// Stop The Warming!

I was watching NOW on PBS tonight and one of their stories was a “check-up” on global warming. The marine scientist that they interviewed said that scientists have known about global warming for decades. In addition, she explained somewhat how the oceans react to the planet warming up. The ratio of land area to ocean area is 1 to 2.43, respectively. The oceans have a huge impact on our planet’s weather systems. They absorb a lot of the gasses and heat in the atmosphere. A major reason why these huge masses of water can absorb the quantity of heat that they are is the ice caps. A simple experiment that can be done to test this is to put ice in a beaker on a burner with a thermometer in the beaker to take measurements. First, turn the burner on high and take measurements every thirty seconds. If you plot the results out on a graph, you will see that the temperature of the water is relatively slow in rising until the ice melts. Then it starts to rise at an alarming rate in comparison to while the ice was still melting. The scientist being interviewed says to compare these results to the ocean. If this is right, once the ice caps melt, the oceans will rise quickly in temperature. This experiment would be more accurate if salt water were used because salt raises the boiling point of water and lowers the freezing point, thus making it more sluggish. (Ocean water is approximately 3.5% salt – that’s 35,000 parts per million –  if you want to try it.) I find these findings very alarming and think you should see the segment for yourself:

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/527/oceans-climate-change.html

In addition to this, I found an article regarding the oceans’ absorption of carbon dioxide. It explains that the absorption of carbon dioxide into the oceans has slowed around Hawaii (and all over the Pacific) due to a decrease in precipitation causing more evaporation. These both make salt concentrate near the surface. Read it for yourself.

A wonderful way to better understand the Greenhouse Effect is to watch this animation: http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/earthguide/diagrams/greenhouse/

Recently, PBS aired a NOVA show on melting glaciers. The show went into in-depth detail of the melting glaciers and their effect on the environment as a whole as well as near the glaciers.

A major power consumer around the world is something that many people don’t think about: standby power. This is the power that comes from appliances that are not turned on but are still plugged in (i.e. cellphone chargers). These products, on average, use 10% of residential electricity use. To learn more, go to standby.lbl.gov. The website is run by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.  You can view a chart and table for the energy use of common home appliances.

The Capital Climate Action protest at the capitol power plant was an evident success, though it apparently attracted the attention of lawmakers with and estimated 2,500 participants blocking all five main gates to the plant successfully for four hours. Thankfully, no one was arrested. An article was posted here from the Environmental News Service. More information is offered on the CCA website.

The Washington Post offers the same article, but includes a photo gallery on the subject. Hopefully Washington will see this protest and take action on this strong issue.

I recieved an email today from StopGlobalWarming.org that contained a small article about a protest being conducted on March 2nd in Washington D. C. to halt climate change.CapitolClimateAction.org holds more information and here is their video.

Capitol Climate Action has a quote on their homepage by Al Gore talking about youth and climate change:

“I can’t understand why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants.” – Al Gore

I believe that this quote is very true, that the youth of this world should block our out-of-date habits that we continue to wear on our sleeve. Older people aren’t affected as much by this since they will die within a shorter amount of time than us younger people. We will get older and have children, and our children will have children, and we want them to have cleaner, better lives. We have more to fight for. We should be out there blocking bulldozers, we should be out there evangelizing our cause. Why not? I see no others more fit to do so.

And, for legal and safety reasons, we encourage your participation at your own risk. We do encourage the idea profusely, though.

There was a recent story on the local NPR station about a man who drove a solar car across North America to Alaska to try to raise environmental awareness. He was pulled over a total of 7 times on his trip. In Alaska, he was pulled over by the police because a woman called 911for a driving UFO sighting.

I looked it up and found a story:

http://www.examiner.com/r-2111884~Solar_Car_Mistaken_for_UFO__Gets_Pulled_by_Alaskan_Police__Solar_Power_.html

On a rather sour note, some gas stations are failing to find gasoline to sell. Here is an arcticle on the subject:

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/sep/12/hurricanes-behind-gas-woes/

This video tells of a mass extenction 250 million years ago, in the Permian period. Go through the quiz to find out what happened: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3318/01-susp-flash.html

The quiz shows diffrent ways of mass extinction:

• Asteroid or Comet Impact
• Volcanism (volcanoes in Siberia in a wide expance the size of the U.S. referred to as the Siberian Trap)
• Formation of Supercontinent (Pangea)
• Glaciation (forming of glaciers)
• Anoxic Oceans and Bacteria (oceans without oxygen that have bacteria that give off the toxic greenhouse gas, hydrogen sulfide)
• Methane Gas (100 billion tons of methane trapped in ice at the bottom of the ocean – was around since the Permian period and still is – and released by global warming)

The answer was a combination of these: the Siberian Trap [which led to] global warming [which led to] an oxygen devoid ocean [which led to] all the ocean’s critters dieing and bacteria in the ocean churning out hydrogen sulfide – a toxic greenhouse gas [which led to] mass extinction on land also. All I can say is that it must have stunk (in a more literal sence, too). If you don’t like my explanation, go to the main episode page to watch the video: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3318/01.html Believe me; it is a really good video.

global warming happend before because of volcanoes. more later…

This is the first post and I would like to say thanks to some awesome people out there who are as passionate as I am about the environment.