Transcript: There is over 100,000 times more carbon dioxide locked up in the ocean and the rocks of Earth than there is in the atmosphere. If even a tiny percentage of this carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere, it would lead to a runaway greenhouse effect that would raise the temperature of the Earth to the level Venus and beyond, and make life extremely difficult. Thus, there appears to be a fundamental connection between the regulation of carbon dioxide and the carbon dioxide cycle, and the stability of the Earth’s atmosphere long enough to allow complex life to evolve, and the key aspect of this is the presence of plate tectonics, because plate tectonics leads to the subduction of CO2-bearing rocks, and the eventual release of the gas back into the atmosphere through volcanism; thus, it’s a key part in the carbon dioxide cycle. We do not know if planets elsewhere in the solar system or in the universe must have plate tectonics to have well-regulated atmospheres, but appears to be no coincidence that on Earth, plate tectonics help to make the Earth a habitable place.