But that's only true if we have living things to convert the oxygen out of Carbon dioxide. We cannot breathe in only carbon dioxide and live. If you want to see what this is like go under your covers in the bed and try to breathe for awhile with all the edges of your blankets and sheets completely covering away the outside air in your room. After a while you will breathe faster and faster until you know that you have to move your head out from under the covers or you will eventually pass out. This is because you are only breathing carbon dioxide and nitrogen and that's about all. And you and I cannot survive on just carbon dioxide and nitrogen alone without dying.
We all have to have enough oxygen in the air to stay conscious so we don't just pass out and if it is bad enough (not enough oxygen to survive) we die.
But, where does the oxygen come from? It comes from Trees, Plants, plankton and diatoms completely. Without them we all die eventually (unless we have a technological scrubber which will scrub the carbon out of the carbon dioxide and leave the oxygen free so we can breathe it in.
Carbon dioxide is what we breathe out and it's what plants and trees and plankton and diatoms breathe in. However, I think the diatoms process a little differently but I haven't studied them enough to entirely understand how they pull the carbon out of carbon dioxide and fix it in their tiny tiny skeletons. (Exoskeletons?)
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