Science

Carbon dioxide just saved Earth

God bless the John Amos power plant across the river from Poca, West Virginia, and all the other producers of CO_2.

Those tiny molecules of carbon dioxide along with their cousins, nitric oxide, spared life on the planet from becoming crispy critters earlier this month.

It seems the Sun belched its biggest a coronal mass ejection in 7 years and the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh of energy. The thermosphere is part of that invisible cloud of gases that blankets the Earth. Scientists call it the atmosphere.

James Russell of Hampton University used big scientific words to explain it: “The thermosphere lit up like a Christmas tree. It began to glow intensely at infrared wavelengths as the thermostat effect kicked in.”

A Christmas tree is what they call the holiday tree in Wisconsin now that they have a Republican governor.

More from James Russell: “Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats. When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”

Thank you, carbon dioxide and nitric oxide for saving the planet.