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GLOBAL WARMING Introduction: Clmate change is an ever ongoing process in which the contemporary climate of the earth gets

shifted to a new one.It has been happenning since the formation of the earth. Various natural forces caused it from that time till around the 19 th century.The changes occured on evolutionary scale ,too much to be experienced by an individual during its lifetime.However there were a few mass extinctions,which were most probably outcomes of drastic and instantaneous climate change due to some natural catastrophy.One such instances wiped out the dinosaurs from earth.These catastrophies cannot be stopped but the condition that has lead people to thing about climate change so much is the climate change due to man-made factors. Since the dawn of the 19 th century, the world has seen rapid industrialisation of almost all the countries. All these industries are powered by energy derived from fossil fuels.So as the number of industries and vehicles increased ,so did the rate of change in climate.One of the major changes in climate is brought about by the phenomena called Global Warming.It is the continuous increment in the temperature of the Earth. It follows from the principle of greenhouse effect.The greenhouse effect is a natural process by which some of the radiant heat from the Sun is captured by the Earth's atmosphere, thus maintaining the temperature of the Earth's surface. These gases ,called greenhouse gases, include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and a variety of manufactured chemicals. Some are emitted from natural sources; others are anthropogenic, resulting from human activities. The Greenhouse Effect: The greenhouse effect was discovered by Joseph Fourier in 1824.In this process, the thermal radiation from the sun is supposedly reflected totally by the earth's surface.However due to the presence of the greenhouse gases,some of this reflected radiation is absorbed in the Earth's atmosphere.As such the temperature is higher than that wolud have been, had there were no greenhouse gases. This phenomena is very palys a pivotal role in the sustainence of life on earth. The temperature would have fallen to sub-zero levels as soon as the sun sets.Mercury which is closest to the sun has some of the coldest places in the solar system on the face that is opposite to the sun. As such an optimum level of GHGs sre very essential. However when this level crosses the maximum limit, its side effects starts which increases the temperature of the surface beyond accepted values. An exterme case of Greenhouse is Venus which is covered by a thick layer of GHG. As such its temperature increased continuously throughout its creation till now, making it the hottest planet!! Greenhouse Gases: 1)Water Vapour-Maximum contribution.Around 36-72% 2)Carbon Dioxide-9-26% 3)Methane-4-9% 4)Ozone 3-7% The primary sources of man-made GHG are: Industry Industries of all kinds emit various greenhouse gases like CO2,SO2,methane etc by burning fossil fuels. Transport Cars,railways flight planes etc are the second most important sources of greenhouse gases.All these use fossil fuels to run, releasing greenhouse gases after combustion. Deforestation: burning and removing vegetation Plants take up carbon dioxide from the air during photosynthesis and are therefore often referred to as carbon 'sinks'. When land is cleared and vegetation removed or burnt, the stored carbon is converted back to carbon dioxide. Farming Animals, particularly sheep and cattle, produce large amounts of methane. Some fertilisers nitrous oxide, which is another greenhouse gas. Waste breakdown Carbon dioxide and methane is released during the decay of food, vegetation and paper dumped in landfills. The same thing occurs when sewage wastes break down. Besides these, the largest contributors to greenhouse effect are still the natural causes like evaporation from waterbodies,volcanic eruptions,forest fires etc. These sources are not considered as potential causes of global warming because these are natural forces and the help maintain the normal level of greenhouse gases. Global warming specifically means the abrupt increase in temperature. also release

