HRGuru

a beginning can be made at individual level in the following manner:-

that i will reduce my consumption of electricity by say...units per day.

that i will reduce my car mileage by say... kms per month.

that i will reduce consumption of paper in my house/office by ...pages per month.

that i will not use plastic carry bags .

that i will educate one person every month on greenhouse gases.

members may add more ideas please

Effects of Global Warming

The effects of forcing agents on the climate are complicated by various feedback processes.

One of the most pronounced feedback effects relates to the evaporation of water. Warming by the addition of long-lived greenhouse gases such as CO₂ will cause more water to evaporate into the atmosphere. Since water vapor is a greenhouse gas, the atmosphere warms further; this warming causes more water vapor to evaporate (a positive feedback), and so on until other processes stop the feedback loop. The result is a much larger greenhouse effect than that due to CO₂ alone. Although this feedback process causes an increase in the absolute moisture content of the air, the relative humidity stays nearly constant or even decreases slightly because the air is warmer. This feedback effect can only be reversed slowly as CO₂ has a long average atmospheric lifetime.

Feedback effects due to clouds are an area of ongoing research. Seen from below, clouds emit infrared radiation back to the surface, and so exert a warming effect; seen from above, clouds reflect sunlight and emit infrared radiation to space, and so exert a cooling effect. Whether the net effect is warming or cooling depends on details such as the type and altitude of the cloud. These details are difficult to represent in climate models, in part because clouds are much smaller than the spacing between points on the computational grids of climate models.

A subtler feedback process relates to changes in the lapse rate as the atmosphere warms. The atmosphere's temperature decreases with height in the troposphere. Since emission of infrared radiation varies with the fourth power of temperature, longwave radiation emitted from the upper atmosphere is less than that emitted from the lower atmosphere. Most of the radiation emitted from the upper atmosphere escapes to space, while most of the radiation emitted from the lower atmosphere is re-absorbed by the surface or the atmosphere. Thus, the strength of the greenhouse effect depends on the atmosphere's rate of temperature decrease with height: if the rate of temperature decrease is greater the greenhouse effect will be stronger, and if the rate of temperature decrease is smaller then the greenhouse effect will be weaker. Both theory and climate models indicate that warming will reduce the decrease of temperature with height, producing a negative lapse rate feedback that weakens the greenhouse effect. Measurements of the rate of temperature change with height are very sensitive to small errors in observations, making it difficult to establish whether the models agree with observations.

Another important feedback process is ice-albedo feedback. When global temperatures increase, ice near the poles melts at an increasing rate. As the ice melts, land or open water takes its place. Both land and open water are on average less reflective than ice, and thus absorb more solar radiation. This causes more warming, which in turn causes more melting, and this cycle continues.

Positive feedback due to release of CO₂ and CH₄ from thawing permafrost, such as the frozen peat bogs in Siberia, is an additional mechanism that could contribute to warming. Similarly a massive release of CH₄ from methane clathrates in the ocean could cause rapid warming, according to the clathrate gun hypothesis.

The ocean's ability to sequester carbon is expected to decline as it warms. This is because the resulting low nutrient levels of the mesopelagic zone (about 200 to 1000 m depth) limits the growth of diatoms in favor of smaller phytoplankton that are poorer biological pumps of carbon.

That's the difficult question, isn't it? Many people are becoming more and more educated on what is happening to the planet, but aside from the little things that people have done to make changes in their individual lifestyles, the question still remains. How do you stop it? So, what are the suggestions? What kind of world will our children have if it were to continue unabated? Another thought-provoking topic, jagdev50.

All of you may find this an interesting commentary on the enviornment, and how we have abused the land, water and air.  This letter was wrote by Chief Seattle in 1867.  It is perhaps the most profound perspective from the native peoples of this land...

I was very moved by this and hope you to are moved by the wisdom of Cheif Seattle.

CHIEF SEATTLE'S LETTER

"The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.

We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family.

The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.

The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give the rivers the kindness that you would give any brother.

If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life that it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.

Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.

This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.

Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted with talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is to say goodbye to the swift pony and then hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.

When the last red man has vanished with this wilderness, and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?

We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother's heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it, as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children, and love it, as God loves us.

As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you.

One thing we know - there is only one God. No man, be he Red man or White man, can be apart. We ARE all brothers after all."

 First off, let me say that I am not making light of our current situation.  However, we have a problem as far as the measurement of global temperature changes and some of the current conclusions may be premature.  The problem is that the number of stations around the globe that monitor the temperature are dwindling and estimation of temperatures is increasingly taking the place of direct measurement.  This means that instead of real data there is either no data or there is estimated temperature data.

 Additionally, those stations that remain are inevitably near cities or dense concentrations of people in which we would expect a rise of temperature as the years go on.  This is a serious confounding variable since we have lost data on areas with lower densities of people and cannot tell if those areas have also seen an increase in temperature.

My information comes from this helpful blog-     climateaudit.org

Specifically this post-    http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2703

These quotes sum up the article fairly well-

"As the table shows, while GISS says 2007 was the hottest year on record, it was also the second highest year with estimated and/or unavailable temperature data.

