CHAPTER 1: Mechanisms of Global Warming – how methane and carbon dioxide keep infrared heat in the atmosphere – how plants absorb carbon - percentage of global climate change to greenhouse and solar irradiance. Before deciding what to do about climate change, it’s important to understand the physics and biology that are involved. While the consequences are complex, both basic mechanisms are simple: Carbon dioxide and methane are transparent to visible light, but opaque to the infrared radiation light becomes when it’s re-radiated from the surface of the Earth, so when they are at higher concentrations they trap more of the sunlight’s energy in the atmosphere and warm it up. Plants obtain the energy they need to grow, and the substance of their bodies, by absorbing carbon dioxide and entraining energy from sunlight in carbon compounds, initially sugars, by photosynthesis, which releases oxygen. When their bodies are eaten or burned the carbon the photosynthesis has “fixed”...