I am trying to find out how there can be an abundance of carbon dioxide emissions, causing the greenhouse effect. Is it somehow due to heat from burning? In lay terms, what causes CO₂ to be emitted, or how is CO₂ emitted?

Yes the heat from burning. Maybe better yet, when we use the energy from burning.
Fuels such as coal,wood,oil,natural gas are all organic materials , containing mainly carbon and hydrogen. When we burn something it reacts with the oxygen in air to make in ideal conditions C02 and H20. 'releasing' the carbon that was chemically bound in the object that was consumed by fire.

Another factor contributing to the rise in atmospheric CO2 is the disappearance of tropical rainforests. Plants remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (that's where they get the carbon to grow). Dense forests are being cleared at an alarming rate in places like Brazil. This reduces absorption of CO2 in a globally significant amount.

Something is missing in my understanding. It seems that energy and heat appear with burning, but why is it that the released carbon is bad? Is it that when the heat becomes associated with only the carbon released into the air, the amount of heat in the air increases? Is there an increase in oxygen, which, like the carbon, is by itself bad in the sense of being just plain hotter? It seems that both the carbon and the oxygen in the air increase and that both are bad in that both are hotter.

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Originally posted by tsaeb:
Something is missing in my understanding.

Yes -- The greenhouse effect. This article from Wikipedia says:

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Because the atmosphere is such a good absorber of longwave infrared, it effectively forms a one-way blanket over the earth's surface. Visible and near-visible radiation from the sun easily gets through, but thermal radiation from the surface can't easily get back out. In response, the earth's surface warms up.

Another article can be found at HowStuffWorks. The mechanism is similar to how your car's interior can heat up much higher than the outside temperature when it sits in the sun with the windows rolled up. The window glass is analogous to the atmospheric greenhouse gases (CO2, methane, etc.)

The Earth has a natural greenhouse effect that's been at work long before humans and their technology came along. The global warming issue concerns the enhancement of this effect due to the extra CO2 released by human activity.

Global warming is NOT due to the actual heat released by burning fossil fuels. It's all about the carbon dioxide.

Hope that helps.

OK. So the carbon dioxide buildup is preventing all of the heat entering from the sun from getting out. Oversimplification, of course.

You got it.

Its not just Carbon Dioxide - its also Methane, Ozone, and other Greenhouse Gases. Make no mistake - the greenhouse effect is good. Without it, the temperature of the earth would be about -18 degrees Celsius. Its the enhanced greenhouse effect thats dangerous.