Oscar Lama Pollution Awareness

Eco Friendly Office Ideas

By Acline Wyle

The office is one of the most effective and accessible places where you can go green and really make a difference. This is because oftentimes, one business uses an entire building and employs hundreds of people. Therefore, if everyone at the workplace began making more eco friendly choices, the positive impact would cause the entire company to save energy and save money.

The Benefits of Going Green in the Workplace

The amount of energy that is regularly wasted in any given business place would most likely shock you. Since energy wasted is money wasted, offices can really reap the economic benefits of going green because of how much money can be saved every month. For example, lighting is responsible for 10-20% of the lighting costs of commercial buildings. This means that even something as simple as switching to energy saving light bulbs can really cause a company to save a lot of money in the long run.

Carpooling is another great idea. I’m sure I don’t have to go into details about how expensive gas can be. This is especially true if you live in a metropolitan area such as Los Angeles where traffic is such a huge issue. By carpooling, not only does everyone save gas money, they also save time because they can use the carpool lane!

Another helpful suggestion is to recycle as often as possible. This really applies to big corporations that go through countless amounts of paper everyday. The great thing about recycling is that it can go both ways because you can recycle the ink and paper products in your office, and then you can go out and buy recycled products when you run out.

Oscar Lama Eco Friendly Office Ideas

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Global Warming: A Brief Introduction

By: Simon Rosser

The term Global Warming has been in common usage for some time and usually refers to recent warming of Earth’s atmosphere,which also implies a manmade or human influence.

Earth’s atmosphere comprises many gases: oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide (hereafter abbreviated to CO2) and water vapour, to name a few. These gases are collectively called greenhouse gases and they keep the Earth’s temperature at a comfortable 15°C. Without them Earth would be a freezing -18&degC.

Since pre-industrial times, usually taken to be before 1750, we know from ice-core records that CO2 levels were about 280 ppm,that’s 280 parts of CO2 per million parts of air. As industrialisation got underway humankind started to farm the land more intensely than ever before, which included deforestation for agriculture and settlements. Later - since about 1850 or so - the burning of fossil fuels for energy and transport has added considerably to greenhouse gas levels, particularly CO2.

This has resulted in CO2 levels increasing to about 385 ppm, a rise of about thirty-seven per cent from pre-industrial levels - mainly as a result of burning fossil fuels.

How do we know this?

Well, data from ice-core records that go back at least 650,000 years now show us that CO2 levels have fluctuated naturally during this time between 280 and 300 ppm. CO2 levels have also been measured accurately from the top of Mauna Loa Volcano in Hawaii since 1958, and results show an increase in CO2 levels from 315 ppm to 385 ppm since that time.

Therefore CO2 is now at eighty ppm more than it has been for at least 650,000 years of Earth’s history. It is a known scientific fact that higher levels of greenhouse gases will lead to higher temperatures, which appears to be happening now. The world has warmed by an average of 0.74 degrees during the last 100 years or so. As a result of this warming, polar ice has started to decrease and melt, and so have Earth’s land-based glaciers. This in turn is causing sea levels to rise, which is putting low-lying islands at risk of flooding or total submersion, and will eventually threaten more and more of the world’s coastal cities and regions.

Things may get worse, however, because once Earth’s atmosphere starts to warm, the warming itself may cause further positive feedback mechanisms to kick in. A warmer atmosphere holds more water vapour, which is itself a powerful greenhouse gas. This will in turn cause further warming, and so on.

Melting ice results in more sunlight being absorbed by the surrounding ‘darker’ water and land, and that results in further warming, and more melting ice. Methane deposits currently held in a frozen but stable state under the sea and under the permafrost may be released as the oceans warm and permafrost melts, which will cause further warming. This is very worrying as methane is a potent greenhouse gas and around twenty times more powerful than CO2 when talking about it’s ability to warm the Earth’s atmosphere.

This is global warming in a nut shell, however there are of course far more complex issues involved as global warming will not affect the whole planet in the same way at the same time. Some parts will experience more drought, some parts more rainfall, and some parts more extreme weather such as floods and heatwaves.

Oscar Lama Global Warming Introduction

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Global Warming: A Brief Introduction

By: Simon Rosser

The term Global Warming has been in common usage for some time and usually refers to recent warming of Earth’s atmosphere,which also implies a manmade or human influence.

Earth’s atmosphere comprises many gases: oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide (hereafter abbreviated to CO2) and water vapour, to name a few. These gases are collectively called greenhouse gases and they keep the Earth’s temperature at a comfortable 15°C. Without them Earth would be a freezing -18&degC.

Since pre-industrial times, usually taken to be before 1750, we know from ice-core records that CO2 levels were about 280 ppm,that’s 280 parts of CO2 per million parts of air. As industrialisation got underway humankind started to farm the land more intensely than ever before, which included deforestation for agriculture and settlements. Later - since about 1850 or so - the burning of fossil fuels for energy and transport has added considerably to greenhouse gas levels, particularly CO2.

This has resulted in CO2 levels increasing to about 385 ppm, a rise of about thirty-seven per cent from pre-industrial levels - mainly as a result of burning fossil fuels.

How do we know this?

Well, data from ice-core records that go back at least 650,000 years now show us that CO2 levels have fluctuated naturally during this time between 280 and 300 ppm. CO2 levels have also been measured accurately from the top of Mauna Loa Volcano in Hawaii since 1958, and results show an increase in CO2 levels from 315 ppm to 385 ppm since that time.

Therefore CO2 is now at eighty ppm more than it has been for at least 650,000 years of Earth’s history. It is a known scientific fact that higher levels of greenhouse gases will lead to higher temperatures, which appears to be happening now. The world has warmed by an average of 0.74 degrees during the last 100 years or so. As a result of this warming, polar ice has started to decrease and melt, and so have Earth’s land-based glaciers. This in turn is causing sea levels to rise, which is putting low-lying islands at risk of flooding or total submersion, and will eventually threaten more and more of the world’s coastal cities and regions.

Things may get worse, however, because once Earth’s atmosphere starts to warm, the warming itself may cause further positive feedback mechanisms to kick in. A warmer atmosphere holds more water vapour, which is itself a powerful greenhouse gas. This will in turn cause further warming, and so on.

Melting ice results in more sunlight being absorbed by the surrounding ‘darker’ water and land, and that results in further warming, and more melting ice. Methane deposits currently held in a frozen but stable state under the sea and under the permafrost may be released as the oceans warm and permafrost melts, which will cause further warming. This is very worrying as methane is a potent greenhouse gas and around twenty times more powerful than CO2 when talking about it’s ability to warm the Earth’s atmosphere.

This is global warming in a nut shell, however there are of course far more complex issues involved as global warming will not affect the whole planet in the same way at the same time. Some parts will experience more drought, some parts more rainfall, and some parts more extreme weather such as floods and heatwaves.

Oscar Lama Global Warming

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