Carbon

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I'm starting my own compost bin. I have plenty of sources of nitrogen, but seem to be unable to find a good, plentiful source of carbon. We don't have trees with leaves that turn brown and fall off in the winter. I thought perhaps my hair. It's dry, and people do have a lot of carbon, right? Or maybe my pets' fur? It's been a while since I took chemistry. Or perhaps some tree bark?

newspaper?

All those suggestions would work (as in, they contain a fair bit of carbon.)

That said, I take chemistry, but I've never done any gardening.

I want to do an outdoor one, to see if I can't get my father to stop using those horrible, disgusting chemical fertilizers. Not even money will get him to change his mind. I insist we have plenty of fertilizer at home, after all, human urine can be used directly as fertlizer, for one. The water from the fishtank must be a good source of nitrogen. Not to mention that we can make our own compost. That's why I'm doing a little test, to make a small amount, to show my parents, and see if they won't change their minds. I find it rather amusing, how they are willing to use chemicals which apart from pollute, also cost money while using natural fertilizers can be easy and cheap, not to mention better for the environment.

You want something to decompose easily. Hair and fur I don't think would do that. Grass clippings, food waste (though you might get rodents) , brown paper sacks come to mind.

Yeah don't do hair and fur, they take a looong time to decompose so you'll be digging through your nice dirt and finding clumps of fluff.. yuck. XD;
I've actually never thought of the chemical components but I've never had trouble composting..
so leaves add carbon? What about if you put weeds in it? Just put them in the sun so they die first, and make sure not to put anything in that's seeding, like dandelion heads. (They're sneaky and keep turning into seeds for a long time after you pick them.)
Also stuff from the gutters is good.

Oh, true. I'd forgotten that bone, hair and nails and stuff like that are like the last things that are left on a corpse, so the would take quite a while to decompose. You already do a compost pile? Cool. So, newspapers and paper bags can also be sources of carbon. That's interesting. I didn't know that. I always thought of those for the recycling bin, but it's good to know they're good for compost as well. Tonight or tomorrow evening, my cat are going to go on our carbon hunt, then. Hopefully I'll get enough, as I don't want to end up having too much nitrogen. I've thought of using water from my fishtanks for it, as well, as I vacuum them once a week, though that would most definitely end up adding too much nitrogen, so it wouldn't be a good idea? And not have the compost close to the live plants, right? Or would that be all right? I don't want to have the living plants to be 'attacked' by the bacteria and stuff that's decomposing stuff.