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The East Coast is struggling to recover from the massive blizzard that slammed into hundreds cities and towns from the Carolinas to Maine. The storm was a grimly fitting end to 2010, which was characterized by extreme weather from start to finish with heat waves, floods, volcanoes, blizzards, landslides and droughts. While TV networks closely follow extreme weather events around the world, they rarely make the connection between extreme weather and global warming. We speak with Dr. Paul Epstein of Harvard University’s Center for Health and the Global Environment.

  

Global warming is not a 20th century phenomenon. It has, in fact, occurred in the past more than once, along with periods of extreme cold known as the ice ages. With so much written and reported about global warming, sometimes it’s difficult to detect which is fact and which is just part of scientific scare tactics. Here are some facts about global warming that might help:

What exactly is global warming?

Global warming is basically the increase in the temperatures of the Earth’s atmosphere, land masses and oceans. The Earth’s surface temperature is at an average of 59F and over the last hundred years, this figure has risen to about 1F. By the year 2100, the average change in the temperature of the Earth could range from 2.5F to about 10F, enough to melt glaciers and polar ice caps.

The cause of global warming

Global warming has and will always occur naturally. Why it has become such a concern in our lifetime is due to the fact that human activities and practices have contributed significantly to its occurrence and severity. With the advent of industrialization and careless environmental practices, we have caused the increase in the average global temperatures by contributing negatively to the greenhouse effect.

This began about 240 years ago, when the Industrial Revolution was born. As more and more fossil fuels in the form of oil were mined and burned, gases as the by-product of that process began to be released in the atmosphere. Currently, it is estimated that 75% of the increase in the carbon dioxide content of the Earth’s atmosphere is caused by the burning of these fossil fuels.

Global warming and the greenhouse effect

Global warming is related to changes in the Earth’s greenhouse effect. Gases naturally occur in the Earth’s atmosphere and act both to protect and retain heat. These gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and water vapor. Of these, water vapor is the most dominant and abundant greenhouse gas.

  

Solar hot water in Auckland: why is it such a great way to go green?

To put it simply: climate change. It’s the single biggest environmental challenge we face today, and the energy we consume to drive our cars, power the jets that whisk us away on holiday, heat our homes, run all of our electronic gadgets, power our factories, along with many, many other energy-guzzling activities, is at the heart of the problem.

But when we look more closely, not all energy is created equal; some is definitely more ‘green’ and less harmful to the environment than others, and solar gets full marks for being environmentally friendly. Here’s why:

The biggest contributors to climate change are fossil fuels, because these are the forms of energy that emit carbon dioxide (CO2 – the most prevalent greenhouse gas) and other greenhouse gases. When we burn oil, natural gas, or coal, CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere, creating a greenhouse effect that warms the earth’s atmosphere. Coal has the highest rate of greenhouse gas emissions of these fossils fuels, followed by oil and then natural gas, but all are major contributors to the greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere that are causing global warming.

This is in part because of just how much fossil fuel energy the world consumes. As of 2005, oil accounted for 37% of total energy consumption, followed by coal at 25% and gas at 23%. And to put things in a bigger picture, in recent years we’ve become proper energy hogs; of all the energy produced since the Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century, we have consumed half of that in just the last two decades!