It is a homework question (never been a fan of chemistry!).  I am studying aromatherapy and have been asked to draw the carbon skeleton of an isoprene unit, which I have done.  I am then asked to draw two isoprene units to form an acyclic chain as well as a cyclic chain and then a sesquiterpene and so on.  What I want to know is, what are the rules of joining isoprene units?  Am I supposed to know how they are drawn by the information given? Is there a pattern?

I was curious about the combustion of pure carbon, such as graphite or diamond. I know that in the presence of hydrogen, the biproduct is H2O, and in the presence of oxygen the biproduct is CO2. But what about the burning of pure carbon in a sealed chamber using, say, a bomb calorimeter. Also, I know that the incomplete combustion of carbon forms soot, which is, essentially, carbon. So what is the deal? How does pure carbon burn?

I'm sitting here in the dim light of a CFL bulb, using my little laptop, sweating in the July heat because air conditioning is a giant energy-suck and wondering if any personal effort to reduce carbon emissions is worthwhile, when the Large Hadron Collider uses a gazillion bazillion teramegaelephantine watts of power.

I also get kind of bummed out when I watch NASA launch a space shuttle. Really, what is the point of me driving a tiny ultralow emission car?

Santa would have to make toys for every single child in the world, get all across the globe in a single night, sustain his reindeer and would have to power his factory. Surley doing this would produce an incredible amount of greenhouse gases.

It is agreed that making Porland cement releases CO2, for heating but also due to the chemical reaction. Now I am informed that the concrete in my building is being damaged due to a slow but steady attack by CO2. So will the concrete ruins of our time be a CO2 absorber for the next generation?

The ocean's are great stores of CO2, especially at the high pressure seen at depths of over 1000m, or so I am informed. So are they fizzy down there, whats it like for a fish, do they basically live in a soda stream?

Is global warming just an indicator of a lack of trees? All the old phots i look at have LOADS of trees, locking carbon into wood, where are they now? How many would we need to plant? Should this be the first an immediate thing to complete, as the gains are incremental as the trees grow?