Why it is Important to Know the Main Cause of Global Warming

When it comes to protecting our planet, there is no subject that is more important then that of the main cause of global warming. Although there is still a lot of work and research to be done in the science community it is important to know that a lot of people feel that the main cause of global warming is people. What we, the human race that depends on the planet, are doing to the planet is truly upsetting. Our actions and the chemicals that we use on a daily basis is said to be a big factor in everything warming up.

Unlike a natural cause of global warming, we are able to control ourselves in enough of a way that could potentially protect our planet from being hurt any further. The main cause of global warming is certainly something that we should all be ashamed of and therefore doing as much as possible to make sure that this is not the case for the future generations. We have to educate ourselves and then educate our children so that the situation does not continue to get worse over time.

Teaching Our Young People

By taking a few extra moments out of your week you could truly impact the way your child understands the main cause of global warming. If you start asking questions you may be surprised to find that they may not even truly understand what global warming even means. As shocking as that may be it is time to start looking towards the future and make sure that our young people know as much as possible in order to make the right decisions as they age in order to protect our planet, to protect their futures and the futures of their children.

If your school is not activity talking about global warming then that may be something that you would want to discuss with the teacher or the principal. There is no reason why there could not be small lessons every once in a while in order to truly teach the children about the main cause of global warming. In the end, even if just a few children are really reached with the message about the major problems with global warming then it was all worth it. Take your time and dedicated yourself to making sure that our young people know what they need to know in order to help the situation.

Global Warming Books: Some Support And Some Deny

Global warming is discussed in two main types of books. Some authors downplay the issue and insist there is no problem. Others speak of the compelling evidence, dangerous consequences, and solutions. Reading books with more than one viewpoint on the subject gives a balanced perspective.

Probably the most well-known book on global warming is Al Gore's book AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH: THE PLANETARY EMERGENCY OF GLOBAL WARMING AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT. Gore's book shows reasons why people need to save the earth from the hazards of climatic change. It also implores world leaders to stand up and take heed of the warnings of an environment in crisis.

An opposing viewpoint is presented in a book titled UNSTOPPABLE GLOBAL WARMING: EVERY 1500 YEARS. The book, written by Dennis T. Avery and S. Fred Singer, is an argument that global warming is a cyclical event that has happened gradually and systematically throughout history. Scientific data backs up their claims and demonstrates why no one, in the authors' opinions, should be concerned about global warming.

However, compelling scientific facts do exist that support the claims of the dangers caused by climatic changes. A book called GLOBAL WARMING: THE COMPLETE BRIEFING tells facts and theories about the foundations of a hotter climate. In it, the future of the world and ways to help minimize the problem are outlined.

Children can learn about the subject by reading a book called THIS IS MY PLANET: THE KIDS' GUIDE TO GLOBAL WARMING. Jan Thornhill, the author or the book, gives startling facts about the quickly occurring changes in our environment and tells how it is happening. Catering to the younger audience, though, she is careful to sprinkle the book with a lot of hope and ways for children to help improve the situation.

THE DOWN TO EARTH GUIDE TO GLOBAL WARMING, by Laurie David and Cambria Gordon, is a book that uses humor to discuss a serious subject. It not only has facts about the genesis of extreme warming, but it is full of vivid pictures. It is another book aimed at elementary-age children, and it tells ways for kids to fight the problem in every area of their lives.

A fun and interesting book is THE LIVE EARTH GLOBAL WARMING SURVIVAL HANDBOOK: 77 ESSENTIAL SKILLS TO STOP CLIMATE CHANGE. David de Rothschild, the author, constructed the book to be a tongue-in-cheek survival guide for a hotter planet. At the same time, it offers important information about ways to improve the environment. It is a companion book to the Live Earth Concerts that took place around the world during a 24-hour period in July of 2007.

It is easy to find books about what is perhaps the most important environmental issue of the current century. Many are aimed at the children who are next to inherit the earth. Some focus heavily on scientific data. Others rely on humor to spread their message. Some are even a simple call to arms to anyone willing to help curb global warming. It is a subject worth studying, and there are plenty of books available to the earnest pupil.

Stop Global Warming

Global warming is the issue worrying one and all environmentalists around the world. It is now becoming quite imperative that be stop global warming fastest so that the effects of warming that have affected earth adversely are reversed and we are able to live a little happily than before.

There are many things that can be done on a personal level to stop global warming. Firstly, we should know how much heat and pollution is created by every family, this pollution is producing green houses gases and accelerating the process of global warming. One of the answers to stop the warming is that we should consciously start planting trees not just around us, we also ensure that the lost rainforests and tropical forests are restored back to their normal volume.

These tropical and rain forests work as lungs for the entire world, creating oxygen and purifying the air. Therefore, when these are cut off, it can harm the entire ecological system of the Earth, this means there will be very less oxygen and lesser trees to provide us with oxygen. It will make us susceptible to many breathing disorders and other health problems.

We need to stop global warming, is that the scientists have been telling us for quite sometime now. The reason is obvious, if not stopped or reduced, the large snow mountains at the poles will start melting, and this will lead to a sort of catastrophe. World’s major population stays at the sea side. Once the ice starts melting it will increase the sea levels several feet above what it is now. It has been already reported from the countries near the North pole that the rising sea levels has caused them to relocate their homes a little farther.

Rising sea levels will mean destruction of huge numbers of human beings, animals, property, industries, flora and fauna. This will also mean flooding and increase in salinity of available ground water. This again is potentially harmful for human health. This will also mean millions of people will have to move from near the sea to interiors. This would also mean loss of life and loss of millions of dollars.

If you feel strongly against global warming you should try and make contributions to organization you feel has been working actively for the purpose to stop global warming. Your small financial contributions can make a lot of difference. Your contributions can provide boost to these organizations to find man power and monetary power to buy land and convert it from arid dry deforested land to a good sized forest.

You can also stop global warming at your personal level. You can try and plant as many trees around your home. You can also try and use minimum electricity, you can try and avoid usage of sprays, non-green products which increase toxic waste on the Planet. It is necessary to stop global warming so our children can live healthy and long lives.

Climate Changes Due to Global Warming

While the drastic effects of global warming has been discussed in many scientific circles, had their run on TV and even had major exposure through well-meaning (but sadly inaccurate) Hollywood films, it's a concern that has a broad political, economic, social and geographical significance to countries all over the world. Quite literally, for all of us, there is nowhere to hide, nowhere to run and we can't stop the climate from changing. It's just way too big for us.

How to recognize global warming
Whether or not it's brewing something good or something bad, Nature always tries to warn us through many signs. The slow process involved in global warming results in many different things and some of its signs include:

Melting of glaciers
Most of the mountain glaciers on our planet that have been monitored for the past 150 years are reportedly shrinking. The glaciers most affected by global warming those located in the lower latitudes and many of them are disappearing. If glaciers continue to shrink, it could affect water supply in areas that depend heavily upon mountain watersheds.

If the scenarios of global warming continue, most of the glaciers that still stand today will disappear by 2100.

Ocean warming
Sea level increase is attributed to warmer temperatures, which in turn result to the melting of ice glaciers. Over the last 100 years, sea level has increased from 10 cm to 25 cm. Projections over the next hundred years indicate that sea level will rise higher, from about 15 cm to 90 cm. Based on the higher figure, that's about 3 feet.

Translated, this could mean that beaches lose about 50 feet of area for every foot of increase in sea level. Some islands may even disappear beneath sea water completely.

Heat waves
Heat waves and periods of weather that are unusually warm are also signs of global warming. These may come about with varying degrees of their severity and frequency, causing concerns in the economics and health on a global scale.

How global warming brings climate change and what it means to us
The earth's climate has always been changing, although not at an abrupt rate. There had been periods of warming and cooling in the earth's 4.65 billion-year history. Strange as it may sound to some, this is the reason why life became possible on this planet millions of years ago. Unfortunately, not all of the changes in climate brought about by global warming may be beneficial to many of us.

