Happy Earth Day

[xpgeek]

Today is April 22, Earth Day. I'll let the image I found for today speak my thoughts about today for me.

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/6454/earthday20064yq.jpg

Need I say more?

[Micron]

Cool image.

I remember us doing this before and no-one bothered to post.

Happy Earth day everyone.

[zimagirl79]

As long as the human race continues to live the way we do, it's only going to get worse. Any little thing you do can make a difference. I notice a lot of my neighbors are recycling now, but a lot aren't. I'm amazed at how much waste just my neighborhood produces, and some days I wonder why my household has so much less trash to put out than other households here. Then I think about how I do a lot of gardening and put the harvest up in glass jars. Those jars get re-used every year so that is a lot of trash saved and not going to a landfill. Just one little contribution toward making the earth a better place.

[Uguel]

that's a good idea that you have Zimagirl and all those contributions from
all the people who still care about the planet might play in the end.
Well, we can at least hope for the best. :wink:

I try to use as less paper as possible so when I have to print
something for my personnal use I often print on both sides
with the ink opacity a bit reduced (not to see a double text).

http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/3338/theearth21gw.jpg

[zimagirl79]

I get most of my printing paper from what my kids bring home from school. I get two of everything because their school wastes so much paper. I just print on the backs of their papers. Saves me money and I am not just tossing it all either.

[xpgeek]

I care about the environment, I really do. Don't get me wrong, I'm no tree hugging hippie, I believe in the food chain and understand that in a civilized society, resources must be consumed to live the life we enjoy, but, really big but here, there are other ways to go about it.

Maybe 50 or 60 years ago it was ok to be burning oil and coal and not worrying about the environment at all, and it was, because at that time they just didn't know any better, not really, but science and our understanding of the environment has made incredible, unimaginable, advances in the last 50 years, and now we do know better, at least we should. We know what our ways our doing to the environment, we know the future consequences, that are already taking affect, and we continue them anyway.

The environment, is a word people hear and think of as something far off in some other place they can't do anything about anyway, but the environment is our planet, the only one we have, the only place where human beings are capable of surviving, and we are destroying it. We are putting the entire future of our species, and all other species, in jeopardy.

The affects of what we are doing to the planet are already occurring, anyone who says they aren't, or, its all just natural planet activity anyway, is just in denial. The number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes per 10 year cycle in the last 30 years alone, has Tripled, the number of sustained heat waves to occur in various citys around the globe, has doubled, and an undeniable example I use when talking to people about the subject is, when Glacier Park opened in Montana in the 1930's, there were over 150 glaciers in the park, today, there is 24.

Our 'oil money' president might deny global warming even exists, but its a fact. Face it people, its happening.

[Uguel]

I agree schools use and sometimes waste lots of paper, that is another
good idea that you have here.

Here's another one. ..I notice that most people throw away paint brushes
after they finish painting the house with oil paint. And it is the same with
many artists who do oil paintings. But did you know that you can recycle
or ''re-condition'' those brushes by letting them sit in a jar containing half
paint thinner like turpentine mixed with half tissue softener
(any brand can do, Fleecy or others). I usually let them sit
for 4 to 12 hours and after that I took them out of the jar, I let them
dry on a piece of cloth or just put them in another jar, brush
side up and voilà! The brushes get as soft as brand new ones!

[Micron]

Climate Change Timeline

1827: French polymath Jean-Baptiste Fourier predicts an atmospheric effect keeping the Earth warmer than it would otherwise be. He is the first to use a greenhouse analogy.

1863: Irish scientist John Tyndall publishes a paper describing how water vapour can be a greenhouse gas.

1890s: Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius and an American, P C Chamberlain, independently consider the problems that might be caused by CO2 building up in the atmosphere. Both scientists realise that the burning of fossil fuels could lead to global warming, but neither suspects the process might already have begun.

