Oceans....

Coral reefs are probably the most complex ecosystems on the planet, home to hundreds of thousands of species. They protect and support the lives of millions of people around the tropical zones, and are a font of wealth from fishing and recreation. The damage being caused to reefs by warming seas is one of the most serious effects of global warming.

Rising sea temperature coupled with the strong El Nino of 1998 was devastating to much of the world's coral reefs. High water temperatures caused coral bleaching and subsequent death or adverse change to sixteen percent of world reefs overall and up to 46 percent in parts of the Indian Ocean.

Temperatures beyond norms causes coral to expel the microscopic symbionts, zooxanthellae, that also give them color. If this bleaching continues for days to weeks, the coral dies and algae takes over the reefs, changing the ecosystem. During another bout of bleaching in 2002, the international coral reef information network ReefBase reported 430 cases of coral bleaching, most of them on the Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest.

Taken from: http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pages/tropics-oceans.html

Obama's Climate Team Moves to Regulate Greenhouse Gases as Research Shows Global Warming Continues at High Rates

President Barack Obama's new Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson has moved to put CO2 and other greenhouse gases under regulation by the Clean Air Act. In one of the most anticipated early actions by the new Administration, the EPA issued a proposed finding on April 17 that these gases endanger human health and well-being. When made final, this will clear the way for regulation of vehicle exhaust, which is the source of about 30 percent of US carbon dioxide emissions.

This is one of the most visible of the climate actions springing from members of the President's new Cabinet, which includes leading scientists and informed diplomats. As they took their posts, working scientists announced in two international meetings that many factors in rapid global warming were getting worse or running at rates which only a few years ago were thought to be extreme.

Besides Jackson, who an was an experienced state environment leader before taking over at EPA, Obama appointed former EPA head Carol Browner to a new post of White House climate and energy chief; Nobel Prize winner Stephen Chu as Secretary of Energy; Harvard professor John Holdren, who has been outspoken on the dangers of climate disruption, as Presidential science advisor; and acclaimed ocean scientist Jane Lubchenco as head of NOAA.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton replaced George Bush's footdragging international climate negotiators with a team lead by Todd Stern. One of his first actions was to announce to international climate talks in Bonn that "the science is clear, and the threat is real. The facts on the ground are outstripping the worst case scenarios. The costs of inaction-or inadequate actions-are unacceptable." The Bonn talks are preliminary to crucial UN Climate Convention meetings in Copenhagen in December, at which nations have promised to agree to sharp limits on greenhouse gases, replacing the Kyoto Protocol. Many national issues and roadblocks remain, however, prime of which is the world recession which dominates other international meetings.


Taken from: http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/index.html

Water rising!!!

The rising of water level is the obvious result of global warming... Certainly, everybody knows

about it: a lot of articles are devoted to this problem. I could not stand aside. But i decided not to write long texts which everyone can find on the Internet and so one and so forth...

Here are two pictures which brightly describe this problem.... There is a kind of humour can be fond in them of course. Put people are such creatures that they can not describe the problem without any humour at all...

I did not know about it, really! Global Warming Game!

My friends! Today I've realised how "old" I am as for all the news! I try to be in time with time (sorry for such a tautology) but I am not always is very good in it, as it has appeared to be! Anyway, come to the point! Today I've found the following information on the Internet:

Independent software developer, Midori is actually a really cool duo – a husband and wife team living in Burgundy. What’s more, they’ve released a new environmental game called, “Global Warning,” made for Mac OS X. Global Warning is Midori’s second environmental game following “Recycle,” a game for toddlers teaching the important basics of sorting trash. The new release, Global Warning, was created with the Phelios game engine, PTK and it is rumoured to be “pretty sweet dude.”

With the game Global Warning Midori hopes to spread awareness about global warming and pollution. The game is extremely hard. No let me rephrase that – it’s near impossible, to reflect the difficulty of real life.
Global Warning offers every day advice and tips about how players can act in real life to live a more sustainable, green existence and offers money saving tips. A real educational tool.

Gosh, this news was dated by 2007!!! Anyway, what do you think about the aim of such a game? To let children know about such a problem as global warming?