For one, global warming will raise the temperatures in some regions of the Northern Hemisphere, causing the melting of mountain glaciers. This means that areas that are currently experiencing light snow may no longer experience snowfall anymore. Snowlines found in mountains in temperate regions may also be higher and packs of snow will melt earlier than before.

Spring may be experienced earlier and temperatures during night time and in winter will rise. The world will experience a more humid atmosphere since sea water will have a higher rate of evaporation. With greater humidity, rainfall is expected to increase on average.

Storms will also occur with more frequency and intensity. Ironically, water in the soil will evaporate faster, causing dryness between rains. Regions that are already considered dry will experience more dryness. Some semi-arid regions in the African continent, for example, may suffer more while areas that depend on their region's mountain snow packs for irrigation will not benefit from earlier melting between growing seasons.

With warmer weather, some hurricanes will be more severe and winds are expected to blow stronger. It is also possible that wind patterns may shift. Extremely cold periods may be experienced as well.

The phenomenon known as El Nino may occur in more frequency and severity. This is expected to affect different regions in many countries. All in all, scientists will have some difficulty in predicting weather patterns.

With changes in climate brought about by global warming, health concerns and risks may also increase. Heat stress and diseases may become common in places that did not have any problems with them before.

Global warming is an issue that requires immediate action. Even plants and animal species are adversely affected by it. While many of the changes that occur in our planet are totally out of our hands, we have been direct contributors to events that have had negative effects on our environment. This is why many leading social and scientific organizations have urged nations to cooperate in the move to counter this worldwide problem before it's too late.

Global Warming: Silencing The Critics

A recent poll of 530 climatologists in 27 countries showed 34.7 percent of interviewees endorsed the notion that a substantial part of the current global warming trend - which might see temperatures rise by a degree or two, on average, by century's end - is caused by man's industrial activities: driving cars and the like.

More than a fifth - 20.5 percent - rejected this "anthropogenic hypothesis." Half were undecided. The skeptics now include the 85 climate experts who signed the 1995 Leipzig Declaration; the 4,000 scientists from around the world (including 70 Nobel laureates) who signed the Heidelberg Appeal, and the 17,000 American scientists who signed the Oregon Petition.

Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg, who bought the sky-is-falling scenario until he bothered to check some of the numbers, which led him to do his own research, at which point he wrote the book "The Skeptical Environmentalist" and became the Man The Greens Love to Hate, reminded the folks at Tech Central Atation last November that most economists believe the projected level of warming would either have no effect or be beneficial.

Cold weather kills people, Lomborg reminded us. "It is estimated that climate change by about 2050 will mean about 800,000 fewer deaths." And that's before we even get around to increased food production. (If you want a real climate catastrophe, let's talk about the next Ice Age, which is due relatively soon.)

What's more, scientists at Ohio State University announced Feb. 12 that Antarctic "temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models." In fact, they went down. So why would one get the sense from the daily barrage of electronic news that "all experts now agree" the earth is heating catastrophically, and that mankind's use of fossil fuels is at fault?

First, pay attention to the wording. Just as many who want American taxpayers to provide welfare schooling and welfare health care for everyone who can walk here from Mexico and points south blithely lie and say their opponents "oppose immigration" - rather than acknowledging the debate is about "illegal immigration" - so are those who aim to cripple the industrial economies of the Western world careful to ridicule those who "deny global warming," instead of acknowledging that most skeptics agree there is indeed some minor warming going on, only objecting to the notion that this is a crisis and that mankind's activities are primarily "at fault" - along with the corollary nutty prescription that destroying every power plant and automobile in America and Western Europe would make much difference.

As demonstrated in the book "Unstoppable Global Warming - Every 1,500 Years," by S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery, based on the climate cycle discovered by Dansgaar, Oeschger, and Lorius (who received the Tyler Prize - the "environmental Nobel" - in 1996), those who attribute the bulk of the warming cycle to man's modern technology willfully ignore the similar fluctuations known to history as the medieval warming period (when Greenland supported Viking farms), the Roman warming period, and the Holocene Climatic Optimum, when SUVs and coal-fired electric plants were notably thin on the ground.

But the second reason a casual viewer could conclude the skeptics have disappeared is that "Spreading the global warming gospel with unified voice are 12,000 environmental groups controlling about $20 billion in assets," the Tucson-based Doctors for Disaster Preparedness reported last month. In comparison, "Truth seekers have at most a few million, lack the support of the press or Hollywood, and are generally shut out of government-funded schools and universities."

Which is where the foulest and most inexcusable abuses occur, of course. In direct contravention of the First Amendment guarantee that our tax dollars will never be spent to impose any "establishment of religion," our children are in fact being spoon-fed the Green doctrine of global warming - memory bytes in doggerel and song - when they're far too young to bring any critical faculties to bear on this hypothesis.

And some critical perspective sure is needed. Spiralling energy costs fueled by green hysteria "have caused the loss of 100,000 jobs in the UK over 18 months," report Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, again citing Tech Central Station. Al Gore's anti-global warming plan would leave the average person 30 percent poorer by 2100, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Singer & Avery book points out that scrapping every car, truck and SUV in America would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by only about 2 percent. Meantime, merely extinguishing all the coal deposit fires that continue to burn unchecked around the world would reduce those emissions by 2 to 3 percent. Which is a more sensible thing to try?

Clearly, those who want to cripple our industrial economy have some other motive. And maybe that explains how shrill they can get in their attempt to silence the hated "climate deniers," who they now liken to "Holocaust deniers."

According to U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe's own Web site, she and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, sent a letter to ExxonMobil chairman Rex Tillerson in October of last year, demanding the firm stop funding "a small cadre of scientists" who question global warming dogma, instead insisting the heavily regulated oil company "publicly acknowledge both the reality of climate change and the role of humans in causing or exacerbating it."

ExxonMobil, whose executives presumably know where gas taxes and offshore oil leases come from, cut off its funding for the Competitive Enterprise Institute last year.

Viscount Monckton, a former advisor to Margaret Thatcher, in a Dec. 11 letter to the senators protested this heavy-handed attempt to silence critics, lauding the courage of the "free-thinking scientists who continue to research climate change independently - despite the likelihood of refusal of publication in journals that have taken a preconceived position; the hate mail and vilification from ignorant environmentalists; and the threat of loss of tenure in institutions of learning which no longer make any pretense to uphold or cherish academic freedom."
But when it comes to intimidating the opposition, the senators are pikers.

The British foreign secretary "has said that skeptics should be treated like advocates of Islamic terror and denied access to the media," Doctors for Disaster Preparedness report in their January newsletter. George Monbiot wrote in England's "Guardian" that "Every time someone drowns as a result of floods in Bangladesh, an airline executive should be dragged out of his office and drowned."

Grist magazine has called for Nuremberg-style war crimes trials for those who deny the internal combustion engine is about to cause a global climate disaster. Heidi Cullen, host of the weekly global warming TV show "Climate Code," has called for the American Meteorological Society to strip its certification from any weatherman (or gal) who publicly questions anthropogenic global warming.

Meantime, European Union Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas tells the BBC that people should view the battle against climate change as a war - accepting the privations of a wartime economy and expecting millions of casualties.

And we were wondering why we only seem to hear one side of the story, these days? Isn't that kind of like asking why no one ever stood up in church in early 16th century Europe and started explaining how unlikely it was that these witches were really flying around at night, causing other people's cows to go dry?

The Global Warming Cult – Back to Paganism and Onwards to Higher Taxes of Course

The Europeans in their desire to be relevant on the world stage, have erected some immoral and vicious philosophies. Fascism, Communism, Socialism and post modern nonsense and dialecticism exemplified by the Useless Nations, as well as other cults of utopian fantasy are obvious examples. Like its cousin the current Eco-fascist Global Warming cult is premised on non-scientific data; a belief in an all knowing kind technocratic elite that will lead the group; a belief in a new world order; a hatred of modernity; a hatred of capitalism; a hatred of US inspired liberalism and a disdain for work, ethics, virtue and reality. The Eco-fascist cult is nothing more than a sick offering of left over philosophical food, cooked with rancid Marxism, coated with moral superiority complexes, sprinkled with non-scientific platitudes, and garnished by an self-adoring elite who just can’t get enough of their own importance. Eco-cultism and the Global Warming baloney is another sad example of the Euro-trash elite trying to make itself relevant. Global warming does not exist; has no relationship with human activity and is based on natural cycles and trends.