1890s to 1940: Average surface air temperatures increase by about 0.25 °C. Some scientists see the American Dust Bowl as a sign of the greenhouse effect at work.

1940 to 1970: Worldwide cooling of 0.2°C. Scientific interest in greenhouse effect wanes. Some climatologists predict a new ice age.

1957: US oceanographer Roger Revelle warns that humanity is conducting a "large-scale geophysical experiment" on the planet by releasing greenhouse gases. Colleague David Keeling sets up first continuous monitoring of CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Keeling soon finds a regular year-on-year rise.

1970s: Series of studies by the US Department of Energy increases concerns about future global warming.

1979: First World Climate Conference adopts climate change as major issue and calls on governments "to foresee and prevent potential man-made changes in climate."

1985: First major international conference on the greenhouse effect at Villach, Austria, warns that greenhouse gases will "in the first half of the next century, cause a rise of global mean temperature which is greater than any in man's history." This could cause sea levels to rise by up to one metre, researchers say. The conference also reports that gases other than CO2, such as methane, ozone, CFCs and nitrous oxide, also contribute to warming.

1987: Warmest year since records began. The 1980s turn out to be the hottest decade on record, with seven of the eight warmest years recorded up to 1990. Even the coldest years in the 1980s were warmer than the warmest years of the 1880s.

1988: Global warming attracts worldwide headlines after scientists at Congressional hearings in Washington DC blame major US drought on its influence. Meeting of climate scientists in Toronto subsequently calls for 20% cuts in global CO2 emissions by the year 2005. UN sets up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to analyse and report on scientific findings.

1990: The first report of the IPCC finds that the planet has warmed by 0.5°C in the past century. IPCC warns that only strong measures to halt rising greenhouse gas emissions will prevent serious global warming. This provides scientific clout for UN negotiations for a climate convention. Negotiations begin after the UN General Assembly in December.

1991: Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Philippines, throwing debris into the stratosphere that shields the Earth from solar energy, which helps interrupt the warming trend. Average temperatures drop for two years before rising again. Scientists point out that this event shows how sensitive global temperatures are to disruption.

1992: Climate Change Convention, signed by 154 nations in Rio, agrees to prevent "dangerous" warming from greenhouse gases and sets initial target of reducing emissions from industrialised countries to 1990 levels by the year 2000.

1994: The Alliance of Small Island States - many of whom fear they will disappear beneath the waves as sea levels rise - adopt a demand for 20% cuts in emissions by the year 2005. This, they say, will cap sea-level rise at 20 centimetres.

1995: The hottest year recorded to date. In March, the Berlin Mandate is agreed by signatories at the first full meeting of the Climate Change Convention in Berlin. Industrialised nations agree on the need to negotiate real cuts in their emissions, to be concluded by the end of 1997.

In November, the IPCC states that current warming "is unlikely to be entirely natural in origin" and that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate". Its report predicts that, under a "business as usual" scenario, global temperatures by the year 2100 will have risen by between 1°C and 3.5°C.

1996: At the second meeting of the Climate Change Convention, the US agrees for the first time to legally binding emissions targets and sides with the IPCC against influential sceptical scientists. After a four-year pause, global emissions of CO2 resume their steep climb, and scientists warn that most industrialised countries will not meet Rio agreement to stabilise emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000.

1997: Kyoto Protocol agrees legally binding emissions cuts for industrialised nations, averaging 5.4%, to be met by 2010. The meeting also adopts a series of flexibility measures, allowing countries to meet their targets partly by trading emissions permits, establishing carbon sinks such as forests to soak up emissions, and by investing in other countries. The precise rules are left for further negotiations. Meanwhile, the US government says it will not ratify the agreement unless it sees evidence of "meaningful participation" in reducing emissions from developing countries.

1998: Follow-up negotiations in Buenos Aires fail to resolve disputes over the Kyoto "rule book", but agree on a deadline for resolution by the end of 2000. 1998 is the hottest year in the hottest decade of the hottest century of the millennium.

