All About Global Warming

Global warming is the term used to describe a gradual increase in the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and its oceans, a change that is believed to be permanently changing the Earth’s climate forever.

While many view the effects of global warming to be more substantial and more rapidly occurring than others do, the scientific consensus on climatic changes related to global warming is that the average temperature of the Earth has risen between 0.4 and 0.8 °C over the past 100 years. The increased volumes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released by the burning of fossil fuels, land clearing, agriculture, and other human activities, are believed to be the primary sources of the global warming that has occurred over the past 50 years.

Scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate carrying out global warming research have recently predicted that average global temperatures could increase between 1.4 and 5.8 °C by the year 2100. Changes resulting from global warming may include rising sea levels due to the melting of the polar ice caps, as well as an increase in occurrence and severity of storms and other severe weather events.

See More

Biofuels emissions may be 'worse than petrol'

Biofuels, once seen as a useful way of combating climate change, could actually increase greenhouse gas emissions, say two major new studies.

And it may take tens or hundreds of years to pay back the "carbon debt" accrued by growing biofuels in the first place, say researchers. The calculations join a growing list of studies questioning whether switching to biofuels really will help combat climate change.

Biofuel production has accelerated over the last 5 years, spurred in part by a US drive to produce corn-derived ethanol as an alternative to petrol.

See more

Benefits of Renewable Energy

Renewable energy provides many important benefits including:

• Savings and Efficiency
  

• Reliable Energy
  

• Environmental benefits
  

• Energy for the future
  

• Jobs & the economy
  

• Energy security

• See more from here
  

Renewable Geothermal Energy / Geothermal Power

Geothermal energy is a form of energy using the inherent warmth of the ground to create power in primarily the form of heat. Roughly six to seven feet below the surface of the ground, the temperature of the Earth is regulated. By exchanging liquids between above and below ground areas, temperature regulation can be achieved. This is mostly seen in residential situations.

See more

The renewable energy future

Remember rain?

As Los Angeles creaks through its driest year on record and nervously awaits its next explosive wildfire, many wonder if global warming is already taking a toll. Nobody really knows; California has always had intermittent droughts, after all. But climate models predicted this situation. Changes in ocean temperatures and currents driven by things such as the melting of the Greenland ice shelf -- which is happening a lot faster than scientists expected -- will probably produce an even more desert-like climate in L.A.

See More

Future Power

Where on Earth can our energy-hungry society turn to replace oil, coal, and natural gas?

Freedom!

I stand in a cluttered room surrounded by the debris of electrical enthusiasm: wire peelings, snippets of copper, yellow connectors, insulated pliers. For me these are the tools of freedom. I have just installed a dozen solar panels on my roof, and they work. A meter shows that 1,285 watts of power are blasting straight from the sun into my system, charging my batteries, cooling my refrigerator, humming through my computer, liberating my life.
As National Geographic reported in June 2004, oil, no longer cheap, may soon decline. Instability where most oil is found, from the Persian Gulf to Nigeria to Venezuela, makes this lifeline fragile. Natural gas can be hard to transport and is prone to shortages. We won't run out of coal anytime soon, or the largely untapped deposits of tar sands and oil shale. But it's clear that the carbon dioxide spewed by coal and other fossil fuels is warming the planet, as this magazine reported last September.

See More

Clean Wind Energy for Year

Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future (PennFuture), an environmental nonprofit, has launched a year-long contest for Pennsylvania residents in which it will give away six compact fluorescent bulbs each month to a monthly winner and a grand prize of one year's supply of clean wind energy. (Enter here.)

Perhaps more importantly, every entrant in the contest will receive a free copy of a PennFuture brochure, "Ten Quick Actions to Help Stop Global Warming."

Great idea, happy to see...