not tiny deceased marine organisms, but even more remarkable er. A six-incain ers of compressed carbon dioxide t  all. Altoget ty times as mucmospually muc limestone urn to tmospo term carbon cycle. takes a verylong time—about ypical carbon atom—but in turbance it  keeping te stable.

    Unfortunately, ion for disrupting tting lots of extra carbon into tmosp ornot. Since 1850, it imated,  a ons of extracarbon into total t increases by about seven billion tons eac’snot actually all t mucure—mostly ts—sends about 200 billion tons of carbon dioxide into tmospy times as mucories. But you o look att ies to see ribution makes.

    e kno tural” level of carbon dioxide in tmosp is, before arted inflating it rial activity—is about 280 partsper million. By 1958, arted to pay attention to it, it o 315parts per million. today it is over 360 parts per million and rising by rouger of 1percent a year. By ty-first century it is forecast to rise to about 560 partsper million.

    So far, ts ( as Peter Cox of tiseorological Office puts it:

    “tical tural biospops buffering us from ts ofour emissions and actually starts to amplify t to adapt, many trees and ots ores of carbon and adding to tant past even  a ribution. t evenure is quite  is almost certain t eventually t itself and return to a situation of stability and  time t took a mere sixty thousand years.