To compound the problem, the last thirty years have seen a significant station record die-off."

and

"...while GISS says 2007 was the hottest year on record and GHCN indicates it had the second highest level of temperature estimation, GHCN also indicates that the number of data points for 2007 were the fewest since before 1900." (emphasis added)

Once again, I am not advocating the norm and saying change is not needed.  In fact, the loss of stations may actually be symptomatic of a disregard for these issues.  However, things might (just might) not be as bad as they have been portrayed in the popular culture.

*Now where did I put my flame-retardant vest?*

I definitely agree that pollution is an issue.  There is this show on the Discovery Channel called Survivor Man and he made a comment during one show that is startling.  He gets dumped in remote (and usually mildly hostile) locations where he has to survive for a week by himself.  In spite of the fact that he is nowhere near civilization, he constantly finds trash or other materials (which he subsequently puts to use).  However, it paints a picture of how widespread we have polluted the earth.  Responsibility towards the environment is definitely a mandate for my generation.  Thank you for understanding where I was coming from and that I was only addressing one area of the issue.

pollution has various forms. some are visible around us and some can be noticed as change over a period of time. temperature change is one such thing. i can share one change over the last 40 years in my area. when i was a small child, a dead animal carcass would be scavenged by the vultures in a matter of hours . today, there are no vultures in my area and the animal carcass have to be burnt or buried .

i asked someone as to what happened to the vultures? the answer was simple- ingestion of polluted animal flesh has killed all of them.

the speed with which various types of flora and fauna are getting extinct today is unprecedented and pollution is the cause.

We're all dealing with the facts here, and the data that we've found through research.  It is understood here that different people will have different views, but no one here is taking their view without looking at the facts as they've been able to research and understand them.  No one has read only one side of the story, ignoring the other.  However, there will always be differing opinions, even amongst the scientists, since it is a documented and historical fact that some scientists aren't above making the facts fit their desired end result, even in groups.  All of us here are dealing with not only facts, but how we feel about those facts and how we would like to see the problem resolved.  These are the things that we will be freely expressing here.  You've brought out an interesting point about the melting ice caps not decreasing the coastline.  It's an experiment that we can all carry out at home and observe the results of.  However, we can not say that people have not researched before expressing an opinion when they've documented the research that they've done in forming that opinion.  No one is going to be offended by a differing view.  However, they may be offended by your implication that they didn't do any research before saying anything because their research differs from yours.  This, in effect, is belittling, though you didn't intend it that way.  We have all done our research and have come to our conclusions accordingly.  Since there are scientific results to support both views, then both views are to be equally respected, as well as each person's supporting research.  In that way, we'll keep things from getting heated here.

Oh, yes, the temperature in our global environment is, indeed, rising, and to an alarming degree.  There are so many schools of thought on it, but I heard one a couple of months ago that was really interesting.  Most of us are familiar with the story of the flood from the Bible, involving Noah.  Well, the earth had a layer of cloud cover before the flood that protected the earth, and the extreme flood took away the cloud cover.  Basically, global warming has been growing ever since.  With the introduction of the hotter gases emitted by the industrial age, we now have such problems as the holes in the ozone layer and the extremes of weather that were once not present.  Everyone recognises that the weather is changing over the decades.  But it's been going on alot longer than alot of people think.  So, on the one hand, the people who say that global warming has been going on for millenia have a point.  On the other, our current lifestyles certainly aren't helping matters.  I think all of us will have valid opinions to bring into it.

A very insightful post, this.  Our purpose is to protect and care for the planet that we were given to live on, but we use it and abuse it.  How sad indeed!

mark, i agree with you that the modern person has lost perspective about use/abuse of mother earth. you watch a lion hunt. it chases the herd and the weakest is killed as prey. the pride of lions kills only one prey at a time and next kill takes place only when they are hungery again. but man has to hoard for seven generations which i think is the cause of abuse.

"In every deliberation we must consider the impact on the seventh generation... even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a pine."

- Great Law of the Iroquois

Great quote srtoady...

I think it is worthwhile to note that the Indians of the great plains considered all animals sacred, and in many animals (the eagle, hawk, bear and wolf) they saw the embodiement of the spirits of their ancestors.  To the indigenous people of this land, the buffalo was considered sacred because it supplied them with food and clothing.  When a buffalo was killed, the Native Americans celebrated the life of the buffalo and thanked the great spirits for this gift.

Imagine the horror of watching the white man slaughter this animal by the thousands, just for sport!  They recklessly plundered the land for its resources with a total disregard for the environment.  The Native Americans saw what was happening.  If you don’t respect the earth and its animals, you don’t respect yourself.  The animosity between the invading Europeans and the American Indians was inevitable because one respected the land, the other saw it as an unlimited resource for profit.

Sadly, I do not beleive we have learned anything from our history. 

Kind of hard for this country to change when the person running for the second highest office in the country thinks that GOD has blessed this country with all the oil and natural gas we need.  I think if I was a GOD, the last thing I would do is bless my subjects for ruining what I created.   Would you love to be a fly on the wall when this person gets to meet St. Peter. I am wondering if he will give her the thumbs up or the thumbs down.