There’s actually nothing about carbon dioxide that kills you. It’s the gas that companies put into soda to make it bubbly! Carbon dioxide is also in the air that we breathe every day. However, if you were in a room of just carbon dioxide, you would die because of the lack of oxygen! This would be the same if you were in a room with any other gas.

Carbon dioxide is slowly killing our planet though because it is a greenhouse gas, which means it absorbs a lot of the sun’s heat that leads to global warming.

You might be thinking of another similar gas that is poisonous called carbon monoxide. There is a protein in our blood called hemoglobin that is responsible for transporting oxygen throughout our body. Hemoglobin does this by binding to oxygen and carrying it around when our heart pumps blood throughout our body. However, carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin a lot better than oxygen does, which prevents your body from getting the oxygen it needs to function.

Humans like fish, amphibians, reptiles and other mammals obtain energy by using chemical reactions that require oxygen. This oxygen is taken in from air which is 78% Nitrogen and 21% oxygen. The process is called respiration. Without oxygen (O₂), an animal can only survive for a few minutes. CO₂ is a molecule and the oxygen that makes it up can NOT be used in the process of respiration.

In fact CO₂ is a waste product that leaves our body when we exhale. The reaction that gives our cells energy that uses O₂ has CO₂ as a waste product; so we get rid of it when we exhale.

Hi Brittany! Carbon dioxide (CO₂) in itself is not poisonous, it is even necessary for life on earth, as plants need CO₂ for photosynthesis. As it comes to human health, it's only when CO₂ gets concentrated (a lot higher CO₂ level than normal) that it can have an effect.

When we are thinking about indoor CO₂ level, the main creator is actually your body, as you breathe in oxygen (O), and release CO₂. Other sources of indoor CO₂ can include smoking and open flames like a gas stove or a fireplace. This released CO₂ will increase the CO₂ concentration in a closed room. As a CO₂ level in a closed room increases, it replaces the oxygen your body needs and when your body doesn't have enough oxygen, it does not function properly. The symptoms include fatigue, loss of focus, headache, and tiredness. The easiest remedy is to open the windows or step outside for a few minutes. Good ventilation is key!

As for what can kill you, I wonder whether you were thinking of carbon monoxide (CO), which is indeed a toxic gas. The reason why carbon monoxide is much more dangerous is that carbon monoxide outcompetes oxygen in the lung as you breathe. So even a very small level of CO can cause all the symptoms mentioned above and a higher level of CO can lead to a carbon monoxide poisoning, where carbon monoxide builds up in your body and there is not enough oxygen for you, which can potentially lead to death. That is why we have a carbon monoxide detector in our houses to let us know when the CO level might be too high. It is pretty scary, but it is very rare, and good ventilation can always help you out!

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is a molecule consisting of 1 carbon atom (C) and two oxygen atoms (O). At room temperature, it is a gas and is found in normal air with concentrations of 0.04 %. At concentrations that low and even up to about 5 % it has little to no toxicological effects. However, if humans inhale higher concentrations of over 5 %, CO₂ can cause two diseases called hypercapnia and respiratory acidosis.

If the human body realizes the abnormal high level of CO₂ in its blood, it initiates a reflex that increases the breathing frequency in order to exchange the CO₂ from the blood with the air (exhale it) and infuse the blood with more oxygen (inhale it). If the hypercapnia is caused by high CO₂ concentration in the air, this reflex followed by increased breathing will increase the blood CO₂ level even further. This eventually leads to something called respiratory acidosis. The CO₂ reacts with the water in the blood and forms carbonic acid (H₂CO₃). Increased amounts of this acid can cause long term damage to organs, like the kidneys, and will result in death in really high concentration. This means that there is nothing in carbon dioxide that kills humans. It is the gas itself that changes the acidity of the human blood and can influence the chemistry of the body so much that it is deadly. However, the typical concentrations in the air we breathe are harmless.

Hi Brittany, there's nothing intrinsically dangerous at all about carbon dioxide. Really, it's what's not in carbon dioxide that can kill you: oxygen. Humans need to breathe in oxygen in order to keep our cells functioning properly and feed the many simultaneous biological processes occurring within our bodies. Without any oxygen, humans will suffocate and die.

Our bodies take in oxygen that goes from the lungs to the bloodstream and produce carbon dioxide and water through the process ofcellular respiration. When the cell has consumed the input oxygen, it releases carbon dioxide back into our bloodstream that is then transported back to the lungs and exhaled. Without oxygen, cellular respiration can not take place and a person's cells will begin to die, ultimately causing the person to die too. Our need for oxygen is the distinguishing feature between aerobic and anaerobic organisms: we, as aerobic organisms, require oxygen to survive while anaerobic organisms do not. In summary, there is nothing dangerous about carbon dioxide itself; we as humans, however, need to breathe in oxygen to continue to survive.

Carbon dioxide can't kill you in and of itself. It's not a breathable gas; you still need oxygen to live. However, carbon dioxide itself is not poisonous.

Excess carbon dioxide is harmful to the environment in two ways. First, it is a greenhouse gas, and as a result increasing the amount of the stuff in the atmosphere will change the world's climate, possible in a way that is bad for us. Second, carbon dioxide can combine with water to form carbonic acid. While a weak acid, carbonic acid does lower the pH of the oceans, which can be bad for marine life in a number of ways.

A big problem with CO₂ (carbon dioxide) is this: when the air has lots of CO₂, there's less oxygen (O2), and we need O₂ for breathing. CO₂ is heavier than O₂ - there are 3 atoms in each CO₂ molecule and only 2 atoms in each O₂ molecule, so the CO₂ settles near the ground instead of going up into the atmosphere.

Another problem with CO₂ is that it makes the blood too acidic when it reacts with H₂O (water). CO₂ + H₂O = H₂CO₃ (carbonic acid).