2000: IPCC scientists re-assess likely future emissions and warn that, if things go badly, the world could warm by 6°C within a century. A series of major floods around the world reinforce public concerns that global warming is raising the risk of extreme weather events. But in November, crunch talks held in The Hague to finalise the "Kyoto rule book" fail to reach agreement after EU and US fall out. Decisions postponed until at least May 2001.

2001: The new US president, George W Bush, renounces the Kyoto Protocol because he believes it will damage the US economy. After some hesitation, other nations agree to go ahead without him. Talks in Bonn in July and Marrakech in November finally conclude the fine print of the protocol. Analysts say that loopholes have pegged agreed cuts in emissions from rich-nation signatories to less than a third of the original Kyoto promise. Signatory nations urged to ratify the protocol in their national legislatures in time for it to come into force before the end of 2002.

2002: Parliaments in the European Union, Japan and others ratify Kyoto. But the protocol's complicated rules require ratification by nations responsible for 55% of industrialised country emissions, before it can come into force. After Australia joins the US in reneging on the deal, Russia is left to make or break the treaty, but hesitates. Meanwhile, the world experiences the second hottest year on record.

2003: Globally it is the third hottest year on record, but Europe experiences the hottest summer for at least 500 years, with an estimated 30,000 fatalities as a result. Researchers later conclude the heat wave is the first extreme weather event almost certainly attributable to man-made climate change. Extreme weather costs an estimated record of $60 billion this year. 2003 also sees a marked acceleration in the rate of accumulation of greenhouse gases. Scientists are uncertain if it is a blip or a new, more ominous trend. Meanwhile Russia blows hot and cold over Kyoto.

2004: A deal is struck on Kyoto. President Putin announces in May that Russia will back the Protocol - and the EU announces it will support Russia's membership of the World Trade Organization. On 18 November, the Russian parliament ratifies the protocol, paving the way for it to come into force in 2005.

2005: Second warmest year on record. Researchers link warming to a record US hurricane season, accelerated melting of Arctic sea ice and Siberian permafrost, and apparent disruption of the global ocean current that warms Europe. The Kyoto Protocol comes into force. In December, Kyoto signatories agree to discuss emissions targets for the second compliance period beyond 2012, while countries without targets, including the US and China, agree to a “non-binding dialogue” on their future roles in curbing emissions.

January 2006 - The future:

Climate change is with us. A decade ago, it was conjecture. Now the future is unfolding before our eyes. Canada's Inuit see it in disappearing Arctic ice and permafrost. The shantytown dwellers of Latin America and Southern Asia see it in lethal storms and floods. Europeans see it in disappearing glaciers, forest fires and fatal heat waves.

Scientists see it in tree rings, ancient coral and bubbles trapped in ice cores. These reveal that the world has not been as warm as it is now for a millennium or more. The three warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998; 19 of the warmest 20 since 1980. And Earth has probably never warmed as fast as in the past 30 years - a period when natural influences on global temperatures, such as solar cycles and volcanoes should have cooled us down. Studies of the thermal inertia of the oceans suggest that there is more warming in the pipeline.

Climatologists reporting for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) say we are seeing global warming caused by human activities and there are growing fears of feedbacks that will accelerate this warming.

Global greenhouse

People are causing the change by burning nature's vast stores of coal, oil and natural gas. This releases billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) every year, although the changes may actually have started with the dawn of agriculture, say some scientists.

The physics of the "greenhouse effect" has been a matter of scientific fact for a century. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that traps the Sun's radiation within the troposphere, the lower atmosphere. It has accumulated along with other man-made greenhouse gases, such as methane and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

If current trends continue, we will raise atmospheric CO2 concentrations to double pre-industrial levels during this century. That will probably be enough to raise global temperatures by around 2°C to 5°C. Some warming is certain, but the degree will be determined by feedbacks involving melting ice, the oceans, water vapour, clouds and changes to vegetation.

