Decelarate of Global Warming

"Global Warming" illustrates the rise in temperature of the earth's lower atmosphere due to the release of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. The impact of this green house effect could be devastating.
Global warming causes ozone depletion, melting polar ice, and rising ocean levels.

- Melting Polar Ice
Ice sheets in the Arctic Ocean have receded to record lows, and antartict glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate, causing sea levels to rise and indigenous wildlife to lose its habitat.

Nearly 90% of the permafrost in the Arctic could melt by 2100, which would not only extinguish wildlife, but also release an estimated 400 billion tons of methane, now trapped in the frozen soil, into the atmosphere, dramatically speeding up global warming.

- Rising Ocean Levels
Rising ocean levels could eventually cause worldwide flooding of coastal areas, forcing people and wildlife to migrate inland. Many experts believe global warming is behind the upswing in hurricane activity, and they also predict global warming will cause a dramatic increase in excessive precipitation in some areas and severe drought in others, resulting in floods, crop failures, and a rising number of forest fires and land slides.

Many of the world's most knowledgeable climate change scientists forecast that the earth's temperature will rise from 1.44 to 6.3º F by the year 2100 if we don't take steps to reduce greenhouse gases. An increase of 1 to 3.6º F will occur even if we do act, because many gases have already been released.

- Ozone Depletion
The ozone layer, which protects all life from ultraviolet (UV) radiation, is being destroyed by release of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) into the atmosphere. The widening holes in the ozone layer allow in more UV rays, which can cause skin cancers, cataracts, and immune system damage. UV rays are detrimental to pollination, seed production, and marine life food supplies as well.

How to keep water during we have a dog?

Clean up after your dog: Preventing water pollution can be as easy as remembering to take along a plastic bag or pooper scooper when you walk your dog. Scoopers are available in most pet stores. Many towns supply dog-waste bags in public areas, or you can order them online. Plastic grocery bags work too!

Hire someone to scoop for you! Believe it or not, a number of scooping service providers have sprung up to address this increasing need. Campylobacteriosis, salmonellosis and toxocariasis

Dispose of it properly: Once you've done — or paid someone else to do — the dirty work, you can dispose of the waste in a variety of ways:

• Put it in the trash, still wrapped in its bag (check first with town officials to make sure this is permitted in your community)
• Flush it down the toilet (without the bag)
• Bury it in your yard, at least five inches deep and located away from food gardens, kids' play areas, waterways, wetlands, wells or ditches
• Install an in-ground pet waste digester, which is much like a small septic tank, and dispose of it there. Digesters are generally available in pet stores and in pet supply catalogs for between $50 and $75.

Note that pet waste should never be added to a compost pile, because heat levels won't be high enough to kill the harmful pathogens it contains.

Look around: If dog waste stations aren't already installed in your community, talk to your local parks department to inquire about providing them in parks, along trails and in public places where people often walk their dogs.

Are humans contribute to the greenhouse effect?

While the greenhouse effect is an essential environmental prerequisite for life on Earth, there really can be too much of a good thing.

The problems begin when human activities distort and accelerate the natural process by creating more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than are necessary to warm the planet to an ideal temperature.

• Burning natural gas, coal and oil —including gasoline for automobile engines—raises the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
• Some farming practices and land-use changes increase the levels of methane and nitrous oxide.
• Many factories produce long-lasting industrial gases that do not occur naturally, yet contribute significantly to the enhanced greenhouse effect and “global warming” that is currently under way.
• Deforestation also contributes to global warming. Trees use carbon dioxide and give off oxygen in its place, which helps to create the optimal balance of gases in the atmosphere. As more forests are logged for timber or cut down to make way for farming, however, there are fewer trees to perform this critical function.
• Population growth is another factor in global warming, because as more people use fossil fuels for heat, transportation and manufacturing the level of greenhouse gases continues to increase. As more farming occurs to feed millions of new people, more greenhouse gases enter the atmosphere.

Ultimately, more greenhouse gases means more infrared radiation trapped and held, which gradually increases the temperature of the Earth’s surface and the air in the lower atmosphere.

Water pollution

Water pollution comes from many sources, including motor oil and pesticides as well as fecal waste.

Water pollution threatens every living thing on earth today, and one key contributor is dog waste. Un scooped dog droppings lead to unnaturally high levels of fecal coliform bacteria in lakes, streams and oceans, choking out aquatic life and threatening the survival of many aquatic species.

Genetic studies of the water pollution from fecal waste in the world have found that it comes from dogs. This water pollution promotes the growth of aquatic weeds and algae, which then limit light penetration and reduce oxygen levels — eventually, it creates a deadly environment for fish and other aquatic life, and widespread fish kills can be one result.

On land, dog waste also has a very high nitrogen content, which can be harmful to native plants and grasses. So next time you take Fido outside, make sure you clean-up after him too. It's such a simple and courteous thing to do, and such an easy way to make a difference for people, pets and aquatic life.

Pollution from dog waste also poses a health hazard to human beings and other pets, whether it's in water or on land. Bacteria and parasites contained in the waste can infect adults and children with Campylobacteriosis, salmonellosis and toxocariasis, for example. And because of those threats, dog waste is not a suitable a filtelizer , contrary to popular belief.