Effects of Greenhouse gases: It is most obvious that GHG lead to an increase in the average temperature of the Earth's surface. To date, it has been difficult to note such an increase conclusively because of the differences in temperature around the Earth and throughout the year, and also because of the difficulty in distinguishing permanent temperature changes from the normal fluctuations of the Earth's climate. Howerver the continual decrement of the polar ice caps do indicate practical influences. This not only increases the volume of available liquit water, but also causes more evaporation forming vatervapor, the most potent GHG, leading into a positive feedback loop. Though the sea-level rising might not seem fancy to most of us,it might even challenge the existence of some low lying countries like Maldives and Seychelles and to some extent the Netherlands!! Increase in temperature can also drastically change the rain-dry cycle causing havoc to farming practises. The present day farming lands might soon become barren while the tundra regions might become farmable. Similaly, the migration patterns of a large number of animals,birds,insects who depend on climate cues to migrate can get hapazzard. The hibernating animals will also find it very difficult to cope with this change. So overall the whole ecosystem will get awkward. Aother classes of GHg produced by industries,vehicles and appliances called Aerosols.Recent studies suggest that increased aerosol loading may have changed the energy balance in the atmosphere and at the Earth's surface, and altered the global water cycle in ways that make the climate system more prone to precipitation extremes.These aerosols like CFC, HFC also causes damage to the ozone layer allowing harmful wavelengths of UV rays to enter the atmosphere and cause various health hazards.An ozone hole has already been created over Antarctica!!

International Steps to prevent Global Warming: The heavily industrialised nations were considered mainly responsible for high emissions causing Global Warming.As a international agreement by UNFCCC, in December 1997, all the industrialised nations of the world except US signed the Kyoto Protocol. As per this agreement, 37 Annex I countries( except USA) agreed to commit to reduce their emission of four greenhouse gases (GHG) (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride) and two groups of gases (hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons) produced by them by 5.2% from the 1990 level to 2012s The Kyoto Protocol was followed by the Conference of Parties (COP) held timely at different places of the world to discuss the problems and the solutions. The last such meeting, COP15 was held at Copenhagen in 2009. Though the Kyoto Protocol and subsequent Conferences of Parties were well intentioned,they didnot meet much success.C02 levels in the atmosphere are still rising at alarming levels with no sign of slowing and so is the global temperature.One of the important reasons for this failure is due to tha fact that USA has not ratified the Treaty while China(enen India to an extent) is not obliged to limit emmission being a devevoping country.Mind you these two are the largest contributor of GHG, combining to a total of over 30% of global GHG emission. India's role: China & India are currently amongst the biggest polluters in the world at the moment but the western nations cannot deny that they were the original polluters in the first place when they became industrialised earlier than other nations. As such there existe various factions in India who still dont want to limit the emmission of gases due to economic reasons. The Copenhagen Summit failed partly beacuse India and China argued that since the Western and European countries were the ones that had and still are polluting the world with their massive industrialisation, it is they that should take the responsibility and limit emmision to a much lower level to allow these developing superpowers to develop. The Kyoto Protocol is more than 20 years old now.At that time the economic conditions of the world were different.Now even Indian citizens think that India and other developing countries should take active steps in reducing emissions.These positions are in sharp contrast to the views of the Indian government, which rejects any constraints on the emissions of GHGs by India.While the Indian government has ratified the Kyoto Protocol, it has been outspoken in its position that there is an overriding priority of the right to development which trumps any expectation that developing countries should seek to limit their emissions.

Conclusion: Though there are various arguements against the inclusion of developing nations under the Kyoto Protocol, every country, whether developed developing or underdeveloped, must understand that all of us have to live on the same planet. Just one country polluting doesnot means it is polluting itself. On the bigger picture, the whole world is getting affected.The scientific community has made it abundantly clear. We are in deep trouble. This global issue does not care about race, color or creed, nor political affiliation. So every country must do their best to limit these GHG to as minumum level as possible. As for example India can take various steps to reduce emmissions by: 1)Individual Awareness about Global Warming. 2)Implementation of Tall and Filtered Chimneys of Factories. 3)Lessen Deforestation and Increase Afforestation. 4)Replace Plastic by Jute Bags 5)More development of public transport. 6)Use of Renewable sources of energy. All these steps are valid for all the developing nations. The developed nations have more responsibilities as their economies are stable. This should be a collective effort.The cause is not limited by boundaries.Only then we can have a better and 'LIVEABLE' earth.

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