The Carbon Monoxide Cycle

I spent a segment of my life traveling and talking to individuals who would characterize themselves as scientists. A stock question I had devised to ask them was, "What is The Carbon Monoxide Cycle?" This was during the time that The Carbon Dioxide Cycle was a common topic everywhere, especially for school children. I never got a response from even one of those I quizzed.

Let me assert (you will have to think about this yourselves) that part of the monoxide cycle involves the monoxide being converted to dioxide. Thus, in a way, the dioxide cycle is part of the monoxide cycle, and we could conclude that the latter is the superior one. Think of The Carbon Dioxide Cycle as being a subset of The Carbon Monoxide Cycle. Why then, should we have never heard of it? Why should one get all the attention? It wouldn't if science weren't sleeping.

Some years ago, an internet search for "carbon monoxide cycle" (quotation marks are necessary) resulted in only a few hits (I would guess less than twenty). Some were actually about something else altogether. Besides the piece I had written (I am just now re-writing it and will provide a link when it is finished) there was only one other that even addressed the issue. It was by a graduate student at some university (in North or South Carolina perhaps) and only a study proposal at that.

Sometime later, a United Nations agency joined in. It appeared to be an attempt to mislead and was of no value. Since then you will find many more, some claiming that micro-organisms utilize the monoxide, but most are what should be considered 'noise' and may be there to discourage your research and prevent you from finding something useful (if anything useful were there).

A 'google search' on August 10, 2009 found 503 for "carbon monoxide cycle," 15,600 for "carbon dioxide cycle," (there were hundreds of thousands years ago), and over 900,000 for "carbon cycle," which will really be only about the dioxide one, I suspect.