Yet the current media fascination with the eco-cult knows no limits. The current uproar over Global Warming is one of the greatest intellectual frauds in history and one that will be paid for by tax payers. The Europeans are hell bent to decrease the energy cost disadvantage they have with the far more dynamic and prosperous US economy. The Euro-eco fetish mandates the increase in socialist meddling; more unions; more bureaucrats and more dumb standards. Taxes will rise; industry will contract and jobs will be lost – but the Euro and buro-cats will tell you smugly that you sacrifice all for your children. Other cults including Hitlerism, Communism and Islam say the same.

If the Eco-fascists have their way not only will oil be off-limits in North America to new drilling but nuclear power, clean burning coal plants and other carbon based systems will be torn down. Added to this dislocation we have the eco-fascist cult lead by all-knowing seers such as the Useless Nations and Al Gore, screaming that we must do something now! to stop the earth from collapsing thanks to man-made global warming. The fact that not a shred of evidence supports the idea that humans cause global warming is hardly important to the Eco-fascist cult. It is the idea that counts! Not only that but the immoral, bloody, dirty, degenerate and rich West will have to transfer to the poorer nations enormous monies under Global Warming agreements to limit CO2 and other Greenhouse gas emissions. So shout the Eco-fascists. The costs to industry will escalate, economic growth will contract and our society will become a whole lot poorer to appease a small, government funded lobby group that is divorced from reality and a threat to our own existence.

The nonsense surrounding the global warming theory is thick and dense. But here is quick overview of why it is eco-cult garbage.

The Eco-fascist cult, lead by chief hypocrite Al Gore, believes that CO2, water vapor and Methane emissions will cause the earth to warm. This increased temperature will have catastrophic environmental impacts; such as melting ice caps, rising sea levels, ecological devastation and species reduction. Al Gore and his friends predict that without a massive reduction of about 30 % of CO2 and Methane from human induced non-renewal energy burning sources, the earth’s temperature will increase by 1-5 Degrees Celsius by 2100. Apparently this would cause a massive calamity. The culprits are rich countries who burn non-renewal fossil fuels. Developing countries including China and India are not to blame. In addition to policies and measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, nations should use other mechanisms to meet their commitments in a cost-effective way. Such mechanisms include international emissions trading, the clean development mechanism and joint implementation. In other words, don’t reduce your emissions, just pay someone else to buy their ‘credits’.

The philosophy is badly flawed and utopian – like any fascist cult. The science behind global warming is so bad that 18.000 Climatologists and Scientists have signed a petition stating that it is junk science. Politicians tell you that the scientific community is united on global warming. It isn’t. Only 800 environmental activists and government scientists support the idea. The idea that somehow the earth is not going through a natural climate cycle has never been seriously refuted. Data seems to indicate that there are regular occurrences like the little ice age and the medieval warm period in a rough 1500 year cycle. This cycle has repeated itself endlessly over the past 140.000 years. For example the earth was much warmer during the Medieval Warm Period 900-1400 AD. This warm spell ended around 1350-1400 and the temperature decreased precipitating the ‘Little Ice Age’ [1400-1900]. IPCC models can’t explain these temperature swings.

In the 20th century any temperature increase apparently occurred in two phases, during 1910-1945 and from 1975-2000. The first period is impossible to align with greenhouse emissions. The second phase can be aligned with emissions but 25 years does not constitute a meaningful long term trend, especially when between 1945-1975 there were rising emissions but no corresponding increase in temperature. Dr. Tim Patterson, professor of earth sciences at Ottawa's Carleton University, Dr. Pat Michaels, professor of climatology at the University of Virginia, Dr. John Christy, Professor and Director, Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama, and many others explain that these far more accurate and comprehensive satellite temperature sensors reveal only a very small temperature rise since measurements began in 1979. Dr. Christy says the trend is about 0.07C per decade, right at the edge of statistical significance and certainly far too small to be noticeable. As well climatologists Marcel Fligge and Sami Solanki demonstrated in the respected journal, Geophysical Research Letters, that the warming or cooling of the Earth during the past four centuries closely matches variations in the Sun's brightness.

Besides the above we have common sense. Most importantly -- Ninety five percent of CO2 emissions come from natural sources and the earth releases 210,000 mega tonnes each year of CO2 gas. Only about 5 % of this comes from industrial and human activity. Even if you wiped out the human race the effect on CO2 emissions would be only 5 % of the total released yearly. Why then worry about it? Then there is the catch all nature of the Eco-fascist cult. Much like other cults – everything is attributed to the cult of global warming. Cold winter? Damn that global warming. Hurricanes? blame CO2. More ice in Antarctica’s eastern fringe? – well that is global warming at work too.

Al Gore and the Eco-fascist club is Marxist and anti-capitalist. The basic idea of their creed is that capitalism - represented by the immoral United States - is a danger to our mother earth. The earth goddess cult is a cheap way to gain votes. By installing the earth goddess cult into political debate politicians are able to do a number of things. First, they can buy off the green, left wing and eco-cult vote. Second, they can raise taxes and hire more union members in the name of love, the future, our children's green space, saving the world, and other platitudes routinely employed to buy votes. Third, they can denigrate capitalism, growing economies and market dynamics by offering government as the only solution to solve an incurable 'market failure'. Lastly they can resurrect the sorry paganism of the noble savage, the stone age nirvana of the earth goddess cult, as they transfer monies from the rich immoral northern part of the world, to the corrupt, polluted and failing areas of Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. Apparently destroying your economy and ecology through socialist mismanagement as witnessed in Africa and Eastern Europe, needs to be rewarded.

Message to Gore and company - get lost and if you are so enamored of pagan cults, go live in Arabia.

Starting A Runaway Global Warming Process

Accelerated global warming could lead to a runaway methane global warming effect due to the release of methane currently trapped in unstable methane hydrate deposits in the arctic that could be destabilised by accelerated global warming effects.

Core samples taken from old ocean sediment layers have been used to trace back in time the climate changes that have occurred over the past tens of millions of years. By analysing the incidence of different fossil shell remains of sea creatures occurring in these sediments it is possible to track the changes in the sea water temperatures and levels of atmospheric CO2 occurring at the time the shells were formed and deposited. These shells contain carbon from the CO2 in the atmosphere which was dissolved in the sea water in which the creatures lived just as takes place today.

From these records it appears that there have been short periods of only a few hundred years in the geological past when rapid increases of the Earth's temperature have occurred superimposed on top of the rise and fall of average temperatures over the longer term. For these short periods temperature rises of up to 8 degrees centigrade appear to have occurred on top of existing long term rises of 5 to 7 degrees to give temperatures up to 15 degrees centigrade warmer than today. Temperatures then fell back to the long term trend, the whole rise and fall only lasting a few hundred years.

The most likely cause of this rapid global warming over such a short period is the release of methane into the atmosphere. Methane is 60 times more powerful than CO2 as a greenhouse gas but only remains in the atmosphere for about ten years and so looses it's greenhouse effect quickly compared to CO2 which remains in the atmosphere for 100 years. CO2 would not be available in sufficient quantities to achieve the rapid warming and if CO2 was the cause then the raised temperatures would last a lot longer.

Methane hydrates occur extensively today all over the world. They consist of methane stored within unstable water bound deposits that if disturbed release the methane. They occur in major river deltas such as the Amazon delta and in old delta areas such as the Gulf of Mexico. Major rivers carry millions of tons of silt containing vegetable matter that continues to decay after the silt is deposited in the river delta. This anaerobic decay produces methane which gets trapped in the silt as methane hydrates until the conditions of water temperature and pressure change which can release the methane in vast quantities very quickly.

