Climate and Your Impact

What is global Climate Change?

The Earth’s climate has changed and fluctuated greatly over its long history. But not until the past 150 or so years has the rise in temperature been so constant and rapid. In 2006, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of thousands of climate scientists from around the world, announced that the recent warming in the Earth’s average atmospheric temperature is caused by human activities and that if significant reductions in the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) we disburse into the atmosphere are reduced by 80% below 1990 levels by the year 2050, then we will can avoid the worst effects of manmade climate change.

An updated study by the IPCC in January 2009 anniounced that the situation is much worse. The study concluded that the rise in GHGs has already reached a tipping point where the Earth's average atmospheric temperature will continue to rise and cannot be reversed for at least one thousand years. If immediate action is not taken, then the negative consequenses will very likely become permanent. Where the consequences of a warming climate are unknown, they are potentially disastrous. Most climate scientists predict the complete, year-round loss of ice at the North and South Poles, expansive drought, more extreme hurricanes, the destruction of coastal population centers via a rise in sea levels, massive food crop loss, starvation, and a rise in disease.

The currently acknowledged effect of climate change is rapid Global Warming

What is Global Warming?

Global Warming is just that: the globe is warming. And it’s warming at an increasing rate. Only within the past twenty years have people come to recognize the severe danger that Global Warming poses to every living thing on Earth. Along with more severe hurricanes in some areas comes long-term, sustained drought in others. Shifting weather patterns means that delicate ecosystems vanish; crops fail; plagues, drought and famine increase; and the world’s economies potentially crumble. Global Warming is more than a few more nice summer days in the Midwest; it’s an immediate global human danger.

What is causing the Earth to warm so quickly?

Along with the rise of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1800s came the rise in high global-warming-potential gases, called greenhouse gases (GHGs). These GHGs have been associated with the sustained rise in global atmospheric temperatures for the past 150 years.

When GHGs like carbon dioxide (CO2) get emitted into the atmosphere from activities like driving to work, flying on a plane to visit family, or simply using an electrical appliance powered by a coal-fired power plant, the Earth’s natural carbon-cycle takes that CO2 out of the air and transforms it into usable material and oxygen for people and animals to breathe. When too many GHG emissions are put in the atmosphere and too many trees and green plants are destroyed, the plants and trees that usually do the job to absorb CO2 cannot keep up. As a result, CO2 and other GHGs linger in the air and make the earth warmer and warmer, causing all kinds of environmental problems.

How can I eliminate my contribution to Global Warming?

To keep the earth from getting dangerously warm, governments, businesses, and individuals across the world have recognized that action needs to be taken now and have set goals to do so. Ultimately, having a neutral impact on the climate is the best position to be in. A Pure Green Consultant can help you discover ways to reduce your energy use and improve environmental efficiencies in your office. Since some modern-day activities that release GHGs into the air are difficult for many people to avoid, many businesses and individuals have decided to reduce their carbon footprint further by investing in “carbon offsets”—a reduction in the tonnes of GHGs made possible through monetary investment.

What is a carbon footprint?