A Dream for a Better World

Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations.  These large meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute the water supply, generate significant greenhouse gases, and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rainforests.  The world’s total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961. In 2007, it was estimated to be 284 million tons. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over that period.  Livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation. Though some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens.

Our previous presidents unfortunately were not too environmentally conscience.  I understand that being environmentally conscience can cost money.  Filters for smoke stacks, better car engines, and less pollution from the energy making companies that use coal all take money.  It may hurt, but if it is done unilaterally then no company will have an advantage over another, so if company A has to increase the costs of its products to make its company green friendly so does company B.   But even forgetting about the cost part, there is the part that this really is necessary.  If we keep going the way we are going we could end up being more like the planet Venus than we want to be!

Although Venus is the 2nd closest planet to the Sun, it is MUCH hotter than Mercury.  Why is that?  It is because of the greenhouse gases in its atmosphere.  The sunlight comes in then is trapped unlike Mercury and Earth where the heat can escape the atmosphere.  If our polution gets much worse then the heat will just keep adding up.  This of course would be very bad if our polar ice caps melted as it would cause a huge rise in the oceans causing many islands to be lost and of course a lot of the land exposed to the ocean would be under water.

So, while it may seem expensive, I think it is better than us living on a planet of ONLY water with no land!  While it may seem extreme, the bad thing about the greenhouse effect is that it can build quickly.  We need to act now.  I do hope our new president can turn things around for us.

Senator Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, accused the Bush administration of a cover-up aimed at stopping the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from tackling greenhouse emissions.  She claims that the cover-up is being directed from the White House and the office of the vice president.  At issue is a preliminary finding by the EPA last December that greenhouse gases may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public welfare.  Such a finding would be an early step toward government regulation aimed at protecting public health.  Jason Burnett, the EPA’s former associate deputy administrator, who resigned on June 9, told Boxer’s committee the White House tried pressuring him to retract an e-mail in which he detailed the finding. Burnett said he refused.

An international climate change task force warned that global warming is approaching the point of no return, after which widespread drought, crop failure and rising sea levels will be irreversible.  It called on the group of 8 leading industrial nations to cut carbon emissions, double their research spending on technology and work with India and China to build on the Kyoto Protocol for cuttings emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.  According to the report, urgent action is needed to stop the global average temperature rising by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the level of the year 1750 — the approximate start of the Industrial Revolution, when mankind first started significantly adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

Jim Hansen, the director of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York City, recently has been talking about how the current level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, 385 parts per million, is far too high – and that we should be aiming instead for a maximum level of 350 parts per million. This raised eyebrows among climate analysts who think even 450 parts per million is an optimistic scenario for what society can achieve.  Hansen claims that we are now at the point of a ‘planetary emergency’ and that climate tipping points such as shrinking Arctic sea ice and the potential extinction of species as reasons to act now to curb the increase in greenhouse gases.

Not surprisingly, the United States and Western Europe are by far the most responsible for the causes of global warming that we see today.  The following is a breakdown of the amount of CO2 emissions from each region:

USA: 30.3%, Europe: 27.7%, Russia: 13.7%, South East Asia: 12.2%, Japan: 3.7%, South/Central Americas: 3.8%, Middle East: 2.6%, Africa: 2.5%, Australia: 1.1%.

However, China and India will soon surpass the United States in the amount of greenhouse gas emissions due to their mega economies and burgeoning population numbers.  Both countries boast a population in excess of one billion each.  Although there are calls by the United States and Europe for developing nations to regulate and limit greenhouse gas emissions, China and India indigently protest they have the right to develop and advance as much as Europe and America did over the past 40 years.    

In general, global warming is caused when excess greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide (CO2), gets trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere.  The excess greenhouse gases then block solar radiation from escaping back into the atmosphere thus trapping heat which warms the planet.  Specifically, the top 6 culprits of excess greenhouse gases include power plants (one of the largest contributors to global warming), automobiles (3 billion vehicles being used today), trucks (diesel used by trucks is less clean then gasoline), airplanes (contribute 10% of greenhouse gas emissions), buildings (most houses are built to burn oil or run on coal), and methane stored in water and ice (methane is 60 times stronger than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, thus with increase warming, oceans evaporate and polar ice melts which increases the amount of methane released in the air).