become. Organisms can draw power by feeding on organic carbon compounds and then oxidising the reduced carbon back to carbon dioxide. Organic carbon or, in the language of chemists, ‘reduced carbon’, is nature’s equivalent of a battery. ![]() These changes served not only to open up the Earth’s atmosphere,allowing huge amounts of head to radiate back into space, they also created a huge reservoir of highly energetic organic forms of carbon that are used as fuel by living things. They used that carbon to make life, turning carbon dioxide into a rare commodity, while producing huge amounts of oxygen to create a whole new atmosphere. ![]() When plants came along with their fancy photosynthesis, they used up most of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Many of these gasses, including CO2, are what we call ‘greenhouse gases’, because they absorb heat energy thus increasing the average temperature on Earth. The early Earth’s atmosphere was made up of ammonia, methane, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide among some other things, but essentially there was no free oxygen. Of all the chemistry that happens on this planet the carbon cycle is the thing that makes Earth ‘Earthy’, unique among planets that we know and understand. But awareness isn‘t the same thing as understanding, and if I had one final attempt to persuade you that chemistry is important, which I do, I’d tell you about the carbon cycle, which is what I’m about to do. Let’s talk about a little thing called ‘global warming’ and the spiking atmospheric CO2 concentrations that are causing it. Certainly larger than your mind-though I’m not sure it’s more complicated! It is complicated though. ![]() Chemistry has brought us great insights into even such complicated sciences as psychology, like how neurotransmitters allow us to feel anxiety, and hormones give us our desires.īut before we drill down into the level of your brain and bloodstream, I want to close out this course with a talk about chemistry on a global scale. In our next course we are excited to announce that we’re gonna be exploring psychology, the study of human mental functions and behavior. While physics explains the mechanics of the universe, and biology describes how life functions and interacts with itself, chemistry lies between. You and I began this journey a year ago when I introduced you to this spectacular method for understanding the world.
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