Future Trends

Since fossil fuel burning is tied in with industrialization, what is going to happen as third world countries become more industrialized? It seems inevitable this will increase carbon dioxide emissions to our atmosphere. To compound this, the world's population growth is accelerating.

How will our increasing world population affect the carbon cycle? Our current population is over 5.8 billion and is expected to be at 8 billion by the year 2020. Much of this population growth is expected in the countries (Africa, Latin America, and Asia) which are just now becoming industrialized.

Should we be concerned about the carbon cycle and try to regionally balance the carbon budget? Venus, whose atmosphere is nearly all carbon dioxide, has uniform surface temperatures of about 864 degrees Fahrenheit (462 degrees Celsius)!! This is not to say that the earth will become like Venus, but it is paramount that we understand all the processes that contribute to global climate change. The carbon cycle is one of those processes.

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