Top 10 Things You Can Do to Reduce Global Warming

Burning fossil fuels such as natural gas, coal, oil and gasoline raises the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and carbon dioxide is a major contributor to the greenhouse effect and global warming. 

                                    Video 1: A video of "Global Warming" from National Geographic.

You can help to reduce the demand for fossil fuels, which in turn reduces global warming, by using energy more wisely. Here are 10 simple actions you can take to help reduce global warming.

Picture 1: Everyone has the responsibilities to save our Earth

 1. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Do your part to reduce waste by choosing reusable products instead of disposables. Buying products with minimal packaging (including the economy size when that makes sense for you) will help to reduce waste. And whenever you can, recycle paper, plastic, newspaper, glass and aluminum cans. If there isn't a recycling program at your workplace, school, or in your community, ask about starting one. By recycling half of your household waste, you can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.

2. Use Less Heat and Air Conditioning

Adding insulation to your walls and attic, and installing weather stripping or caulking around doors and windows can lower your heating costs more than 25 percent, by reducing the amount of energy you need to heat and cool your home. Turn down the heat while you're sleeping at night or away during the day, and keep temperatures moderate at all times. Setting your thermostat just 2 degrees lower in winter and higher in summer could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide each year.

3. Change a Light Bulb

Wherever practical, replace regular light bulbs with compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. Replacing just one 60-watt incandescent light bulb with a CFL will save you $30 over the life of the bulb. CFLs also last 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs, use two-thirds less energy, and give off 70 percent less heat. If every U.S. family replaced one regular light bulb with a CFL, it would eliminate 90 billion pounds of greenhouse gases, the same as taking 7.5 million cars off the road.

4. Drive Less and Drive Smart

Less driving means fewer emissions. Besides saving gasoline, walking and biking are great forms of exercise. Explore your community mass transit system, and check out options for carpooling to work or school. When you do drive, make sure your car is running efficiently. For example, keeping your tires properly inflated can improve your gas mileage by more than 3 percent. Every gallon of gas you save not only helps your budget, it also keeps 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

5. Buy Energy-Efficient Products

When it's time to buy a new car, choose one that offers good gas mileage. Home appliances now come in a range of energy-efficient models, and compact florescent bulbs are designed to provide more natural-looking light while using far less energy than standard light bulbs. Avoid products that come with excess packaging, especially molded plastic and other packaging that can't be recycled. If you reduce your household garbage by 10 percent, you can save 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide annually.

6. Use Less Hot Water

Set your water heater at 120 degrees to save energy, and wrap it in an insulating blanket if it is more than 5 years old. Buy low-flow showerheads to save hot water and about 350 pounds of carbon dioxide yearly. Wash your clothes in warm or cold water to reduce your use of hot water and the energy required to produce it. That change alone can save at least 500 pounds of carbon dioxide annually in most households. Use the energy-saving settings on your dishwasher and let the dishes air-dry.

7. Use the "Off" Switch

Save electricity and reduce global warming by turning off lights when you leave a room, and using only as much light as you need. And remember to turn off your television, video player, stereo and computer when you're not using them. It's also a good idea to turn off the water when you're not using it. While brushing your teeth, shampooing the dog or washing your car, turn off the water until you actually need it for rinsing. You'll reduce your water bill and help to conserve a vital resource.

8. Plant a Tree

If you have the means to plant a tree, start digging. During photosynthesis, trees and other plants absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. They are an integral part of the natural atmospheric exchange cycle here on Earth, but there are too few of them to fully counter the increases in carbon dioxide caused by automobile traffic, manufacturing and other human activities. A single tree will absorb approximately one ton of carbon dioxide during its lifetime.

9. Get a Report Card from Your Utility Company

Many utility companies provide free home energy audits to help consumers identify areas in their homes that may not be energy efficient. In addition, many utility companies offer rebate programs to help pay for the cost of energy-efficient upgrades.

10. Encourage Others to Conserve

Share information about recycling and energy conservation with your friends, neighbors and co-workers, and take opportunities to encourage public officials to establish programs and policies that are good for the environment. These 10 steps will take you a long way toward reducing your energy use and your monthly budget. And less energy use means less dependence on the fossil fuels that create greenhouse gases and contribute to global warming.

Do Volcanoes Generate More Greenhouse Gas Than Humans?

  Photo 1: Greenhouse gas emissions from volcanoes equal less than one percent of those generated by human activities.

  This argument that human-caused carbon emissions are merely a drop in the bucket compared to greenhouse gases generated by volcanoes has been making its way around the rumor mill for years. And while it may sound plausible, the science just doesn’t back it up. 

