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, 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!
