Carbon Footprints

Factory pollution is one of the minor contributors of global warming; however it can be stopped before it gets any worst than it already is.

Industry pollution mostly comes from the factories that are over ten years old . If we make new factories that don't cause as much pollution and knock down the older factories it will lower the percent of pollution that factories give off. Even if that doesn't work it is still possible to lower the percent of pollution factories give off by using an alternative source of energy instead of burning fossil fuels in factories. This will slow down global warming. If the normal everyday people just don't use as much energy we won't have to burn as much fossil fuel .

Global warming is the effect of 200 years of burning fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, deforestation and other natural disasters. When the sun's heat rays come into the earth's atmosphere the greenhouse gases trap most of the heat and that heat continues to build up, and heat the earth more and more every year. Doing this causes the heat-trapping "greenhouse gases" to increase significantly in the atmosphere every year if not stopped. These gases prevent heat from escaping to space.

One major cause of global warming is industry pollution. Factory pollution is over 40% of the pollution that causes global warming according to some sources, others disagree. One of the diseases that it causes is asthma. More than twenty million people a year have asthma attacks and over 9,000 children in the United States die a year from asthma attacks. Other diseases are heart and lung diseases, and respiratory allergies. The World Health Organization estimates that in all 4.6 million people die each year from causes that are directly from air pollution. According to Scorecard, over 20,000 factories in the United States produce over 4 billion pounds of toxic chemicals that could leak into the environment. Some of these gases contain items that might cause a fire and that well cause global warming, because of the carbon coming from the fire.

The effect of global warming will make the sea level rise nine to eighty-eight centimeters, because of the melting glaciers. This doesn't seem like a lot now, but in a few years when the sea level rises more it will cause more floods because of the water cycle. The water cycle is where the water comes from, the ocean comes up into the clouds and comes down as rain. Then most of the water goes back into the ocean and it starts all over again. With more water there will be more rain and more floods. Global warming is basically another word to explain the theory, that all around the world the temperature of the earth is increasing.

This is all the information needed to know about industrial pollution and how to stop it. Global warming is just another term to name the theory that the temperature all around the world is increasing, but there are still ways to stop it if people take part in helping clean up the mess made on earth.

Addenda

Though factories do contribute to the addition of pollutants and 'Greenhouse gasses', by far, the greatest amount is from natural processes.

Nor can our factories be 'stopped'. Unless you wish to disassemble the entire technology on which our civilization is based.

Knocking down and building new factories would add to the problem and any benefits from cleaner use would not be seen for decades.

Giving simplistic answers addressing such problems adds to the problems, as does disseminating such information.

There are almost 7,000,000,000 people in the world, many starving or on subsistence diets. To do away with the very infrastructure that is presently keeping these people alive is not a solution.

Nuclear energy has a significant carbon cost of mining uranium fuel. This carbon cost is usually exported to another nation's mines. The actual carbon cost can be reduced by cutting safety in extremely poor countries, which leads to greater worker mortality but doesn't show up in the carbon budget.

The best nuclear ores are all mined. The true carbon cost of additional nuclear energy must be measured in the carbon cost of mining additional ores, not in the current average carbon cost of mining.

The carbon cost of the threat of terrorism incidents at nuclear plants is hard to calculate. Are we invading other countries because terrorist organizations will strike domestic nuclear power plants first? Also, would one successful terrorist incident instantly double the carbon cost of protecting all nuclear power plants?

We don't know how to measure the carbon cost of protecting people from nuclear waste for thousands of years. For example, the current U.S. policy on nuclear waste at the Hanford Military Reservation, which is in the floodplain of the Columbia River, is to leave the waste in place underground until it leaks into the river and is gone, or until a river flood overruns the area. This method of neglect produces a very small carbon footprint.

The decommissioning of reactors has a high carbon footprint. The carbon cost of decommissioning can be amortized over more years of electricity production by extending a nuclear plant's lifetime. However, old nuclear plants tend to have more radioactive leaks, and may have a slightly higher risk of a disaster.

The Ukraine has an issue where authorities have encased the disastrous Chernobyl reactor in a concrete casing and have abandoned the nearby city and region. Nuclear radiation has helped destroy the casing, and a new concrete tomb is planned. The entire region of Chernobyl is now threatened by fuel buildup on the forest floor. A forest fire would pump huge amounts of radiation into the air, which would cross national boundaries. Again, this storage problem's carbon footprint is low, simply because in case of a fire much of the isotope radiation would blow into some other country.

What we find is that the carbon footprint involved in generating nuclear energy and nuclear safety efforts are inextricably linked. The carbon costs in keeping people extremely safe from radiation would be enormous. Nuclear energy would be a net carbon sinkhole, where it would be more practical just to burn fossil fuels for electricity. If, however, many public health and safety shortcuts are taken by a government, especially by exporting safety problems or ignoring the mining and nuclear waste problems, nuclear energy has a much lower carbon footprint than just burning fossil fuels.