Global warming what`s that?

The Earth as an ecosystem is changing, attributable in great part to the effects of globalization and man. More carbon dioxide is now in the atmosphere than has been in the past 650,000 years. This carbon stays in the atmosphere, acts like a warm blanket, and holds in the heat — hence the name ‘global warming.’

The reason we exist on this planet is because the earth naturally traps just enough heat in the atmosphere to keep the temperature within a very narrow range - this creates the conditions that give us breathable air, clean water, and the weather we depend on to survive. Human beings have begun to tip that balance. We've overloaded the atmosphere with heat-trapping gasses from our cars and factories and power plants. If we don't start fixing the problem now, we’re in for devastating changes to our environment. We will experience extreme temperatures, rises in sea levels, and storms of unimaginable destructive fury. Recently, alarming events that are consistent with scientific predictions about the effects of climate change have become more and more commonplace.

Could we stop climate change

From 30 April - 4 May 2007, the third working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meets in Bangkok to summarize the best available science on how to stop climate change. Specifically, discussions center on the costs of climate action, the wide policies and measures available, and the speed with which climate action will be able to deliver the deep emissions cuts required to keep the climate safe.

In this briefing WWF wants to showcase a number of concrete initiatives from around the world that show that politicians, businesses and ordinary people are already taking real actions to save the climate. This short briefing note of inspiring actions stands in sharp contrast to the doom and gloom that dominate reporting of the climate challenge.

IPCC working group 1 and 2 have made the situation sufficiently clear - there is absolutely no time to lose. People are rapidly changing the world's climate, and with it undermine the web of life. IPCC working group 3 analyzes emissions, emission projections, mitigation options in the short and longer term, and options for policies, measures and instruments.

According to the published Summary of IPCC working group 2, up to 30% or plant and animal species are at risk of extinction at a temperature increase of around 2°C; millions of people will be affected by sea level rise and flooding (approximately 100 million people live within 1 m altitude of the sea level at high tide); poor communities will be especially vulnerable, especially in high risk areas such as river and coastal floodplains; and millions of people run the risk of their health being affected.

Much of the discussion in IPCC working group 3 is about cost. Of course it will cost money to change the global energy system to clean sources; it needs considerable effort from governments, businesses, and individuals, to put these changes into place over the next two decades. But this venture is full of opportunities and of thrilling, positive, constructive endeavour. And it is affordable.

The cost of doing nothing, however, will be staggering. All types of infrastructure will be affected and will have to be re-built: making roads and railways secure from flooding and storms, moving settlements away from rivers and coasts that threaten floods, securing buildings, electricity lines, and factories from storms. Hurricane Katrina was just a small foretaste of what adaptation actually means. Adaptation will not be a gradual getting used to things but a struggle for survival - in industrialized countries as much as in less developed nations.

Literature that IPCC is drawing on was also used when compiling the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, published by the British government in October 2006. In it Nicholas Stern showed that the cost of inaction on climate change could be as high as 5 - 20% of global consumption. The cost of action against climate change, however, is expected to only constrain GDP growth by a fraction of that figure, making it the cost-effective option.

It is important to remember that calculating the costs is but one element for decision-makers to consider - climate change is such a huge challenge for mankind and the well-functioning of life-sustaining ecosystems that even in the absence of any cost assessments mitigation and clean energy investments are an ethical must.

There is today ample information out there to tell decision-makers what to do. In this document, WWF has compiled a short list of policy initiatives, business efforts, and actions by individuals which WWF has helped to bring to life and which illustrate the growing movement of actions and activists who want to help turn the tide.

Climate change

On Feb. 2, 2007, the United Nations scientific panel studying climate change declared that the evidence of a warming trend is "unequivocal," and that human activity has "very likely" been the driving force in that change over the last 50 years. The last report by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in 2001, had found that humanity had "likely" played a role.

The addition of that single word "very" did more than reflect mounting scientific evidence that the release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from smokestacks, tailpipes and burning forests has played a central role in raising the average surface temperature of the earth by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1900. It also added new momentum to a debate that now seems centered less over whether humans are warming the planet, but instead over what to do about it. In recent months, business groups have banded together to make unprecedented calls for federal regulation of greenhouse gases. The subject had a red-carpet moment when former Vice President Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," was awarded an Oscar; and the Supreme Court made its first global warming-related decision, ruling 5 to 4 that the Environmental Protection Agency had not justified its position that it was not authorized to regulate carbon dioxide.

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The greenhouse effect has been part of the earth's workings since its earliest days. Gases like carbon dioxide and methane allow sunlight to reach the earth, but prevent some of the resulting heat from radiating back out into space. Without the greenhouse effect, the planet would never have warmed enough to allow life to form. But as ever larger amounts of carbon dioxide have been released along with the development of industrial economies, the atmosphere has grown warmer at an accelerating rate: Since 1970, temperatures have gone up at nearly three times the average for the 20th century.

The latest report from the climate panel predicted that the global climate is likely to rise between 3.5 and 8 degrees Fahrenheit if the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere reaches twice the level of 1750. By 2100, sea levels are likely to rise between 7 to 23 inches, it said, and the changes now underway will continue for centuries to come.