Another form is a frozen slush/ice methane hydrate where the methane is trapped in an ice/water mixture which releases the methane when it warms up or the pressure on the ice is reduced. Frozen methane hydrates can contain 170 times their own volume of methane. These frozen hydrates occur in the seabed deposits of the Arctic Ocean.

Methane can also be trapped by permafrost layers which over-lay lower unfrozen layers of vegetable material that is decaying and producing methane which remains trapped by the frozen permafrost on top. If the permafrost layer were to melt then the methane in the layers below would escape into the atmosphere. Given the vast areas of permafrost in northern latitudes there is a significant potential for methane to be trapped that would be released if the permafrost melted as a result of global warming.

The theory for these rapid rises and falls of temperature, based on the geological records from 55 million years ago, is that gradual global warming due to some natural cause had resulted in temperatures 5 to 7 degrees centigrade higher than average (i.e. higher than today's temperatures). At this point methane trapped in methane hydrate deposits started to be released into the atmosphere and accelerated the rate of warming. This would result in further warming releasing more methane.

As the atmosphere warmed different types of methane deposits would start to be released and so a cycle of methane release leading to increased warming leading to more methane release from other areas of methane deposits elsewhere in the world would become established as global warming effected different areas of the world.

There is an intriguing photograph of what appears to be a methane plume coming up out of the Arctic ice sheet which indicates that the phenomenon described above can occur. There have also been incidences of oil drilling inadvertently triggering large releases of methane from hydrate deposits. One theory to explain the loss of ships in the so called Bermuda triangle is that they have been engulfed in a sudden methane release which reduces the buoyancy of the sea water so that the ship sinks.

So, does methane pose a threat today? Let us review the situation. We know there are extensive methane hydrate and permafrost deposits all around the world. We have evidence that we are at the beginning of a period of global warming that is probably being made worse by the continuing build up of CO2 in the atmosphere due to fossil fuel burning. Recent computer modelling incorporating the feed back effects of global warming that has already occurred suggests that by about 2050 we may start to loose the beneficial effects of the Amazon rain forest as a carbon sink.

This could lead to temperature rises of 5 to 8 degrees centigrade by 2100. This would be uncharted territory and no one really knows at present how the world's environmental systems would change but we now have the evidence from the geological past. On the basis of this evidence global warming can lead to methane releases which once started would escalate. This would be the worst possible thing to happen because once started there would be no way of stopping a runaway methane global warming event.

We CAN reduce our CO2 emissions from fossil fuels but we COULD NOT reduce methane emissions once they started, huge natural forces would take over and change our world. This would probably result in the melting of the Antarctic icecap which would raise sea levels by 50 metres and would completely change the climates of the world.

So what should we do? We should be careful and not risk starting the sequence events described above. To do this we must reduce total CO2 emissions from now onwards and take measures to protect carbon sinks such as the Amazon rainforest.

If we all carry on burning so much fossil fuel as we do now we will be running the risk of starting an unstoppable runaway methane global warming event within the foreseeable future. Only major absolute reductions in CO2 emissions NOW will avoid this risk.

Is The Sun Causing Global Warming?

Recently, a documentary aired on the UK's Channel 4, entitled 'The Great Global Warming Swindle', which challenged the prevailing political understanding that global warming is caused by man-made activity.

The movie argues that it is in fact the sun that is responsible for the current changes in the Earth's temperature and the film is riddled with the testimony of many scientists and climate experts, furthering a growing dissent to the man-made theory. After all, that's all it is, a theory. As soon as people start to state that 'the debate is over', beware, because the fundamental basis of all sciences is that debate is never over, that questions must be asked and answered and issues raised in order for the science to be accurate.

So what exactly are the arguments behind the Sun being the main cause of global warming?

First off, it is very important to address the fact that Earth is not the only planet to be experiencing climate change in our solar system currently. In fact, many astronomers have announced that Pluto has been experiencing global warming, and suggested that it is a seasonal event, just like how Earth's seasons change as the various hemispheres alter their inclination to the Sun. We must remember that it is the Sun that determines our seasons, and thusly has a greater impact upon the climate than we could ever even try to achieve.

In May of 2006, a report came forward revealing that a massive hurricane-like storm that occurred on Jupiter may be caused by climate change occurring on the planet, which is expected to raise its temperatures by 10 degrees. National Geographic News reported that a simultaneous rising in temperature on both Mars and Earth suggest that climate change is indeed a natural phenomenon as opposed to being man-made.

The report further explains how NASA has reported that Mars' carbon dioxide ice caps have been melting for a few years now. Sound familiar? An astronomical observatory in Russia declared that, 'the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun'. They further point out that both Mars and Earth have, throughout their histories, experienced periodic ice ages as climate changes in a continuous fashion. NASA has also been observing massive storms on Saturn, which indicate a climate change occurring on that planet as well.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has also been recording massive climate changes on Neptune's largest moon, Triton. Triton, whose surface was once made up of frozen nitrogen, is now turning into gas. The Associated Press has reported that satellites that measure the temperature of sunlight have been recording an increase in the sun's temperature, meaning that the sun itself is warming up.

Even the London Telegraph reported in 2004 that global warming was due to the sun being hotter than it has ever been in the past 1,000 years. They cited this information from research conducted by German and Swiss scientists who claim that it is increasing radiation from the sun that is resulting in our current climate change.

Olivier Chenet, a leading French scientist, who was among the first scientists to try to warn people of the dangers of global warming 20 years ago, now believes that 'increasing evidence indicates that most of the warming comes of natural phenomena'. Allegre said, "There is no basis for saying, as most do, that the "science is settled."

He is convinced that global warming is a natural change and sees the threat of the 'great dangers' that it supposedly poses as being bloated and highly exaggerated. Also recently, the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus said, when discussing the recent ruling by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that global warming is man-made, '"Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so".

It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. And if you are about to ask why no politicians here seem to be saying this, Klaus offered up an answer, "Other top-level politicians do not express their global warming doubts because a whip of political correctness strangles their voice".

Rob Browne, the former editor of New Scientist, wrote an article in the UK Sunday Times, in which he stated, "When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works." He further stated that, "Twenty years ago, climate research became politicised in favour of one particular hypothesis".

And in reference to how the media is representing those who dissent from the man-made theory he stated, 'they often imagine that anyone who doubts the hypothesis of man-made global warming must be in the pay of the oil companies', which is exactly what I believed up until I did my research. He also wrote, "Enthusiasm for the global-warming scare also ensures that heatwaves make headlines, while contrary symptoms, such as this winter's billion-dollar loss of Californian crops to unusual frost, are relegated to the business pages".

Wood Smoke/black Carbon Soot: a Major Cause of Global Warming

In the frenzied search for solutions to the global warming crisis, climatologists, policy makers and other concerned environmentalists have overlooked one of the leading causes of rising temperatures around the globe—soot---the black residue that coats fireplaces and darkens vehicle exhaust. Black carbon soot may in fact be the second largest contributor to global warming next to the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

According to Stanford environmental engineering Professor Mark Z. Jacobson, “Soot, or black carbon, may be responsible for 15 to 30 percent of global warming, yet it is not even considered in any of the discussions about controlling climate change.” (“Nature”, ScienceDaily, Feb. 9, 2001). Jacobson also observed that human beings produce most of the soot particles that pollute the atmosphere. He maintains that soot consists primarily of elemental carbon and that 90 percent of it comes from the consumption of fossil fuels (particularly coal, diesel fuel, jet fuel, natural gas, kerosene) and the burning of wood and other biomass. Jacobson also claims that a worldwide reduction in soot emissions and controlling biomass burning could quell the alarming pace of global warming and also reduce our reliance on soot-producing fuels.

Besides its impact on global warming, soot is bad for your health. The World Health Organization reports that approximately 2.7 million people die each year from air pollution and that reduction of wood and other biomass burning would mitigate global warming and would also save lives and improve people’s health.