Warming is bringing other unpredictable changes. Melting glaciers and precipitation are causing some rivers to overflow, while evaporation is emptying others. Diseases are spreading. Some crops grow faster while others see yields slashed by disease and drought. Strong hurricanes are becoming more frequent and destructive. Arctic sea ice is melting faster every year, and there are growing fears of a shutdown of the ocean currents that keep Europe warm for its latitude. Clashes over dwindling water resources may cause conflicts in many regions.

As natural ecosystems - such as coral reefs - are disrupted, biodiversity is reduced. Most species cannot migrate fast enough to keep up, though others are already evolving in response to warming.

Thermal expansion of the oceans, combined with melting ice on land, is also raising sea levels. In this century, human activity could trigger an irreversible melting of the Greenland ice sheet and Antarctic glaciers. This would condemn the world to a rise in sea level of six metres - enough to flood land occupied by billions of people.

The global warming would be more pronounced if it were not for sulphur particles and other pollutants that shade us, and because forests and oceans absorb around half of the CO2 we produce. But the accumulation rate of atmospheric CO2 has increased since 2001, suggesting that nature's ability to absorb the gas could now be stretched to the limit. Recent research suggests that natural CO2 "sinks", like peat bogs and forests, are actually starting to release CO2.

Deeper cuts

At the Earth Summit in 1992, the world agreed to prevent "dangerous" climate change. The first step was the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which finally came into force during 2005. It will bring modest emission reductions from industrialised countries. But many observers say deeper cuts are needed and developing nations, which have large and growing populations, will one day have to join in.

Some, including the US Bush administration, say the scientific uncertainty over the pace of climate change is grounds for delaying action. The US and Australia have reneged on Kyoto. During 2005 these countries, and others, suggested "clean fuel" technologies as an alternative to emissions cuts.

In any case, according to the IPCC, the world needs to quickly improve the efficiency of its energy usage and develop renewable non-carbon fuels like: wind, solar, tidal, wave and perhaps nuclear power. It also means developing new methods of converting this clean energy into motive power, like hydrogen fuel cells for cars. Trading in Kyoto carbon permits may help.

Other less conventional solutions include ideas to stave off warming by "mega-engineering" the planet with giant mirrors to deflect the Sun's rays, seeding the oceans with iron to generate algal blooms, or burying greenhouse gases below the sea.

The bottom line is that we will need to cut CO2 emissions by 70% to 80% simply to stabilise atmospheric CO2 concentrations - and thus temperatures. The quicker we do that, the less unbearably hot our future world will be.

[FisionChips]

Your cartoon says it all Xpgeek... :cry:
I do everything possible to reduce the environmental impact our family has on the world. I travel by air a lot however and aircraft are currently one of the most damaging means of travel in existence.... hopefully the claims being made about the improved efficiency of the new generation of 'super jumbos' being introduced are true...

7E7 Dreamliner (http://www.popsci.com/popsci/bown/2003/article/0,18881,536642,00.html)

Airbus A380 (http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviationspace/03d989c49db84010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html)

Happy Earth day...

[Uguel]

> snip

The affects of what we are doing to the planet are already occurring, anyone who says they aren't, or, its all just natural planet activity anyway, is just in denial. The number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes per 10 year cycle in the last 30 years alone, has Tripled, the number of sustained heat waves to occur in various citys around the globe, has doubled, and an undeniable example I use when talking to people about the subject is, when Glacier Park opened in Montana in the 1930's, there were over 150 glaciers in the park, today, there is 24.

Our 'oil money' president might deny global warming even exists, but its a fact. Face it people, its happening.

Right, it is getting more and more obvious. I have friends who work very far in the North of Quebec and they said that the Inuits are wondering what is happening now. They said they see phenomenon that they have never seen before. Not only is it getting hotter there too but the environment is changing accordingly and places they use to go fishing are getting smaller and smaller catches.