Break a Carbon Bond and — Presto! — Civilization  Episode Three:
Breaking Carbon Bonds  To get to the heart of the global warming
story, the very heart of it, it turns out that the scientific
explanation hangs on the behavior of one very particular atom —
carbon.  The more you know about carbon, the more you'll know
about global warming. In a five-part cartoon series, NPR's
Robert Krulwich explains the chemistry behind this special atom.
Here, episode 3:  OK, so you've already met the Carbon Atom. In
episodes 1 and 2, we watched it bond with other atoms inside
living creatures, large and small. When a carbon atom grabs on
to a neighbor, it grabs tightly. There's energy in those bonds.
Now let's get the energy out, starting with how about a carrot?
Yes, there are carbon atoms, energetically bonded, in a carrot.
So how do I get that energy out? Simple. I eat the carrot. And
when I do, the digestive juices in my stomach break the carbon
bonds inside and release the energy in the form of calories. We
call it dig