Wednesday, May 30, 2007
The Blog in General
In this blog about global warming I have on all occasions tried to put forward my views and ideas in the most vivid way possible. Some people rely on pictures to express themselves, and some rely on movies yet I prefer to lean on what I know best; the English language. It doesn't matter how the ideas are expressed just as long as the message is made clear to all audiances; that the earth is at peril from our incrseasing selfish activities. I have always leaned towards drastic solutions to most problems because I believe that serious problems have to be solved by going to the roots and uprooting that which spreads the tumor. There is no other problem that I can think of that is of a more pressing nature than that of global warming. The roots of this problem lie in man's behaviour and his inability to come to terms with the incoveniant truth that his mode of livng is totally incompatible with the future well being of this planet.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
What can we do?
When issues relating to global warming are discussed it is important to bear in mind that no matter how often it is discussed, how ardently it is identified with, or how fanatically it is supported it all comes down to individual action. What can we do as individuals, living here in Abu Dhabi, do to contribute to the international efforts directed towards reducing the impact of human activity on the environment? To begin with there are certain activities that each of us as individuals can perform, and there are other activities that are most effective when performed by a group of individuals or by some governing body. Looking from my perspective as a student here are some of the things that I can do:
Drive a more fuel efficient car
Monitor my personal water usage
Monitor the time I spend involved in activities that consume electrical energy (playing on the computer, watching TV, reading at night)
Monitor how strictly I adhere to waste disposal rules
Monitor the amount of time per day I spend driving my car
What I want to say is that by monitoring the degrees to which these activities are carried out I will be making myself aware of the impact that I have on the environment. Once this awareness has been reached I will subconsciously begin to enact countermeasures that will in some way reduce the polluting effects of the aforesaid activities. For example a couple of minutes ago I was typing this sentence with my room light turned on. Now I have turned it off, I understand that some critics might ridicule my behavior but I cannot have a clear conscience if I continue to type this report with my room lights on. The room lights are an unnecessary luxury when I am typing, and furthermore I am unconcerned about the ill-effects of the light from the computer screen because I have a fine mesh frame that will protect my eyes from the glare. Also when I go to have a shower tonight I will turn the shower on just for a long enough time to wet my skin, after which I will turn it off and lather myself with a bar of soap, then I will shampoo my already wet hair. I will perform all the basic cleansing activities with the shower turned on once for barely 10 seconds. After I am all covered in soap I will turn the shower on again for a little over 10 seconds during which I will rinse all the soap away. In total I would have used the shower for just over 30 seconds. The whole bathing activity should not last for more than 3 minutes. I have learned to do this since I was 13 years old, and not because of environmental reasons, but because this was the rule that all students adhered to in my old boarding school in the UK. Now as I grow older I begin to see the wisdom in the dictums that were hammered into my skull when I was a child. There are many things that can be done in the home to reduce the “carbon footprint” regardless of the bleating of cynics who claim that all such behavior is futile since no one would be mad enough or ardent enough to carry them out. I will behave in this way; the “way of reduction,” to give it a nice dramatic slant, not because I know or care what others are doing at this time but because I have already linked my activities and behavior with the well being of the future progeny of the human race on this planet. Before I will be accused of obsessive enthusiasm I want to compound this accusation by going one step further; I believe that even if it is too late to do anything about the deterioration of the environment of our planet we can still reduce our “carbon footprints” as individuals and this reduction will, in some unforeseen way, mitigate the ill-effects of our previous slovenly and compulsive behavior. This is not the end of it; just because I will use less electricity, less water, and less fuel it does not mean that I can go to my bed with a clear conscience, a right sorry hypocrite I would be if I did, nay; there is still more to come. There are people to talk to; people with similar views and similar opinions and thus the dissimulation of ideas will spread until more and more people are woken up by the pungent and acrid stench issuing forth from the foul truth that stares humankind in the face every second of the day; our planet is dying. Whatever environmental monitoring agencies exist here in the city must be given more leeway in enacting their recommendations pertaining to the well being of the local environment. There is a lot of wasted energy, some of which is quite obvious, and others which are of a more subtle nature but in general the city of Abu Dhabi is a lot cleaner and less polluted than some of the other cities that I have visited in Europe and the United States. Yet there is still more to be done, the anti-littering laws must be strictly enforced and some sort of vehicle occupancy rules could be introduced. For example from twelve noon to around four in the afternoon there should be no private transport vehicles permitted on the city streets, without a hefty fine, if it is observed that the aforesaid vehicle contains less than three persons. Or another law can be passed to the effect that all cars with a certain category of license plate are legally operable only on three specified days of the week. The other three days of the week will be reserved for cars that bear another type of license plate, and on the seventh day of the week all cars will be rendered legally operable. However such laws would mean the upgrading of public transport in terms of both quality and efficiency. There are many more ideas that can be discussed but they will remain in the shade unless groups of people who are concerned about the well being of our environment get together and discuss these issues forthrightly. We cannot go back to the way of life that was suffered by our ancestors in the dark ages but we can do things that will reduce the already prolific impact that our activities have on the environment in general and on the phenomenon of global warming in particular.