  According to the U.S. Geological Survey  (USGS), the world’s volcanoes, both on land and undersea, generate about 200 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, while our automotive and industrial activities cause some 24 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year worldwide. Despite the arguments to the contrary, the facts speak for themselves: Greenhouse gas emissions from volcanoes comprise less than one percent of those generated by today’s human endeavors. 

Human Emissions Also Dwarf Volcanoes in Carbon Dioxide Production

Another indication that human emissions dwarf those of volcanoes is the fact that atmospheric CO2 levels, as measured by sampling stations around the world set up by the federally funded Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, have gone up consistently year after year regardless of whether or not there have been major volcanic eruptions in specific years. “If it were true that individual volcanic eruptions dominated human emissions and were causing the rise in carbon dioxide concentrations, then these carbon dioxide records would be full of spikes—one for each eruption,” says Coby Beck, a journalist writing for online environmental news portal Grist.org. “Instead, such records show a smooth and regular trend.” 

Do Volcano Eruptions Cause Global Cooling?

Furthermore, some scientists believe that spectacular volcanic eruptions, like that of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 and Mt. Pinatubo in 1991, actually lead to short-term global cooling, not warming, as sulfur dioxide (SO2), ash and other particles in the air and stratosphere reflect some solar energy instead of letting it into Earth’s atmosphere. SO2, which converts to sulfuric acid aerosol when it hits the stratosphere, can linger there for as long as seven years and can exercise a cooling effect long after a volcanic eruption has taken place.

Scientists tracking the effects of the major 1991 eruption of the Philippines’ Mt. Pinatubo found that the overall effect of the blast was to cool the surface of the Earth globally by some 0.5 degrees Celsius a year later, even though rising human greenhouse gas emissions and an El Nino event (a warm water current which periodically flows along the coast of Ecuador and Peru in South America) caused some surface warming during the 1991-1993 study period. 

Volcanoes May Melt Antarctic Ice Caps from Below
 

In an interesting twist on the issue, British researchers last year published an article in the peer reviewed scientific journal Nature showing how volcanic activity may be contributing to the melting of ice caps in Antarctica—but not because of any emissions, natural or man-made, per se. Instead, scientists Hugh Corr and David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey believe that volcanoes underneath Antarctica may be melting the continent’s ice sheets from below, just as warming air temperatures from human-induced emissions erode them from above.

Humans increase the rate of eutrophication

Diagram 1: An eutrophication lake

   


  Eutrophication  is a natural process that occurs in an aging lake or pond as that body of water gradually builds up its concentration of plant nutrients. Cultural or artificial eutrophication occurs when human activity introduces increased amounts of these nutrients.

   Human activities almost always result in the creation of waste, and many of these waste products often contain nitrates and phosphates. Nitrates are a compound of nitrogen, and most are produced by bacteria. Phosphates are phosphorous compounds. Both nitrates and phosphates are absorbed by plants and are needed for growth. However, the human use of detergents and chemical fertilizers has greatly increased the amount of nitrates and phosphates that are washed into our lakes and ponds. When this occurs in a sufficient quantity, they act like fertilizer for plants and algae and speed up their rate of growth. 

  Algae are a group of plantlike organisms that live in water and can make their own food through photosynthesis (using sunlight to make food from simple chemicals). When additional phosphates are added to a body of water, the plants begin to grow explosively and algae takes off or "blooms." In the process, the plants and algae consume greater amounts of oxygen in the water, robbing fish and other species of necessary oxygen.

   All algae eventually die, and when they do, oxygen is required by bacteria in order for them to decompose or break down the dead algae. A cycle then begins in which more bacteria decompose more dead algae, consuming even more oxygen in the process. The bacteria then release more phosphates back into the water, which feed more algae. As levels of oxygen in the body of water become lower, species such as fish and mollusks literally suffocate to death.

Diagram 2: Process of eutrophication lake formation

   Eventually, the lake or pond begins to fill in and starts to be choked with plant growth. As the plants die and turn to sediment that sinks, the lake bottom starts to rise. The waters grow shallower and finally the body of water is filled completely and disappears. This also can happen to wetlands, which are already shallow. Eventually, there are shrubs growing where a body of water used to be.

  In the 1960s and 1970s, Lake Erie was the most publicized example of eutrophication. Called a "dead lake," the smallest and shallowest of the five Great Lakes was swamped for decades with nutrients from heavily developed agricultural and urban lands. As a result, plant and algae growth choked out most other species living in the lake, and left the beaches unusable due to the smell of decaying algae that washed up on the shores. New pollution controls for sewage treatment plants and agricultural methods by the United States and Canada led to drastic reductions in the amount of nutrients entering the lake.