Wayne Gilchrest: “I would like to present what I hope you will find as fascinating facts about the carbon cycle. There has been a great…”

“I would like to present what I hope you will find as fascinating facts about the carbon cycle. There has been a great deal of discussion over the last several years about climate change: Is human activity causing the climate to change or is that not the case? What I would like to present tonight, Mr. Speaker, is somewhat of a science lesson about the carbon cycle. Carbon, when burned, turns into a gas called CO2, and CO2 is a gas in the atmosphere that is needed to sustain life in its cycle. Excessive CO2 would add to the greenhouse effect or cause the climate to warm. Thus, the climate would change. What I would like to do tonight, Mr. Speaker, is to give some interesting facts, almost like a 7th grade science class; and I would like to go back to 1771, where an English minister named Reverend Priestley performed an experiment. Now, this is 1771. He took a glass jar, about a foot high and about 8 inches in diameter, and he wanted to see how long air would stay good in that glass jar. And he discovered the air stayed good as long as he sealed it. Whether it was a week, a month, 3 months, it was always good air. What he did next, though, was put a flame next to that glass jar, which he found immediately fouled the air. After that, he got another glass jar, and he put a mouse in that glass jar, and he sealed the glass jar. And it was not too long before the air was fouled again and the mouse died.”