Drive a more fuel efficient car
Monitor my personal water usage
Monitor the time I spend involved in activities that consume electrical energy (playing on the computer, watching TV, reading at night)
Monitor how strictly I adhere to waste disposal rules
Monitor the amount of time per day I spend driving my car
What I want to say is that by monitoring the degrees to which these activities are carried out I will be making myself aware of the impact that I have on the environment. Once this awareness has been reached I will subconsciously begin to enact countermeasures that will in some way reduce the polluting effects of the aforesaid activities. For example a couple of minutes ago I was typing this sentence with my room light turned on. Now I have turned it off, I understand that some critics might ridicule my behavior but I cannot have a clear conscience if I continue to type this report with my room lights on. The room lights are an unnecessary luxury when I am typing, and furthermore I am unconcerned about the ill-effects of the light from the computer screen because I have a fine mesh frame that will protect my eyes from the glare. Also when I go to have a shower tonight I will turn the shower on just for a long enough time to wet my skin, after which I will turn it off and lather myself with a bar of soap, then I will shampoo my already wet hair. I will perform all the basic cleansing activities with the shower turned on once for barely 10 seconds. After I am all covered in soap I will turn the shower on again for a little over 10 seconds during which I will rinse all the soap away. In total I would have used the shower for just over 30 seconds. The whole bathing activity should not last for more than 3 minutes. I have learned to do this since I was 13 years old, and not because of environmental reasons, but because this was the rule that all students adhered to in my old boarding school in the UK. Now as I grow older I begin to see the wisdom in the dictums that were hammered into my skull when I was a child. There are many things that can be done in the home to reduce the “carbon footprint” regardless of the bleating of cynics who claim that all such behavior is futile since no one would be mad enough or ardent enough to carry them out. I will behave in this way; the “way of reduction,” to give it a nice dramatic slant, not because I know or care what others are doing at this time but because I have already linked my activities and behavior with the well being of the future progeny of the human race on this planet. Before I will be accused of obsessive enthusiasm I want to compound this accusation by going one step further; I believe that even if it is too late to do anything about the deterioration of the environment of our planet we can still reduce our “carbon footprints” as individuals and this reduction will, in some unforeseen way, mitigate the ill-effects of our previous slovenly and compulsive behavior. This is not the end of it; just because I will use less electricity, less water, and less fuel it does not mean that I can go to my bed with a clear conscience, a right sorry hypocrite I would be if I did, nay; there is still more to come. There are people to talk to; people with similar views and similar opinions and thus the dissimulation of ideas will spread until more and more people are woken up by the pungent and acrid stench issuing forth from the foul truth that stares humankind in the face every second of the day; our planet is dying. Whatever environmental monitoring agencies exist here in the city must be given more leeway in enacting their recommendations pertaining to the well being of the local environment. There is a lot of wasted energy, some of which is quite obvious, and others which are of a more subtle nature but in general the city of Abu Dhabi is a lot cleaner and less polluted than some of the other cities that I have visited in Europe and the United States. Yet there is still more to be done, the anti-littering laws must be strictly enforced and some sort of vehicle occupancy rules could be introduced. For example from twelve noon to around four in the afternoon there should be no private transport vehicles permitted on the city streets, without a hefty fine, if it is observed that the aforesaid vehicle contains less than three persons. Or another law can be passed to the effect that all cars with a certain category of license plate are legally operable only on three specified days of the week. The other three days of the week will be reserved for cars that bear another type of license plate, and on the seventh day of the week all cars will be rendered legally operable. However such laws would mean the upgrading of public transport in terms of both quality and efficiency. There are many more ideas that can be discussed but they will remain in the shade unless groups of people who are concerned about the well being of our environment get together and discuss these issues forthrightly. We cannot go back to the way of life that was suffered by our ancestors in the dark ages but we can do things that will reduce the already prolific impact that our activities have on the environment in general and on the phenomenon of global warming in particular.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Our Debt to the Plant
