Causes of Global Warming :-
Global warming is affecting many parts of
the world. Due to global warming, the glaciers are melting which are causing
the rise in the sea level. When the level of the sea rises, it causes danger to
the people living in the low lying areas. So, this causes a big problem for the
people, plants and animals living on the earth. When the level of the sea
rises, it covers the plants and causes some of them to die. When they die,
animals lose their main source of food. We, human beings lose our two sources
of food, plants and animals. It may also force people to lose their homes. In
other words, the whole chain will get affected if nothing is done on time to
stop global warming from spreading it's wings.
few of the main causes that
are contributing their best towards global warming.
Pollution:
Pollution weather it is vehicular, electrical
or industrial is the main contributor to the global warming. Everyday billions
of vehicles release various gases into the atmosphere. This cause earth to warm
up and increase it's average temperature. Electricity causes pollution in many
ways. Fossil fuels are burnt for e.g. coal is burnt to produce electricity.
Coal is the major fuel that is burnt in these power plants. Coal produces
around 1.7 times as much carbon dioxide per unit of energy when flamed as does
natural gas and 1.25 times as much as oil. Over 75% of the electricity
worldwide is produced by burning fossil fuels. Many gases are sent into the air
when fossil fuels are burnt of which main is the carbon dioxide gas. Industries
on the other hand release various gases into the water and air. Carbon dioxide,
methane, nitrous oxides are the major greenhouse gases. Different gases have
different heat trapping capabilities. Some of them trap more heat than carbon
dioxide. Methane is much more effective then carbon dioxide in entrapping heat
in the atmosphere. By driving cars, using electricity from coal fired plants
and heating up our homes from natural gases, we release carbon dioxide and
other heat trapping gases in the atmosphere.
Deforestation:
Deforestation
is the cutting down of trees and plants to make way for any development
activity. Carbon dioxide is the air that our body lets out when we breathe.
Trees take in this carbon dioxide and release oxygen that we breathe in. With
the cutting down of more and more trees is leading to greater concentration of
carbon dioxide in the air. This means that it is very important to protect our
trees to stop the greenhouse effect, and also so we can breathe and live.
Deforestation is blamed for rise in the greenhouse gases present in the
atmosphere by cutting or burning them. New development projects, requirement of
land for homes and factories, requirement for wood and also soil erosion are
the major factors that are causing deforestation, which in turn leading to
global warming.
Landfills:
When we throw garbage out of our house it goes
to landfills. Landfills are those big chunks of garbage that you must have seen
on some expressway, when you go out of your city, that stink. The garbage
is then used by big recycling companies
to make some useful products out from that garbage. Most of the time that
garbage is burnt which then release some toxic gases into the atmosphere. This
enormous amount of toxic greenhouse gases when go into the atmosphere makes
global warming worse.
Population:
Another cause of global warming is population. Since
Carbon dioxide contributes to global warming, the increase in population makes
the problem worse because we breathe out carbon dioxide. More people means more
demand for food, more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, more demand for cars,
more demand for homes and they all in some how or other lead to global warming.
More demand for food will lead to more transportation since movement of goods
and services is done by transportation sector. More demand for cars means more
pollution in the air and more traffic on the roads which means longer waiting
time on the traffic lights and will result more burning of fuel. More demand for
homes means cutting down of trees to make way for homes, schools and colleges.
SOLUTIONS OF
GLOBAL WARMING :-
Build Earth Some Sunglasses :-
When you're lounging on the beach on a sunny
day with the sun's hot rays beating down on you, you may try to keep out the
glare with a pair of sunglasses or a hat. Some scientists have proposed taking
a similar strategy with our warming planet: putting a ring of
sunlight-scattering particles or micro-spacecraft in orbit around the equator.
The idea is that the ring would reduce the amount of solar radiation hitting
the planet and counteract some of the warming induced by greenhouse gases. The
wild idea would also be an expensive one, with a potential price tag of
trillions of dollars.
Give the Ocean a Dose of Iron
:-
Here's the basic idea: Tiny
photosynthesizing plankton in the ocean use carbon dioxide from the air to make
food. When they die, they sink down to the ocean floor, taking the carbon with
them. Because iron stimulates phytoplankton growth, some people have suggesting
fertilizing parts of the ocean with iron to create huge plankton blooms to suck
up some of the excess carbon dioxide we've emitted into the atmosphere. Several
private companies have attempted ventures to dump iron into the ocean to sell carbon
credits, but many scientists question just how effective the massive blooms are
at trapping and storing carbon. Environmental groups have also warned that iron
dumps may harm the local marine ecosystems.