3 stupidest global warming solutions

I continue my trip to the problem of global warming and I am still not tired to share interesting facts and articles with you. As you understand, the Internet has a lot of such info. I try to gather the most interesting for you to find it easier if you are interested in this question.

So, the sourse of this information was the following: http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/sciencetech/3-stupidest-global-warming-solutions-of-the-year/216

You are welcome to read, to think over it and share your opinions and thoughts here.

3 stupidiest global warming solutions:

#3 Offseting
The environmental equivalent of buying indulgences or paying for penance, offsetting is a misleading beast. Here’s why:

• It is used to shift the emphasis onto others, who would never produce the equivalent carbon footprint.
• It’s unregulated – you might be funding “carbon cowboys”
• It relieves you of feeling guilty, without actually making a difference, but hey we’ve all done it!


#2 Steorn’s Orbo
A bit of background is needed. Environmental Graffiti reported how last year, Steorn, an Irish technology company made the claim that they developed a free energy technology. In August of 2006, Steorn placed an ad in the Economist to attract the world’s leading scientists to try and disprove their technology. Several thousand scientists stepped up to the plate, yet only 22 scientists were chosen to prove its claims wrong.
However, at the first planned live viewing the supposed free and clean energy machine failed to work. Pretty lame, almost as bad as their name!


#1 Mimicking a volcanic eruption a.k.a. Chucking mounds of sulphur into the atmosphere
The idea is so crazy, that initially we thought it was a hoax, concocted in some watering hole, somewhere. However, we discovered the controversial theory in the National Geographic.
The idea is to pump particles of sulfur high into the atmosphere—simulating the effect of a massive volcano by blocking out some of the sun’s rays and is idiotic for two main reasons:
• As well as reducing rainfall, the particles would cause a global drought aka environmental disaster!
• It would make the world smell of rotten eggs and look like the Matrix – yuk!

5 Deadliest Effects of Global Warming.

Guys!

The more I write about the problem of global warming - the more I understand how helpless and weak we are against the nature. Today I've found one very interesting article about the effects of global warming and could not stand sharing it with you! I will not rewrite all this article.

Here is the link abd you will have a chance to see it!

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/sciencetech/5-deadliest-effects-of-global-warming/276

I will write you briefly the point!

So, 5 deadliest effects of the problem well-known as global warming:

5. Spread of disease.

As northern countries warm, disease carrying insects migrate north, bringing plague and disease with them. Indeed some scientists believe that in some countries thanks to global warming, malaria has not been fully eradicated.

4. Warmer waters and more hurricanes

As the temperature of oceans rises, so will the probability of more frequent and stronger hurricanes. We saw in this in 2004 and 2005.

3. Increased probability and intensity of droughts and heat waves

Although some areas of Earth will become wetter due to global warming, other areas will suffer serious droughts and heat waves. Africa will receive the worst of it, with more severe droughts also expected in Europe.

2. Economic consequences

Most of the effects of anthropogenic global warming won’t be good. And these effects spell one thing for the countries of the world: economic consequences. Hurricanes cause do billions of dollars in damage, diseases cost money to treat and control and conflicts exacerbate all of these.

1. The ice caps melting is a four-pronged danger.


So what is the solution? Are we just being negative?

The crisis slows global warming.

The volume of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide will decrease by 3% in 2009 because of the economic crisis. It will be a very sharp decline over the past 40 years.
Annual emissions grew by an average of the same 3%, reports AFP.


Environmentalists from the International Energy Agency believe that the global crisis has given the world a unique opportunity to limit the growth of atmospheric temperature by 2 degrees Celsius.


It means that mankind has the chance to make a real step towards clean energy, but only on condition that countries will choose the correct policy. Experts also point out that each year of delay adds $ 500 billion to the amount of investment, which would require the energy sector in 2010-2030. Meanwhile, scientists working in the UN Environment Program (UNEP), argue that by the end of the century the Earth's temperature will soar by nearly 3 degrees, even if all nations agree to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in their claimed amounts.


Warming will occur primarily through the fault of developing countries which have no money for alternative energy. "Contribution" of China alone will amount 1 degree.