Other studies have dispelled the myth that burning wood and other biomass is “green or carbon neutral” and that the fine particulates emitted during the combustion process actually hasten climate change. under both “Science” and “Global Warming” headings).

The warming effect of black carbon soot is far greater than previously estimated

Atmospheric scientist V. Ramanathan of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and University of Iowa chemical engineer Greg Carmichael found that “black carbon soot, from burning wood and other biomass, cooking with solid fuels, and diesel exhaust has a warming effect in the atmosphere three to four times greater than prevailing estimates.” (Nature Geoscience 1, 221-227 (March 24, 2008). They calculated that soot and other forms of black carbon particulates may represent as much as 60 percent of the current global warming effect of carbon dioxide and their findings correlated with similar studies from Stanford, Caltech, and NASA.

A simplified explanation for the warming effect is that wood smoke’s fine particulates thin clouds. And as total airborne particulates increase, cloud cover decreases, allowing more sunlight to reach the earth. According to Ramanathan, approximately 35 percent of black carbon in the global atmosphere comes from China and India. Yet per capita emissions of black carbon soot from the United States and some European countries is still comparable to those from Asia. Ramanathan's research also found that the warming effects of black carbon smog appear to be accelerating the melt of Himalayan glaciers, leading to early drying of a major source of drinking water for billions of people throughout Asia.

The International Global Panel on Climate Change (IGPCC) agreed that black carbon soot is a major contributor to global warming

The 2007 Nobel-winning IGPCC panel of approximately two thousand scientists concluded that black carbon soot has a dire atmospheric warming effect. This was significant because soot had previously been unaddressed as a major contributor to global warming. Nor had the amplification of black carbon’s warming effect previously been taken into account when mixed with other aerosols, creating additional secondary fine particulates.

Studies of fine particulates from wood smoke in various communities

An EPA study cites that “In some neighborhoods, on some days, 90% of the particle pollution is from residential wood burning.” (Jane Koenig and Timothy Larson, A Summary of Emissions Characterization and Non-Cancer Respiratory Effects of Wood Smoke, USEPA DOC #453/R-93-036,1-919-541-0888).

A study in two San Jose, California locations showed that wood smoke pollution was 4.4 times that of gasoline or diesel fueled vehicles. (“A Comparison of Source Apportionments of Fine Particulate Matter at Two San Jose, CA Locations,” from San Jose Speciation Trends Network.)

The next step

Because the urgency of reducing black carbon emissions cannot be overstated, reducing soot from wood smoke would offer nearly instant benefits in improving atmospheric conditions in the United States. It would also offer immediate societal and health benefits. This would facilitate political and regulatory momentum towards mitigation of black carbon emissions.

It is urgent to advance public awareness of wood smoke’s crucial role in global warming with education and policy changes.

For those interested in more scientific and educational data about wood smoke, . The Burning Issues site was founded in 1988 as a special particulate pollution project of the Bay Area Loma Prieta/Silicon Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club.

Prevent Global Warming

Today, ‘prevent global warming’ seems to be the necessity of the day. It is high time we noticed effects of industrialization on the planet. It is no more difficult to notice that global warming has been changing climate of the world. Large ice masses that initially adorned both the north and south poles are melting as a very fast speed. This shows warming is affecting us since the water levels will increase drastically. Melting of ice masses will also mean changing in climatic conditions all around the world. Effects of which will be difficult for humans and animals alike.

You can prevent global warming by uniting against it. It does not matter what your place of residence may be; however, you can contribute towards reforestation and help reduce green house gases and carbon dioxide considerably. You can also help in cooling the earth down substantially. Global warming is also the result of using fossil fuels like petrol, diesel, CNG, etc. with industrialization there has been growth in number of car owners, this has made global warming faster.

You can easily prevent global warming, you should use all those facilities provided to you consciously. A little saving of water, fuel, electricity, etc per person can make a lot of difference to our planet.

In order to prevent global warming there are several organizations which are working actively so they can increase forests around the world. Increasing forests is a good and a constructive alternative to solving this problem of global warming. It is true that rain forests and tropical forests around the world are being cut down to fulfill demand for wood and paper, this is causing deforestation. A simple solution to this problem is replanting the trees that have been cut off and letting these grow back again naturally. These lush green trees in the tropical rain forests have worked as lungs for all the world for ages. Reduction in these forests will accelerate the disaster brought in by global warming.

Several governments around the world are taking steps and implementing laws that will help curb production of green house gases and make the world a better place for our children. However, these laws will take time in being implemented. Till the time, these actually come into being, all world’s population can contribute a little more by planting trees around them and prevent global warming.

You will find concerns about global warming being echoed online too. In fact several organizations have opened their websites so that they can spread awareness about the current situation amongst general public. These organizations will also educate you about how a small contribution from you will make a ton of difference in world’s ecological climate.

You can contribute to this cause to as low as $10 just once, and a chunk of deforested land will be taken for reforestation so all its natural habitat can be restored. Such organizations generally specify the place where they are being carrying out reforestation so you can contribute and prevent global warming.

About Global Warming

About Global Warming
Nowadays, global warming are becoming heavier and heavier, many people are the victims of this environmental problem. It is the fact that global warming is going to lead to a rise in human-beings’ sickness and death. According to a report, owing to the climbing average temperatures, there are at least 20,000 Europeans in August in 2003.It’s an astonishing number for every person so that we should do some actions to solve this problem.
I think there are several key affected by global warming as follows:
AIR we are used to thinking of industrial and traffic pollution as having a detrimental effect on air quality.
WATER and INSECTS are also the problems of which can affect global warming.

Don’t deny it anymore; we need to stop global warming!
Don’t deny that we are causing global warming; we need to stop global warming before it is too late. America and other governments do not want to admit they are the cause because they do not want to pay to fix the problem. They are hoping Nature will fix the problem and it will all go away or they hope that our children or grandchildren can solve the problem. We need to incorporate that famous statement "The buck stops here" and fix the problem.
Facts to be accepted On Global Warming
Global warming is a realistic threat to the very existence of life on earth. The unprecedented rise in earth’s average temperature is a cause for worry. Moreover, the rise in temperature is projected to continue in the same rate, if some urgent steps are not taken immediately. Global warming has already affected the pattern of climate in many places. Many of the recent floods, hurricanes and tsunamis are known to be a direct result of this phenomenon. Global warming is also contributing to the gradual rise in sea level in many places around the world. A collective effort on the part of all us is what is needed to stop global warming.
Can Global Warming Usher in the New Ice Age?
It’s quite possible that global warming may cause the new Ice Age. This paradox can be explained briefly in that the Gulf Stream current and the North Atlantic Drift (both are major warm-water currents in the northern hemisphere in the Atlantic Ocean) heat up the air around them which in turn prevents the temperature from dipping precipitously. However, with the currents being salt-based and with the rising temperatures causing massive ice melts, the onslaught of fresh water will dilute the salt therefore eliminating the warming effect of the two currents. Once these currents are shut down, the temperature will drop precariously in the northern hemisphere thus possibly ushering in another Ice Age.

Causes Of Global Warming

The majority of the scientific community believes that global warming is a real threat to the world as we know it today. They believe that global warming mostly results from the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from human activities such as industrial processes, fossil fuel combustion, and deforestation.

There are many causes of global warming. One cause is carbon dioxide that is made from the burning of fossil fuels from power plants for the purpose of electricity generation. Coal makes up 93% of these emissions. Coal emits 1.7 times more carbon per unit of energy when burned than natural gas and 1.25 times more carbon than oil. Consequently, natural gas gives off 50% less carbon dioxide for the same amount of energy produced. Another cause is carbon dioxide that is made from the burning of gasoline in internal-combustion engines of cars, minivans, sport utility vehicles, pick-up trucks, and jeeps. Poor gas mileage is considered the main culprit here. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2000 Fuel Economy Guide, a new Dodge Durango sports utility vehicle (with a 5.9 liter engine) that gets 12 miles per gallon in the city will emit around 800 pounds of carbon dioxide over a distance of 500 city miles; this translates to 19.6 pounds of carbon dioxide emitted into the air for every gallon of gas a vehicle consumes.