Frrankly I don't know what to say. We have destroyed our habitat and environment to an irrevocable extent. The rate of increase of global tempretures as shown in Al Gore's movie show that the condition of the planet is cronic. Even if the human race stops all the factories, cars, and power companies from today upto the next 50 years it would still be uncertain if the climatic conditions would improve. It is quite a grim fact but the human race has already crossed the line of no return and all that is left for us to do is to find some sort of refuge from the increasing heat. Many works of science fiction have talked about solutions ranging from builing a huge shell around the earth to building cities under the sea. Fantastic as these solutions might sound, they could be our only hope. If cities were constructed under the sea then humans would be able to escape from the heat, in addition they would live healthier lives free from pollution, from illness, from diseases. Also the sea has a lot of resources and minerals that must be explored and mined, perhaps the cities would be built around these resources as new settlements. In any case we have abused the earth enough already and if we were to return to the sea then we should do so with the intent of survival and not exploitation. There may otherways to escape the well deserved fury of nature but such a way must be found within the next decade, otherwise we will witness a great increase of diseases caused by solar radiation.
Monday, May 7, 2007
Some Pictures About Global Warming Effects
Receding ice caps in the antarctic (picture taken from: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Antarctic-Ice-Shelf-Collapses-Due-to-Global-Warming-5879.sh)
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
The Effects of Global Warming
As shown in this picture we can see how global warming causes icebergs to melt and the hapless animals that depend on these natural structures are at a loss as to how to adapt themselves to the cruel and unforgivable excesses of greedy man
A History of Abuse
Global warming is one of the potent issues that face world leaders today, and it often plays an important part in elections since there are a growing number of individuals and organizations who concern themselves with this issue. In my opinion global warming, which is the effect that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide have on the global climate, all began with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. When the empires of Great Britain, Germany, and France began to industrialize during the late 19th century the amount of carbon dioxide and other noxious gases released into the atmosphere skyrocketed on a scale never before witnessed in our planet. In Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, a graph is shown that depicts a massive upward surge in global temperatures that reaches its manifestation today but has its roots at around the time of the Dreadnought Race during the late 19th century. The arms race to produce massive battleships like the HMS Dreadnought began in Europe and soon spread to the United States and Japan. During those days the battleship was a status symbol and those countries that owned a fleet of dreadnoughts belonged to an elite club, so many newly industrialized nations began either to build their own ships or purchase them from other countries. This is important in understanding how global warming came about since to produce such massive engines of destruction a massive input of manpower, steel, along with dozens of other types of resources. Unfortunately such materials require new factories to be built, and such factories require energy which was derived at that time from coal. As the arms race continued and World War I arrived, along with the internal combustion engine, more and more noxious gases were released into the atmosphere. This trend repeats itself during the Second World War, the Cold War, the new arms race (between the Soviet Union and the West), the space race, and the rise of new countries in the third world whose appetite for the latest weaponry has proved to be insatiable. All of these products; battleships, tanks, aircraft, artillary, rockets, and nuclear weapons are just a fraction of the huge output of industrial products, the fabrication of which involves a staggering amount of carbon emission. Unfortunately this massive production, involving all methods of production, continues today and will likely continue to coldheartedly pollute the planet well into the near future. The greed of mankind has proven to be limitless and self-destructive; there is a phenomena in economics called "the despoiling of the commons" and this phrase describes quite accurately what is happening to our planet. Since the "commons" are supposed to be some free and untaxable resource like a river or an ore rich mountain, blackguardly entrepreneurs will ravish this resource without let or hinderence. This is similar to what is occuring today in our planet; industries are mass producing products and emitting greenhouse gases without let or hinderence. The "commons" that are being despoiled today are the gases that make up our habitable atmosphere, and the current emission taxations are simply not enough to deter those slick entrepreneurs from ravishing the atmosphere. Mankind has hunted numerous animals to extinction or destroyed the habitat of countless of species of insects, mammals, and reptiles so the extinction of our atmosphere should come as no surpirse to us if mankind continues to cruelly chomp and rip at the bosom that has nourished us so faithfully these past millenia.
Monday, April 23, 2007
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