Facts about termites and carbon dioxide:

• Termites produce more carbon dioxide each year than all living things combined.
• Termites alone produce ten times as much carbon dioxide as all the fossil fuels burned in the whole world in a year.
• Pound for pound, the weight of all the termites in the world is greater than the total weight of humans.
• Worldwide, termites may release over 150 million tons of methane gas into the atmosphere annually. In our lower atmosphere this methane then reacts to form carbon dioxide and ozone.
• For every human on Earth there may be 1,000 pounds of termites.
• On the average termites expel gas composed of about 59% nitrogen, 21% hydrogen, 9% carbon dioxide, 7% methane, and 4% oxygen.
• There are 2,600 different species of termites, and it is estimated that there are at least a million billion individual termites on Earth, that they emit two and four percent of the global carbon dioxide and methane budget, respectively-both mediated directly or indirectly by their microbes.
• The Science magazine reports that termites annually generate more than twice as much carbon dioxide as mankind does burning fossil fuels. One termite species annually emits 600,000 metric tons of formic acid into the atmosphere, an amount equal to the combined contributions of automobiles, refuse combustion and vegetation.
• The most socially destructive and dangerous termites (white ants), in Australia are the Laborous/Greenus variety infesting The Canberra Kremlin.

Maybe we need to tax them?

Ronald Kitching
North Rockhampton. QLD 4701. Australia.