Carbon Cycle

<p> In the same way we learn about the <a class="wikilink" href="/water_cycle/"> water cycle </a> at school, we should start learning about the cycle that carbon follows in our world. However, I'm not sure I can really understand it. </p> <ul> <li> Plants absorb <a class="wikilink" href="/carbon_dioxide/"> carbon dioxide </a> . Is it used by their cells? Do they break CO2 to keep the carbon and that makes wood? </li> <li> Plants die, the carbon they'd captured gets into the soil. Or the wood is chopped. </li> <li> Either burning fossil fuels or burning wood is more or less the same, it is a matter of time scale. </li> <li> CO2 is released to the atmosphere by natural means <strong> and </strong> human activity such as burning. </li> <li> The cycle re-starts </li> </ul> <p> Are plants the biggest absorbents of CO2? What about water? Can CO2 diffuse into the oceans? And bacteria or other single-cell organisms? </p> <p> When a tree dies, isn't all the carbon captured released again to the atmosphere? What prevents it? Are the roots of trees actually pushing carbon to the soil during the lifetime of a tree? </p> <p> Does a tree capture more carbon than its own weight? </p> <p> Tags: <a href="/tags/climate-change"> #climate-change </a> <a href="/tags/education"> #education </a> </p>