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Greenhouse Effect
Every year our Earth is getting hotter and the sea levels continue to rise - all because of the greenhouse effect and climate change!
If we fail to act, vast areas of our planet will become uninhabitable due to heat, flood and drought (see, we told you it wasn’t good). But don’t just switch off to that message because you have heard it before. Think about every word in that statement and picture it in your mind's eye.
"Our choices at all levels—individual, community, corporate and government—affect nature. And they affect us."
David Suzuki
Myths
The greenhouse effect is completely bad and is entirely the fault of recent human behaviour.
Facts
Despite what you may have heard lately, the greenhouse effect is not all bad – we actually need it. If we did not have heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, Earth's average temperature would be –18 degrees. Great for penguins (and things that eat penguins); absolutely horrible for us!
The two most common gases in the air are oxygen and nitrogen. These two gases do not hold heat; it passes straight through them (like a bright idea through Britney’s brain). The problem gases are the greenhouse gases – water, methane, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and sulphur hexafluoride. These all trap heat (like a woolly jumper), which is okay to a point. But we have long passed that point!
Our Earth is wearing too many jumpers!
The main gas responsible for the man-made climate change that we now 'enjoy' is carbon dioxide. It is also known by its scientific name CO2. Every year humans spew out 25 billion tonnes of polluting CO2 into our atmosphere. Even though South Australia’s emissions have been dropping (the only state to have dropped emissions last year!) they’re still up from 1990 levels. We need to try harder.
If we fail to act, vast areas of our planet will become uninhabitable due to heat, flood and drought.
Now ask the question – where will the people that live there move to? Remember Hurricane Katrina? Remember how hard it was for a relatively small number of people to be cared for and relocated – and that happened in the world’s richest, most developed country. Consider what it would mean on a global scale and consider changing they to I ... Where will I move to?
Latest information
Audit finds errors on emissions
February 9th, 2012
Just months before the carbon tax is introduced, an auditor's report has found that more than one in six major polluters has made ''significant errors'' when reporting its greenhouse emissions and energy use to the government.
How long do greenhouse gases stay in the air?
January 24th, 2012
The principal greenhouse gases can remain in the atmosphere for different amounts of time, from months to millennia, and affect the climate on very different timescales.
Worse off under the carbon tax? Hardly...
January 18th, 2012
When the facts are examined, it's hard to see how the average Australian will "do it tough" when the price on carbon takes effect given what else we spend our money on.
Carbon Recycling: Mining the Air for Fuel
October 14th, 2011
Recycling bottles, cans, and newspapers is on any short list of simple actions for a cleaner environment. If only it were as easy to collect and reuse carbon dioxide — that greenhouse gas waste product that the world is generating in huge volume each day by burning fossil fuels.
Indigenous People Sound the Alarm on Climate Change
October 14th, 2011
So much of the talk around climate change and the greenhouse effect is around the science of it: what does the science tell us? But there are plenty of people who don't need the science to confirm that something is up with the planet.
Scientists build machine to drink earths carbon milkshake
September 22nd, 2011
This machine sucks carbon out of the air like a Ghostbusters beam snarfing up ectoplasm. The idea is that if we can build millions of these babies, and find a good place to stick the carbon they capture, we can start to bring down Earth's already-dangerous levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
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