So what exactly is global warming?

It is a condition where harm done to the Earth’s atmosphere is making the world get too hot. How hot? Just a degree here and there, but those tiny increases manage to throw a great portion of nature out of balance.

Most scientists will start their explanation of the cause of global warming by trying to list all the many harmful things man has done to the Earth and its atmosphere. While these are all true… a greater truth is far simpler. Air Pollution creates Global Warming. That’s it. That is the main thing you need to know. Now how this happens is another story…

This absorption and reflection of heat is known as the greenhouse effect. For just as in a greenhouse heat is trapped and built up by our atmosphere. So then, if all of this is supposed to happen, what is the problem?

The problem is that we keep adding to the special mixture of our air too much of certain ingredients such as Carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide or CO2 is essential to nature. Plants use CO2 and sunlight to create sugars and fresh oxygen. Still you might think… fine so the plants will grow even better if we have extra CO2. That is what many scientists thought when they first examined global warming.

But we only have so many plants, and our oceans, which also absorb CO2, are at maximum capacity. So all this extra Carbon dioxide goes up into the atmosphere where it blocks the release of heat leaving the earth.

Gases such as CO2 that absorb heat that otherwise would have expelled to outer space are called greenhouse gases. There are quite a few of them.

The next biggest problem as a greenhouse gas is Methane. Methane is a flammable gas that is released as part of certain types of agriculture such as growing rice in flooded fields and cattle farming. Methane is also released when frozen ground and ice thaw out. Sometimes peat bogs and other frozen earth have been storing Methane for thousands of years. When those areas warm up Methane is released. What warms them up? Global warming caused by greenhouse gases.

That same warming turns liquid H20 (water) into gaseous H20 called water vapor. And just like all the other greenhouses gases, when you put too much in the atmosphere the water vapor collects heat and then radiates it back to the earth.

The other major greenhouse gas is NO2, nitrous oxide, what is often called laughing gas. Nitrous Oxide as with all of the other greenhouse gases occurs naturally in small amounts. It is created in harmful amounts by factories making products like nylon and nitric acid.

If you have never felt the increased warmth found in a greenhouse built for growing flowers then surely you have sat in a car that had been sitting in the summer sun with the windows rolled up. The metal of the car absorbs heat and the glass in the car’s windows reflects and traps it. That is why the inside of a car can reach a temperature of 130 degrees while outside of the car the air is only 85 degrees.

Our Earth is just like that car and we need to find a way to roll down the windows.

Global warming is also believed to be responsible for recent changes in our weather. There are more hurricanes in the northern hemisphere every year than ever before. And these hurricanes are more powerful than the ones from 50 years ago. Rising oceans, increased rainfall, loss of fresh water and dozens of other problems are on the rise and the cause is global warming.

As to water vapor, If we lower the CO2 and Methane content in our air and start to cool things down, then the atmosphere will not allow as much water vapor to evaporate into gas.
We need to cut down the amount of CO2 and Methane released into our air. The first thing we want to do is reduce these greenhouse gas emissions by around 10%. This will pretty much put our release and absorption levels at an equal basis… sort of break-even.

Next if we could cut these emissions even further the Earth would start to naturally clean itself up. Our planet was very well designed and is more than capable of repairing the damage we have caused. But first we must stop harming it.

But, remember almost half of the CO2 we are trying to get rid of comes from power plants. Can we make power plants that in their own way get more miles to the gallon? Yes, this actually can be done but not by making the plants more fuel-efficient. We can reduce the overall amount of fuel used and hence burned to make electricity by producing power from non-polluting sources. Hydroelectric power generated by dams and rivers has been used to make power for over 100 years. New wind turbines could virtually eliminate our need for coal fired power plants over the next twenty years. While solar energy has not yet shown its feasibility on a large scale, solar technology does exist for such personal use as home lighting and recharging of small batteries.
There is another thing we can do that will cut down on power usage and as a result of that reduce CO2 released as we burn fuel to make electricity. Fully 30%, almost a third, of our Carbon dioxide excess is the result of needing electricity to cool and heat our homes. This plus the power needed for appliances, hot water and things like televisions creates a never-ending need for power. And that power means more greenhouse gas. Houses and buildings and the things we use inside of them require the consumption of as much power as do cars and trucks. But we can quickly cut that power usage in half by building energy efficient “green” homes and buildings. We can build appliances that use less electricity. And we can develop heating and lighting sources that use one fourth of the power we now use to warm cool and light our buildings.

Another simple way to help the cause of global warming is to plan our towns and cities to be a little more eco-friendly. When we knock down a stand of trees so as to pave a parking lot we manage to simultaneously kill off some of nature’s CO2 absorption while trading light green and brown heat reflective trees and earth for dark, almost black asphalt that absorbs gobs of solar heat.