Net Zero - What makes greenhouse gases?

What makes greenhouse gases?

Things like:

  • Driving cars, trucks,  ships, planes - in fact anything that uses oil-based fuels to move.  This is because oil is a fossil fuel.  It’s made from the fossilised remains of animals and plants that lived millions of years ago.  Whenever we burn a fossil fuel, we release a greenhouse gas called carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  
  • Burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas to make electricity for our homes and schools, because they all release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
  • Farming (cows and sheep burp, fart and poop methane, which is a powerful greenhouse gas!).
  • Cutting down lots of trees (because trees naturally absorb carbon dioxide).
  • Burning trees - because when they burn, they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
  • Factories use energy, which is often made by burning fossil fuels.

These things push down on one side of the see-saw, making the Earth warmer.  This causes problems like melting ice, rising sea levels, and more extreme weather.

On the other side of the see-saw, we have things that take away greenhouse gases from the air:

Photo: ID 5005292 © Mikael Damkier | Dreamstime.com

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