Lengthen Airplane Flights :-
Besides using up fuel and emitting carbon
dioxide exhaust, airplanes also harm the environment by creating artificial
contrail clouds of condensed water vapor in their wakes. The clouds act as
atmospheric insulation, trapping heat underneath them on the planet. To combat
the problem, some scientists have proposed requiring planes to fly at lower
altitudes, where contrails are less likely to form. But to fly lower, planes
would have to travel longer to reach their destinations. This would also use up
more fuel, but advocates say the drop in fuel efficiency would be offset by the
gain in reducing contrails. Plus, aircraft engineers could focus on making
planes more fuel-efficient at lower altitudes.
Grow Algae in the Ocean
:-
Environmentalist and futurologist James Lovelock, creator of
the Gaia hypothesis, recently added a scheme of his own to the somewhat zany
list of proposed global warming remedies. Lovelock's idea is to use pipes to
stimulate mixing in the world's oceans, bringing deep, nutrient-rich waters to
the surface to feed huge algae blooms that would suck up carbon dioxide from
the atmosphere and sink it to the bottom of the ocean as they died. This method
would only be a Band-Aid though, Lovelock says, because warming will continue
for some time, even if we stop emitting greenhouse gases today.
Plant Fake Trees
:-
Engineers have proposed building a forest of
100,000 fake trees to soak up carbon emissions and combat global warming. The
trees — machines really — would suck carbon from the air through filters and then
store it. The prototype devices are about the same size as a shipping
container, and could remove thousands of times more carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere than an equivalent-sized real tree, say scientists from the
Institution of Mechanical Engineers. The technology still needs work, though,
as does the infrastructure to store the trapped carbon.
Fill the Air With Sulfur
:-
Certain types of aerosols, or tiny particles
suspended in the air, are thought to have an overall cooling effect on the
atmosphere. These particles intercept some solar radiation and scatter it back
into space. The cooling effect on the Earth's climate can be seen after a
volcanic eruption, which can spew millions of tons of sulfur into the
atmosphere. Some scientists have suggested that we mimic nature and inject a
bunch of sulfur into the atmosphere to counteract global warming. One problem
with this plan is the increased amount of acid rain this would generate.
Another is that sulfur would have to be regularly injected into the atmosphere
to keep up the cooling, or global warming would pick up right where it left
off.
Keep Worms in the
Kitchen:-
They're not just pets (or food for them) —
worms can be made useful by putting them to work eating those bits of sandwich
crust and apple cores from the garbage and turning them into compost. The
compost can then be used in gardens and to plant houseplants. Los Angeles city employees have been keeping
a plastic bin of the little wriggling creatures in their office to recycle
their lunch leftovers. If you're not wild about keeping a worm farm in your
kitchen, you could always compost the old-fashioned way with a bin in the
backyard.
Bury the Carbon:
-
Since we have all this extra carbon dioxide
building up in the atmosphere and warming the Earth, some scientists have
proposed taking that excess gas and trapping it somewhere, perhaps underground
in aquifers, coal seams or depleted oil and gas fields. (The method is already
used to push up dregs from the latter.) To do this, carbon dioxide would have
to be separated from plant emissions, compressed and injected into an
underground tomb, where it could be kept for thousands of years. There are
still questions of the costs involved in siphoning off carbon dioxide from
plant gas streams though, and some environmental groups worry about the gas
seeping out of the ground.
Live in Trash :-
No, this doesn't mean you should stop
putting your garbage out every week and start living in an ocean of food
wrappers and tissues. Rather, an engineer at the University of Leeds in England
has created a construction material out of waste (for example, recycled glass,
sewage sludge, and incinerator ash). These "Bitublocks" keep litter
out of the landfill and could be used to build houses. They also take less
energy to make than concrete blocks, their inventor says. Other scientists have
proposed using waste material from poultry farms, such as chicken feathers, to
make more environmentally-friendly plastics.
Ban Plastic Bags and Light Bulbs :-
It may sound like a rash decision, but San
Francisco, China, Australia and more have all jumped on board. China wants to
rid the country of "white pollution" -- the plastic bags that clog
city streets and waterways. And Australia hopes to cut its greenhouse gas emissions
and reduce household energy bills by phasing out sales of incandescent bulbs.
Such measures have gained momentum lately with more governments considering
taking measures against the wasteful bags and inefficient bulbs. But before you
worry about how you'll carry your groceries or light your home, these measures
promote alternatives: recyclable paper bags and reusable cloth ones and more
efficient (and cost-saving) compact fluorescent bulbs.
