Climate Change
by David Trace
1. Deforestation, soil tillage and land degradation, which release carbon from the land system and reduce its capacity to absorb and store carbon.
2. Nitrous oxide is also emitted by human activities such as fertilizer use and fossil fuel burning. Natural processes in soils and the oceans also release N2O.
3. Electricity generated at power plants is carried by power lines to users, sometimes hundreds of miles away.
4. Deforestation The use of forests for fuel (both wood and for charcoal) is one cause of deforestation, but in the first world, our appetite for wood and paper products, our consumption of livestock grazed on former forest land, and the use of tropical forest lands for commodities like palm oil plantations contributes to the mass deforestation of our world. Forests remove and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and this deforestation releases large amounts of carbon, as well as reducing the amount of carbon capture on the planet.
5. Temperatures are increasing in an exponential fashion and as a result they are bringing forward a climatically volatile change in the nature of our environment.
6. Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning power plants. Our ever increasing addiction to electricity from coal burning power plants releases enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Every day, more electric gadgets flood the market, and without widespread alternative energy sources, we are highly dependent on burning coal for our personal and commercial electrical supply.
7. Clearing of forests for agriculture, which releases carbon dioxide through increased biomass decay.
8. Water vapor is the most abundant and important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. However, human activities have only a small direct influence on the amount of atmospheric water vapor.
