Global warming FAQ

There are many excellent FAQs on global warming available on the Internet so I won't reinvent the wheel. At the bottom of this post I've presented a few FAQ links that I think are good.

But before that, here's my own piece on the fundamentals of global warming.

Since I started this blog, the first bunch of posts have dwelled on the topic of carbon dioxide or Co2 emissions. There's a reason for that.

Amongst the various types of heat-trapping greenhouse gases present in our atmostphere, Co2 is by far the largest in volume.

The rash of carbon-themed posts was to emphasize its role in this little mess we're in and to point out that we are as guilty as everyone else in producing carbon. Yes everyone pollutes but we should care enough to know what portion of the problem has our fingerprints on it so we can start thinking about how to neutralize it.

While Co2 has been around long before man appeared, its volume began to accelerate rapidly when he appeared. Man's appetite for energy compels him to burn fossil fuels like coal, natural gas and oil, as is his desire to clear land cheaply by burning forests and blanketing entire regions with thick haze. These just a couple of examples of actions that release carbon into the atmosphere.

The planet has natural carbon sinks like ocean and forests, places that absorb carbon and sometimes produce oxygen in return. However there's a problem. We are producing much more carbon than the carbon sinks can take. Indiscriminate deforestation only serves to shrink the remaining carbon sinks even further.

As the level of unabsorbed airborne carbon rises, more heat is trapped in the atmosphere and global temperatures begin to rise. Glaciers melt, sea water level rises, the climate shows unusual patterns, the food chain goes out of whack, food supply drops and man's existence eventually comes into question.

Great emotional debates have raged on whether global warming is natural or man-made and whether the recommendations of the scientific community will actually work. Regardless of who is right or wrong, responsible countries have started to act.

Since the ozone layer panic of the 80's, international accords like the UN-backed Kyoto protocol have been launched. These initiatives set county-level targets for greenhouse gas emissions and provide financial incentives for doing so.

To measure who's dirtiest and cleanest and who's doing the most and the least, these communities have adopted carbon weight and volume as the basic unit of measurement to define pollution severity in the global warming context. Carbon is a word we'll be hearing a lot of in the coming years, from carbon offsets to carbon footprints to carbon trading, so lets start getting used to it.

Below are just a few FAQS I found useful. You can google up a lot more.

Links:
A beginner's guide to understanding the issue of global warming
Goddard Space Flight Center's Global Warming FAQ
About.com's Global Warming FAQ
UCSUSA's Global Warming FAQ
NCDC's Global Warming FAQ


Image source: NASA