Another cause of global warming is carbon dioxide that is made from commercial trucks, contributing another 13% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.

Carbon dioxide that is made from airplanes is another cause of global warming - the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that aviation causes 3.5% of global warming, with a projection that it will rise to 15% by 2050.

Another cause of climate warming is carbon dioxide that is emitted by the structure of buildings, accounting for another 12% of carbon dioxide emissions.

Methane is another cause of climate warming, as methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. According to the IPCC, methane is 20 times more effective than CO2 in trapping heat in the atmosphere. US Emissions Inventory 2004 levels of atmospheric methane have risen 145% in the last 100 years. Sources of this rise in methane include rice paddies, bovine flatulence, bacteria in bogs, and fossil fuel production.

Another cause of global warming is nitrous oxide, a colourless, non-flammable gas with a sweetish odour. It is naturally produced by oceans and rainforests, while it is also artificially produced in nylon, nitric acid production, agricultural fertilizers, cars with catalytic converters, and burning organic matter.

Deforestation is also one of the causes of global warming, the second-leading cause only to carbon emissions. Deforestation is responsible for 25% of all carbon emissions entering the atmosphere, as 34 million acres of trees are burn and cut each year. The destroying of tropical forests alone emit hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year.

City gridlock is another global warming cause. According to an annual study by traffic engineers from Texas A&M University, drivers in Los Angeles and New York alone waste 600 million gallons of gas annually while just sitting in traffic. That translates into around 7.5 million tons of carbon dioxide that is emitted into the atmosphere. And remember, just two major U.S. cities are named, not to mention the rest of the U.S. and the world.

Another global warming cause is just the amount of carbon already in the Earth’s atmosphere naturally, as 750 billion tons of carbon are present. Add in another 800 billion tons of carbon that is dissolved in the surface layers of the world’s oceans.

As you can see, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are the major causes of global warming. You can also see there are many sources of these gases, especially carbon dioxide. Much work needs to be done in order to address all the causes of global warming.

Global Warming Facts

These days, there seems to be a lot of controversy about Global Warming.

Some say that Global Warming is a fact, others say it's not. But regardless of whether or not Global Warming is a fact, let's step aside from the arguments on the subject, and take a common-sense approach.

In this article we will take a look at some of the issues involved.

What is Global Warming?

We can take a look at the definition of global warming - without taking sides or getting into vested interests, political motivations, reasons, or causes.

The definition of global warming in its purity is "an overall increase in world temperatures." As you can see, whether this has to do with greenhouse emissions, or whether it is caused by a natural phenomena, has no bearing on whether there is an average temperature increase.

Is There an Overall Increase in World Temperatures?

Alright, now we can take a look at what scientists say about world temperatures.

Again, we are going to leave out the reasons why, and simply look at whether or not the Earth's general temperature is rising.

According to NASA scientists, the average temperature of the earth rose by one degree Celsius, over the last century. This is based on actual measurements taken with exact measuring instruments.

Another report, compiled and submitted by 600 scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, issued the following statement:

"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal."

These 600 scientists sifted through thousands of studies and reports, in order to come to the above conclusion.

Even scientists who are "opposed" to the global warming theory are not contradicting the fact that the earth's temperature is rising. These scientists are only saying that global warming is a natural phenomena, and is not caused by man.

The Causes of Global Warming There are several factors that could contribute to or influence global warming.

Greenhouse gases are gases that prevent heat from escaping from the Earth's atmosphere. A few examples of greenhouse gases are:

• Carbon Dioxide - A minor but important part of the Earth's atmosphere. Carbon dioxide prevents heat from escaping the earth, by blocking the infrared radiation reflected off the Earth's surface from leaving the atmosphere.
• Methane - A gas produced through the decomposition of waste (in landfills, animal waste, and decomposition of food in human and animal digestive systems). It is created by the production and distribution of natural gas, oil and coal. It is also is produced by incomplete fossil-fuel combustion.
• Nitrous Oxide - Another gas produced through the use of commercial fertilizers, natural fertilizers, and fossil fuel combustion (cars, airplanes, and conventional power plants, to name a few).
• Chlorofluorocarbons - Commonly referred to as CFC gases, these are produced primarily by our industries, and are used for products such as, styrofoam, spray-can propellants, refrigerants, electronic circuit boards, and many more.
• Water Vapor - This is a completely natural gas, caused by the sun evaporating water from our oceans.
  

As you can see, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are produced mainly by human resources, whereas chlorofluorocarbons are exclusively produced by industrial installations.

Out of all the above, interestingly enough, the greenhouse gases which have the largest effect on global warming are water vapors. This fact will no doubt please all critics of the "global warming theory".

You have to keep in mind, however, the cyclic effect of global warming. A slight increase in temperature will increase the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, which in turn will increase the temperature, and so on. Thus, a slight effect created by other greenhouse gases has a much larger impact, due to the creation of additional water vapor in the atmosphere.

Greenhouse Gases: Facts and Figures

let's go over some facts and figures here. Again, keep in mind that these are measurements taken by scientific tools. They are not statements for or against global warming.

• The amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has increased by 25 percent since the early 1800s. Ten percent of this increase has occurred between 1958 and the present day.
• There are two main factors that responsible for the increase of carbon dioxide. The leading cause is the burning of fossil fuels. Next in line is deforestation.
• Methane content in the world's atmosphere increases at a rate of 0.6 percent per year, by current measurements. The atmospheric methane content is now more than twice as high as it was before the Industrial Age, which started in the early 1800s.
  

The Effects of Global Warming

I am not the doom-and-gloom sort of person, so I am going to spare you the details here. But I do have an opinion on this subject, so I will share it with you.

Regardless of whether the globe is warming or not, it is simply common sense to take care of the environment you live in.

The plain truth of the matter is that carbon monoxide is unhealthy, methane makes for unpleasant breathing, and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere is no laughing matter.

While the lack of ozone might make for faster tanning at the beach, the long term effects are not as desirable.

What You Can do About Global Warming

Believe it or not, you are important - what you do and say is listened to by others, and does make a difference. It doesn't require a lot of effort to do something about conditions in the environment. A little extra care will go quite a long way. Many are already doing it, and all of us need to get aboard.

It starts as simply as recycling your waste, saving energy where you can, or even planting a tree.

Man-made Global Warming is Tulip Bulb Mania

Global warming research has become a very big business throughout the world. Each year billions of dollars are spent studying climate change. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), now has an annual budget that has reached more than $136 million. The Bush Administration has spent more than thirty billion dollars on federal programs involved in global warming in the last six years. In total, global warming proponents are estimated to have been funded by more than fifty billion dollars during the last decade.

This huge money stream is flowing directly into the pockets of the advocates of man-made global warming. It is a river of money that can only be shut off if it is discovered that man does not cause global warming and that climate change is really out of our control. In effect, the same people that benefit from the huge research funding pool would have to be motivated to shut it off.

The truth is that the business objective of the man-made global warming bandwagon is an increasing flow of scientific research grants and bureaucratic jobs. The worse the man- made global crisis, the better for the global warming business. In addition, the news media loves stories of fear. This makes man-made global warming a big business for television, magazines, and books as well.

Various "experts" on man-made global warming appear regularly on television to remind everyone of the upcoming global climate catastrophe in the next century. Unfortunately, its not in the interest of the media to cast doubt on man-made global warming. It is a very good business for them. The fact is that very little news media coverage is given to research that brings into doubt the so-called scientific man-made global warming consensus.

Therefore, it is not surprising that we have not heard much from the news media on the recent blockbuster report (December 2007) in the prestigious International Journal of Climatology (Royal Meteorological Society), of professors: David H. Douglass (of the University of Rochester), professor John R. Christy (of the University of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson and professor S. Fred Singer (of the University of Virginia). In this report the scientists found: "that observed patterns of temperature changes over the last 30 years disagree with what greenhouse models predict and can better be explained by natural factors, such as solar variability". Their conclusion was that climate change is "unstoppable" and cannot be affected or modified by controlling the emission of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, as is proposed in current legislation.