To put this into context, the following are average estimates of total greenhouse gasses by production type with numbers of grams of CO2e/kWh:

1000 - coal

900 - oil

750 - open cycle natural gas

580 - closed cycle natural gas

(closed cycle natural gas combined with co-generation might bring this down to 400 g. CO2e/kWh)

500 coal plant burning 50% coal with 50% miscanthus

110 - old solar photovoltaics

95 - biomass from miscanthus

85 - nuclear

40 - concentrated solar thermal with thermal storage

35 - new solar photovoltaics

25 - biomass from gasification of wood chips (used to fuel conventional natural gas turbines)

21 - wind

15 - hydroelectricity

<10 - geothermal doublet

These numbers come mostly from the Wikipedia article cited below. The figure for nuclear is extracted from the Sovacool article cited by using only studies dated after 2004. The figures for solar come from current solar literature as solar technology has changed a lot in the last ten years. The figures for biomass come from the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology.

This places the carbon footprint of nuclear as 400% to 1600% of wind, hydro, solar, but about 15% of natural gas, and 8.5% of coal. Bear in mind that some estimates for the nuclear are much higher.

Finally, the carbon footprint spent fuel disposal or reprocessing still does not change the BTU ratio significantly.

Electricity could affect the environment in various ways.

For Instance:

1. Lightning could cause trees to burn, and be the starting point for forest fires etc.
2. Electricity used in our homes and in companies come from factories run by coal. The fumes released by the burning coal travels upwards into our air and damage the ozone layer. It's also primarily because of this, people believe, that Global Warming exists today.
3. People get electrocuted and so forth(excuse me laughing- haha).

CobyGrey

it is the smoke that is coming from the cars

Answer:

Smoke is described as "belching" from industrial smoke stacks as a reference to human belching of gas from the stomach. The word is originally imitative of the sound of human belching. Essentially it is a rush of gas from a pipe.

Fossil fuels include oil formed out of organic matter deposited and decomposed under the earth's surface for a very long time.

Some of the advantages of oil are -

* Easily combustible, and produces high energy upon combustion helping in locomotion and in the generation of electricity and various other forms of energy;

* Widely and easily distributed all over the world through rail and sea tankers * Comparatively inexpensive due to large reserves and easy accessibility * Good availability * Inexpensive

* Very large amounts of electricity can be generated in one place using oil, fairly cheaply.

* Oil-fired power stations are very efficient.

* An oil-fuelled power station can be built almost anywhere, so long as you can get large quantities of fuel to it.

However, the important issue as of now is whether there are more advantages than disadvantages of fossil fuels !

Some disadvantages of oil are that -

* it is non-renewable and fast depleting; * burning it releases carbon dioxide, a powerful greenhouse gas, that had been stored in the earth for millions of years

* it leaves behind harmful by-products upon combustion, thereby causing a lot of pollution; * mining of oil leads to irreversible damage to the adjoining environment; * Oil spills as well as evaporation and fumes pollutes the environment; * Used oil is difficult to recycle. * The price of oil is rising, especially if the real cost of its carbon is included. * Burning it produces carbon dioxide, a major cause of global warming.

=== === The basic problem with coal and other carbon based fuels in not really that they release carbon-- it is that the carbon they release is not then quickly and efficiently absorbed by some other process, eliminating it from the atmosphere. We are taking unimaginably huge quantities of carbon, stored away for eons, and pouring it into the air. It will remain there for eons more, until the earth goes through more of its own balancing cycles. http://sciencedata.blogspot.com/

Many years, depending partly on the chemical conditions in the heap where they are dumped.
It depends on the environment.

In particularly corrosive environments - say on the salty sea shore in a tropical country, just a few months. But in Antarctica, it will never decompose, it'll stay frozen in the ice forever.

-- Rescue carbon-based life here when the solar system is no longer a tenable home.

Humans are meant to live their lives as best as they can, so that they provide a good example to others asking the same questions.

Climate Change
Just about a year back, I came across an article in which environmentalists expressed their concerns that if the Gangotri glacier (that feeds river Ganges) kept melting at its current rate, the river Ganges would soon dry up. River Ganges is the holy river of India, which has served as a lifeline for centuries for millions of people on its banks. Rivers have played an important role in the survival of mankind, and many of them are fed by glaciers. Global warming refers to the increase in the temperatures of the earth due to release of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane from industries and vehicles. This phenomenon is causing the glaciers to melt at an alarming rate. Not just the Gangotri, but even the polar ice caps are melting at a faster rate than they can form. The result is increase in the sea level, and it poses a danger of drowning the low-lying areas. Some of the areas that may go under the sea if the sea levels kept increasing include Bangladesh, parts of Africa and even major cities like London and New York!

