CO2 emmissions--I'm baffled

[kestrelg]

We hear so much about CO2 emmissions and frankly I think most of it is exagerated, but that's only an opinion.
My naive question is, Billions of soft drink bottles (which are high in CO2) are opened each year . Does that action cause a release of CO2 into the atmosphere, and if not ,why not.

[Symmetryigr8]

It does not cause a net release of CO2 as the gas was taken from the atmosphere to be put in the bottles in the first place, when CO2 is said to be released it is when a chemical compound is changed so CO2 is formed, most simply methane CH4 and oxygen 02 forms water H20 and CO2 in the right ratio to balance the numbers. CO2 in drinks starts as CO2 and ends up as CO2 and never changes, it is just mixed up with the drink so no more CO2 is made and released.

Plus even a million bottles would contain a tiny tiny amount of CO2. A simple test would be buy two identical bottles and open one and let it go flat. Then put the lid back on and weigh the to against each other. You'd need pretty accurate scales or try ten bottles flat and ten fizzy to see if there is a difference.

[Mortartube]

As stated above. The CO2 in drinks is taken from the atmosphere and released back when it leaves drinks.

The problem CO2 is in fossil fuels. Trees etc that died millions of years ago absorbed CO2 in their lifetimes.

Eventually they changed chemically to oil underground. The CO2 stays locked underground and is not in the atmosphere until we burn the oil, then the additional CO2 that was previously underground is added to the atmosphere.

[kestrelg]

Thank you to symmetryig8 and mortartube for those brilliant articulate answers.
I view many questions and answers on many subjects but these two replies must rate as the best I've seen at any time. Thank you again