Dr. S. Fred Singer, said: “The current warming trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that has been seen in ice cores, deep-sea sediments, stalagmites, etc., and published in hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals. "Our research demonstrates that the ongoing rise of atmospheric CO2 has only a minor influence on climate change. We must conclude, therefore, that attempts to control CO2 emissions are ineffective and pointless — but very costly."

The news media has also not made us aware that data (2005) from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars' south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row. This means that both the Earth and Mars have been experiencing similar degrees of global warming. Of course, the problem for the man-made global warming crowd is that there are no humans on Mars for them to blame for that planet's warming.

In a National Geographic story on February 2007, Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the Sun. He reasons that "The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars."

The man-made global warming industry should remind us of the tulip bulb mania in Holland in 1636. The history books tell us that in 1593 tulips were brought from Turkey and introduced to the Dutch. The novelty of the new flower made it widely sought after. After a time, the tulips contracted a non-fatal virus known as mosaic, which altered them causing different colors to appear on the petals. The color patterns came in a wide variety and increased the popularity of the flower.

The increase in popularity of the tulip led to a rise in its price. Soon everyone began to deal in tulip bulbs. It became a very big business. Eventually things became so crazy that people were selling everything they owned, including their homes and livestock, to buy tulip bulbs. At the time, the consensus expectation was that the tulip bulb would continue to grow in value forever.

In 1636, tulips were listed on the Amsterdam stock exchange which further accommodated the tulip speculators who had become the primary market for tulip bulbs. The price of a tulip bulb at the height of this mania was $76,000. In the next six weeks tulip bulbs would drop in value to less than one dollar.

Today, man-made global warming is similar to the tulip bulb mania in Holland in 1636. It is an issue that has been hyped into a huge business. The absurd consensus in Holland in 1636 was that tulips were so unique that they would continue to increase in value forever. The current global warming crowd wants us to believe that global warming is controllable and man-made. There is no conclusive evidence that global warming is man-made and all contrary evidence is dismissed and ridiculed. We are told that we must act now to save the planet or our world will be lost to a multitude of catastrophic events in the future.

The inconvenient truth of all this is that, like the Holland tulip bulb in 1636, man-made global warming hype has entered the world of the absurd. We may think the price of $76,000 for a tulip bulb in Holland was silly. However, how silly is it when compared to the global warming hype of today? Indeed in the future people will look back with humor on a decade when tens of billions of dollars were spent in an attempt to convince society that the warming of Earth was due to man and not a function of the Sun.

Global Warming-How It Could Spark World War III

These Days global warming is a very hot topic and little wonder, seeing as the earth grows hotter with each passing year.

For a long time now the effect of man's industrialization and technological progress has quietly yet continuously eked away at the delicate balance of the planet's atmosphere and ecosystem, but within the last 30 or so years the pace of this damage has markedly accelerated!

DOWNPLAYING GLOBAL WARMING

In much the same way that big tobacco once vehemently denied the association between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, for the longest time a number of multi-billion-dollar-a-year industries have also been questioning the existence of global warming and misleading the public about its reality.

In fact the Bush II years have been particular devastating to Environmental Protection Rights, yet staggeringly lucrative for those who would profit from the loss of such protection.

In what can best be described as an orgy-fest of self-congratulatory backslapping, many a heavyweight lobbyist for industries such as oil, coal, mining, logging, aviation and auto manufacturers have left the Bush Whitehouse grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat because they'd gotten firm assurance that pesky environmental laws would never get in the way of business as usual!

An example of how the Bush II Administration misled the public into believing they were truly concerned about protecting the environment was the sneaky way in which they enacted laws such as The Clean Skies Act.

The Clean Skies Act introduced in February 2003 apparently appears to strengthen already existent environmental laws such as The Clean Air Act but which in reality actually weakened and undermined them.

The Clean Skies Act gave pollutant industries a lot of leeway allowing them to spew an additional 42 million more tons of pollution into the atmosphere and raised caps on greenhouse gas emissions.

Soon after Bush II came to power the situation got so bad, that after decades of effective service, two of the most senior enforcement officials in the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) resigned citing an agency that was pursuing contrary goals to that of actually protecting the environment.

Former US vice president Al Gore is no stranger to these tactics. As perhaps the most widely recognizable face in the fight against global warming he has been scoffed at and ridiculed by the same individuals who would have us believe global warming is nothing more than a myth!

Recently in 2007 several scientists have gone on public record citing claims of a gestapo-like environment of intimidation to produce figures and reports that belied the true extent of global warming!

CAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING

The unprecedented super-accelerated rate of global warming happening today is due to the amount of greenhouse gases being spewed into the atmosphere.

The most notorious greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide (CO2) because it so happens to be the biggest single contributing factor to global warming (CO2 comprises more than 75% of all greenhouse gases). So what's spewing all that CO2 in the air? Simply put--mankind and his toys!

Some of the biggest greenhouse gas pollutants include automobiles; electricity production; planes; shipping and the various manufacturing industries dotted all over the globe.

SCIENCE OF GLOBAL WARMING

This article is intentionally not an in-depth treatise of the process of global warming, but having said that, here's a brief explanation:

The rays from the sun are comprised of shortwave solar radiation which pass through the atmosphere and are then absorbed by the earth thereby warming it. Part of that absorbed energy is reflected back to the atmosphere as long wave infrared radiation which is mostly trapped by the greenhouse gases. This trapped heat ensures that the earth is approximately warmer by 33 degrees Celsius than it would otherwise be.

This trapped heat is actually good for us, for were it not for those greenhouse gases and other constituents in the atmosphere that trap heat, the earth would be as cold as Mars which has for all intents and purpose no atmosphere to speak of.

Over the past century the earth has gotten warmer by approximately 0.7 degrees Celsius. This may not seem like much until you consider that the difference between the average earth temperature of today and another ice age is a mere 5 degrees Celsius!

EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING

Drought! Flooding! Disease! Hurricanes! Starvation! Unbearable Heat!
Any of these words seem to you to be appearing much more often in the news than before?

Do you remember the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that claimed more than 200,000 people? Remember hurricane Katrina that claimed more than 2,000 lives? These are the better documented horror stories. The less well documented global-warming related stories are often dismissively written off as ethnic conflicts in a region (Africa) where supposedly little else can be expected.

CATASTROPHIC ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS CAUSED BY GLOBAL WARMING

1. Larsen B Ice Shelf: In 2002, a 500 billion ton chunk of ice that was 220m thick and covering a surface area of 3,250 sq km disintegrated in 35 days! What was especially alarming was that the experts expected this ice shelf to still be around for the next 100 years even after factoring in current global warming trends.

Yet more alarming still is that there're two other MUCH, MUCH BIGGER ice masses that are exhibiting the same global warming related disintegration characteristics!

These endangered ice masses are Greenland and the West Antarctic Ice Shelf which was previously thought to be stable. Since these ice masses are land based (unlike the Larsen B Ice Shelf) if either one of them goes they could raise sea levels by 20ft apiece!

If both of them disintegrate around the same time, sea levels could rise by 40ft! Catastrophic does not adequately describe the ensuing destruction.

More than 66% of the world's largest cities would be devastated if even just one of these ice masses disintegrated. Though many of the affected low-elevation costal areas are located in Asia, New York, Florida, San Francisco and The Netherlands are also on the list!

Perhaps this disturbing data may explain the belated, albeit grudging acknowledgement by the Bush II administration that global warming is not a myth after all and that it won't just affect the poorer regions of the world. As things stand, experts are predicting that with current unmodified global warming trends Greenland may collapse as soon as 2050.

2. Lake Chad: Lake Chad used to be the 6th largest lake in the world but due to global warming has shrunk to 1/20th of its former size. In fact Chad the country for which it is named after is now more than 60 miles from the water's edge!