Depletion of Ozone Layer
The stratosphere has a layer of ozone that protects us from the harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays of the sun. Exposure to these rays cause skin cancer and cataracts. However, the ozone layer filters out the dangerous UV rays from sunlight as it enters the earth's atmosphere. The cholofluorocarbons (CFCs) that are man-made chemicals are released in the atmosphere through CFC containing aerosols, refrigeration equipment, foam and as by products of certain industrial processes. As these chemicals are released, they rise into the atmosphere and break down the ozone molecules that form the ozone layer. There is an ozone hole in the Antarctic stratosphere that is causing great concern to environmentalists all over the world. Because of the ozone holes in the upper atmosphere, the Earth receives excessive ultraviolet radiation from the sun. This is harmful for trees and plants (and for animals and human beings who depend on plants). The UV rays can destroy a certain type of bacteria known as Cyanobacteria that are important for a number of economically important crops. Researchers are even predicting that excess level of UV rays could lead to the death of the phytoplanktons, that are an important component of the food web of the oceans.

Pollution
Industrialization has been the hallmark of human progress. However, with industries have come a host of toxic gases that are being released into the atmosphere even as I write this article and you read it. Industries release gallons of liquid waste into the seas and rivers. Some of the effluents percolate down and reach the ground water and pollute it to the extent that it can't be used by human beings for drinking or cooking. Intensive agriculture and excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides are destroying the natural land and driving animals away. Besides adding to air pollution, the innumerable vehicles running on the roads add to noise pollution that has led to an increase in stress, anxiety and problems related to hearing. Water pollution has led to a decrease in the number of various aquatic animals. Several aquatic life forms are on the verge of extinction. Migratory birds are known to change their course due to pollution or change in weather. Respiratory diseases in human beings is another price that we are paying for polluting the environment. Acid rains can kill trees, destroy crops and fish life in lakes and streams. Ingestion or inhalation of toxic substances increases the chances of having life-threatening diseases like cancer.

Deforestation
Increasing population, industrialization and need of land for development of expanding cities has led man to cut down forests selfishly. Not only are the forests home to a large number of animals, trees are also an important component of the water cycle. The roots of plants hold the soil together and prevent soil erosion. The global forest cover has shrunk to half its area in the last 11,000 years. During the period between 1990 and 2000 itself, the yearly loss of natural forests was 16 million hectares. Deforestation at such alarming rate has been a cause of constant worry for environmentalists the world over. 'Biodiversity' plays an extremely important role when it comes to maintaining the life on Earth.

Extinction of Species
The variety and interdependence of all living things has led to the evolution of world. Man has been killing animals right since the time he acquired the skill of hunting. Although in those times, hunting was the means for survival, human beings continued to kill animals even after they had learned to cultivate crops. The relentless hunting by human beings, sometimes for the hide of a cheetah or the tusks of the elephants, or simply to cook the tasty shark fin soup, has wiped out the existence of a large number of animals in just a century. Besides hunting, human activities like environmental pollution and deforestation has led to the extinction of a large number of animals and plants due to loss of habitat. Recent studies have shown that in North America, 37 animal species have become extinct in the last 50 years due to human activities. Loss of habitat led to the extinction of the Bali subspecies of tiger in 1937. According to the 2008 annual IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) report, there were 16,928 animal and plant species that are threatened of extinction and the list keeps increasing every year.

Despite the indiscriminate exploitation of nature by some people, there are a handful of those that are relentlessly working to reverse the detrimental effects of human activities on the environment. The World Wildlife Fund, European Environment Agency and the National Geographic are some organizations that run programs for the preservation of nature and educate and inspire people to conserve all life forms be it flora or fauna. Here is a small list of activities that can help reestablish the ecosystems.

How can Humans Improve Damaged Ecosystems
Passing and implementing strict laws for industries and colonies. Those who are responsible for polluting air and water should be severely punished.
Creating protected wildlife reserves. Certain species that are on the verge of extinction should be declared as 'protected species' by respective governments.
Breeding certain species, and releasing them afterwards so that they can live in their own habitat. Preserving and creating proper habitats.
Planting as many trees as possible. Reforestation or re-greening the damaged areas can help avoid desertification of land.
Creating awareness by celebrating 'Earth Day', 'Green Day', 'Tree Day', etc.
Eliminating foreign species can help native species of plants to grow.
Cleaning the rivers, ponds and lakes.
Avoiding use of plastic bags.
Separating dry and wet garbage, composting, using wet garbage as manure.
Avoiding use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers.
Using innovative and different energy forms like solar energy, wind energy, etc.
Limiting the use of vehicles by following the rule of carpool, taking stairs, walking or taking a bike ride whenever possible.
Eating local products can help avoid wastage of gas and air pollution; as food products are transported by trucks, trains, ships or airplanes. They are processed with machines which require electricity to run.
We have overworked the planet. Still, we can stop environmental degradation by following certain rules. Creating awareness about the duties and responsibilities of the citizens of EARTH is equally important. Now that we know how humans affect the environment, let us not sit back leaving all the responsibility of conserving our planet on a handful of people. Each one of us can make a valuable contribution towards preserving our environment. Let us do our own bit, for, in the well-being of the environment lies the key to our survival.