Friday, October 17, 2008

Global Warming





Global Warming 


Earth is steadily warming up because of human activities, gases primarily carbon dioxide emitted while burning fossil fuel like coal, gas and oil lead to heat being trapped by the atmosphere. The temperature rose by 0.75 degree C in 100 years. It is predicted to rise by 6 degrees in the next 100years. 

 Lot of other changes are taking place in the climate, there will be more heat waves, droughts, floods, glaciers melting rapidly, leading to serious water stresses in several parts.About 20 to 30% of the species will be threatened to extinction with temperature increases of over 1.5 to 2.5 degrees. Global warming is visible and measurable. The atmospheric carbon dioxide used to be 280 parts per million [ppm] before industrialization, but it’s now over 380ppm.Even if we stabilize at current level, the climate change will continue for several decades. All developed countries are responsible for this emission over time, and developing countries like India are increasing their emissions but their contribution is very small. 

 Sea level rise is a threat to the forests, glaciers are melting, and the flow in the river system will be affected. India is also not excluded from this climate crisis, and it has to be arrested before worsening to bring about a transition in our development. 

The reality is that we have extended our foot prints in the world’s ecosystems to a point which is hurting all forms of our life. Our future generation will curse for this definitely, so we can’t leave this planet at this condition. It is so essential to create awareness among the public to bring down the emissions to below zero and find ways to absorb the existing carbon dioxide 

To reduce the emission of green house gases, it is obvious to move away from fossil fuels, use energy sensibly, use CFL lamps, avoid incandescent bulbs, and minimize the use of air-conditioners. 

 To a limited extent that I can “I would like to influence the people all over the world to move in a direction where we start looking at all abuses that we have heaped on natural resources on ecosystem” said Dr. Pachauri who’d picked up a Nobel Prize on behalf of IPCC [Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change], a UN body that looks at existing research on climate change and makes assessments.