3. New Ice Age: The northern hemisphere of the world is located above the equator and constitutes most of the world's land mass as well as almost 90% of the world population.

Though current expert reports on global warming imply that the northern hemisphere will initially actually benefit from the temperature increase (unlike the southern hemisphere where unprecedented drought and starvation is predicted by 2020) what is little mentioned is how global warming could usher in a new Ice Age!

Some paradox, huh? Warming leading to freezing! Here's a simplified explanation of how that comes about:

The Gulf Stream current is one of several currents that occur in the Atlantic Ocean. The particular importance of the Gulf Stream Current and its northern extension (the North Atlantic Drift which flows towards Europe) is that their warm-water flow heats up the surrounding air which in turn ensures that the temperature of the northern hemispheres does not dip precipitously.

These two currents are saline (salt) based. If a huge mass of fresh water (such as a melting body of ice the size of Greenland) was to dilute these currents, in effect that would shut down the Gulf Stream Current!

Once the Gulf Stream Current shuts down temperatures are going to drop precariously in the United States, Europe and other nations located in the northern hemisphere. When that happens those regions will deep-freeze into another Ice Age!

GLOBAL WARMING AND THE CO2 WARS

The following figures illustrate the CO2 emissions from the various regions around the globe:

USA: 30.3%
Europe: 27.7%
Russia: 13.7%
South East Asia: 12.2%
Japan: 3.7%
South America/Central America: 3.8%
Middle East: 2.6%
Africa: 2.5%
Australia: 1.1%

These figures amply illustrate how Western Europe and the United States are by far largely responsible for the effects of global warming we are seeing today.

Contrastingly the regions least responsible are the ones that will bear the brunt of those effects (initially at any rate, until such time that the process progresses to an ice age then the situation will reverse).

However, with the two mega economies of China and India expanding rapidly (each boasting a population in excess of 1 billion) soon their greenhouse gas emissions may surpass those of the U.S.

A series of meetings held in Washington in early 2007 had American legislators demanding that developing nations be held to the same greenhouse-gas-emission accountability as the developed nations! Not unexpectedly there were worldwide outcries and accusations of shameless hypocrisy leveled at the United States.

With the not unreasonable contention that they have the right to develop and advance in the same manner that both Europe and America have enjoyed over the past forty years these two looming economical giants are not about to be cowed by Washington.

Furthermore considering the suspicious manner with which the U.S. justified its invasion of Iraq, few these days are inclined to believe a word that Washington says.

Compounding this climate of distrust and suspicion are the many questionable prerogatives the U.S. claims. These include:

1. Not subscribing to the Kyoto Protocol (Treaty on Global Warming)
2. Seeking the right to pre-emptive strikes (Bush II)
3. Demanding to be exempted from The Geneva Convention (Bush II)
4. Not a participant of the World Court
5. Biggest contributor to global warming but doing the least to rectify the situation.

In a world where America demands exclusive rights to pre-emptive strikes, perhaps then it is not too far fetched to understand if India and China harbor a degree of paranoia that the U.S. may one day set its targets on them.

After all for a country that so conveniently and magically connected two totally unrelated events to one another as an excuse to pursue its ultimate goal (U.S. invasion of Iraq after 911), it is not unconceivable that the U.S. could one day claim that the greenhouse gas emissions from the Asian giants are threatening the very existence of its coastal cities and hence amount to an act of war!

For their part the Asian giants already suspiciously view Washington's demands concerning greenhouse gases as a thinly veiled attempt to restrict their economical development.

That said, China and India are hardly Iraq! These are two countries which both boast formidable nuclear arsenals that are quite capable of reaching the U.S. Besides if the U.S. were to take any drastic action it is unlikely that the slumbering Russian bear would continue dozing for much longer.

World wars have erupted over much less and in the heated climate of today it only takes one more little spark to set everything off!

Global Warming Puts Heat On Tax Haven Andorra Economy For 2007

After two decades of growing visitor numbers, Andorra has been increasing her visitor numbers to over ten million a year for ski holidays and happily investing for the future to ensure she remains as one of Europe's top ski destinations but that came to a screeching halt earlier this year when the one thing a ski destination really needs didn't arrive - snow.

The Andorra authorities are hoping that the lack of snow which kept so many regular visitors as well as new ones away this year is a one off, and that snow in November will mean a normal level of bookings for the new season.

But if this year is a sign of things to come for the European ski industry as a result of global warming, Andorra is considering a future with little snow, and having to diversify.

Andorra is a tax free country, and benefits from high employment in the financial services and banking sectors, but reports from the country suggest that revenue raising via a new corporate tax is being considered.

But according to a local on-line travel guide for Andorra this is unlikely.

Introducing a corporation tax could be counter-productive as a revenue raiser, they say, adding that Andorra is along with Monaco Europe's most complete tax haven, and it would give high net worth individuals who would be looking for residency in Andorra and spending money in the country second thoughts. The Andorra authorities know that they can't start introducing personal income tax because that really would kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Take away Andorra's ski industry and the country is in trouble - take away her tax haven status too and it would decimate her economy.

New Investment

Andorra has invested heavily in new infrastructure and facilities for the ski tourist in recent years, which would make a second successive poor season particularly hard to bear.

This year Andorra opened a new family friendly ski park in Arinsal, moving away further still from her old image of a cheap and cheerful ski holiday for 18-30 year olds to one that caters well for all.

The snow park includes a conveyor belt and a game zone, designed to give children confidence before they ski and use the chair lifts.

Well known ski villages in Andorra include Soldeu, Ordino as well as Arinsal.

Other new developments in Andorra for the 2007 ski season included a 540 space underground car park in La Massana close to the cable car, and an extension of the beginners area in Arinsal.

Commenting on the new facilities, the travel guide for Andorra claims that should the snow levels return to normal it will allow Andorra to compete with other ski areas in Europe for years to come.

How Can the Average Person Help Stop Global Warming?

Many people who consider themselves to be a responsible world citizen, who want to do what they can to help the environment are finding themselves in a giant quandary in these times.

Why?…
Because, they want to do their part to help control and maybe stop Global Warming before it is too late! The problem is, they just don’t know what to do to help.

Sure, everyone knows they can get energy efficient light bulbs but, that just isn’t enough to help an awful lot. You could get a car that gets a lot better gas mileage. But, what can all of us do to really help?

One thing you might consider, is to learn how to create your own renewable energy with some method which is non-polluting. Now, that would really make sense, wouldn’t it?

If everyone did this we would no longer be dependent on the middle east oil. We would no longer need a large standing army to protect the oil and would not have worry About the enormous transfer of our country’s wealth to the middle east This is what T.Boone Pickens has recently been talking about on television and the Internet.

We have known for several years that sooner or later we are going to run out of oil worldwide The experts seem to disagree widely on this issue and the probable date when will run out. Based on what some of the best researchers say such as, Thom Hartmann, author of the
great book entitled “The Last Hours Of Ancient Sunlight”, it will probably be some where around 2030. That’s only another 22 years.

What will we do when this happens?… For sure, one thing we will have to change an awful lot of our habits and attitudes about what is really important to us. Don’t you Agree?

It seems pretty evident that it is going to require a plethora of things, Only one solution won’t solve the giant problem.

So the question is what can we do as concerned Citizens do to help rather than just be a part of the problem?

*The best thing I can see, is to become self- sufficient, and not have to rely on anyone for Energy but ourselves.

*Get our own energy system and if possible even grow as much of our food as we can.

*Find a source of really healthy food preferably organic. Encourage our families to do the same.

How can the average person afford to be self contained and self-reliant? The answer, would seem to be:

*To practice all the conservation we can.

*Recycle as much as practical.

*I hear some great reports from people who have started using a device on their cars that uses some water for gas.

*New technologies have made both solar and wind power more efficient and affordable.

*Also, there are some excellent do it yourself manuals available, on building your own Energy Systems.