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A Student Paper from Chemistry 391: Writing in Chemistry

Ben DiTrolio’s essay, “Molecule of the Year: Carbon Dioxide,” was written in response to the following assignment from Chemistry 391A: Writing in Chemistry in the Fall 2006.  The course was co-taught by Lynmarie Thompson and Holly Davis; Julian Tyson also deserves some credit for helping develop the “Molecule of the Year” assignment.

Project #2: A short persuasive essay to nominate the
“Molecule of the Year”

Since 1927, TIME Magazine has chosen a man, woman, or idea that "for better or worse, has most influenced events in the preceding year" as the “man of the year” (although the title was changed in 1999 to “person of the year” in an effort to avoid the appearance of sexism.)  Note the phrasing “for better or worse,”  as controversy has arisen on occasion because the designation was mistakenly viewed as an honor despite the magazine's frequent statements to the contrary.  While many admirable people have been selected over the years, (Ghandi, F. D. Roosevelt, Martin Luther King) a number of individuals whose influence was quite different have also been chosen (Hitler, Stalin, Ayatollah Khomeini) as the designation is meant to acknowledge influence or impact rather than positive contribution. 

Imagine that Time magazine chooses a “Molecule of the Year.”  As with the designation of “person of the year,” molecules are selected for better or worse, based on the impact they have had on events in the preceding year, and how deserving they are of being discussed and acknowledged not just within the scientific community, but by thoughtful people from a range of backgrounds.  Part of the challenge here will be to render complex scientific concepts understandable to a broad audience.

Choose a molecule that you can convince the magazine editor is worthy of being on this list (and choose a backup molecule or two in case yours is chosen by one of your classmates).  Your goal is to persuade a nonscientific reader or audience that your molecule is worthy of their attention and concern because of the extent of its influence.  A secondary goal is to inspire some interest in chemistry in your audience. Think about why this molecule would be of interest to a non-scientist. Choose a non-scientist relative or friend to imagine as your audience.  Give some thought to what scientific terminology may be too specific or technical to be understood by someone not trained as a chemist and either use language that is less technical or take care to define terms and explain concepts so that your target reader will understand them.

Organize the points you want to make so that they tell a logical and interesting story in 2 double spaced pages (#2).  Do not present your points as a disjointed collection of facts. Instead you should construct a logical argument about why this molecule is especially important, interesting, or useful and offer compelling evidence that will make sense to a person not trained as a chemist (think Professor Davis).

This and all written assignments:

Reminder: The mid-process draft is not a rough draft but should be the very best that you can do on your own up to that point, so that we can help you improve it further.

Molecule of the Year: Carbon Dioxide

By Ben DiTrolio

Responsibility for the onset of the global warming phenomena that may very well lead to our destruction is hard to assign at the macroscopic level. So let’s assign blame at the molecular level and choose carbon dioxide as “Molecule of the Year.” Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is a gas produced during the combustion of fossil fuels that plays a significant role in heating our global climate.  Analysis of atmospheric gasses trapped in ice that formed thousands of years ago confirms that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere corresponds directly to a rise in global temperature (1,2). These experiments reveal that CO2 levels had remained constant for thousands of years up until about two-hundred years ago when the Industrial Revolution began. Since then a thirty percent increase in the amount of CO2 present in the atmosphere has been documented.

Frequently the amount of CO2 emissions released into the atmosphere as a consequence of industry is disputed, as CO2 is not only a byproduct of combustion.  For example, a series of advertisements from the Competitive Enterprise Institute explains that CO2 is simply, “what we breathe out and plants breathe in.” This is true, but rather misleading and irrelevant in the context of CO2’s relationship to climate change, and a brief discussion about the chemistry of CO2 can explain why. Carbon dioxide that is produced when fossil fuels are burned is distinguishable from that which is produced by living organisms today, in that the ratios of carbon isotopes produced by each method are different (3). For the purpose of this discussion, an isotope can be simply thought of as a marker on the carbon atom—the “C” in the CO2 molecule—that does not significantly change the properties of the molecule. Experimental data using isotopic tests have shown that the increased levels of the gas are attributable to the CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels—not breathing. In fact, research confirms that atmospheric CO2 levels are still increasing and will continue to do so unless some action is taken (4).

So why is this important enough to warrant CO2 to be chosen as “Molecule of the Year” in the same spirit that Hitler and Stalin and Henry Kissinger were selected as Time’s “Man of the Year”? Well, CO2 absorbs light reflected off of the earth that would normally travel into space, and light carries with it energy, and energy carries with it heat. This heat has been enough to raise global temperature by more than 0.5ºC in the past century (1,2). Although 0.5ºC may sound small, according to a number of scientists at the Seventeenth Annual Global Warming Conference held in May 2006, this slight temperature rise, the effects of which are already being observed, may be indicative of our environment’s approach to a “tipping point,” after which the climate will no longer be able to maintain an equilibrium temperature, and the rate at which temperature rises will increase rapidly.

The oceans of the earth play a significant role in maintaining this equilibrium as they dissolve much of the atmospheric CO2 into their waters. Carbon dioxide in the presence of water, however, forms carbonic acid, and this acid has caused a reduction in overall ocean pH. Reducing the pH, or making the ocean more acidic, has been shown to kill off numerous types of photosynthetic organisms, such as plankton (3), which as we learned earlier “breathe in” CO2, and are in fact a major source of CO2 removal from the atmosphere.

So excess CO2 not only warms the planet, but disables an essential mechanism that assists in its removal, meaning more CO2 and more warming, which further disables a key mechanism capable of removing atmospheric CO2.  Hopefully, it is clear that a rather destructive and unsustainable cycle is emerging here. Consequences of passing the tipping point of this cycle, as it has been described, are said to be catastrophic at best. With this in mind, I contend that CO2 should not only be nominated as molecule of the year, but should be granted tenure for the position, as it poses a threat to life at least as dramatic, and possibly much greater than that posed by many human contenders for “Man of the Year.”

References

  1. Petit, J. R., Jouzel, J., Raynaud, D., et al. (1999) Nature 399, 429-436

  2. Vimeux, F., Cuffey, K. M., Jouzel, J. (2002) Earth Planet Sci. Lett. 203, 829-843

  3. Doney, S. (2006) Scientific American, 294 (3), 58-65

  4. Revelle R, Suess H. E., (1957) Tellus,  9 (1), 18-27

Ben DiTrolio is a pessimistic nihilist who thinks that human life always ends in some sort of hardship. However, he would like to ask you to please make an effort to save the environment so that other people might remain alive enough to feel miserable.

Updated September 3, 2008

 

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