Deforestation

Trees act as carbon reservoirs by absorbing carbon dioxide during photosynthesis. Deforestation disrupts the carbon cycle as less carbon dioxide is absorbed, leaving more present in the atmosphere. Also, since trees are absent, deforestation prevents future carbon storage. Deforestation also affects the water cycle, as trees recycle rainfall by extracting soil water and return it to the atmosphere. This causes a drier regional climate and increased risk of forest fires, which further contributes to deforestation.

Fossil Fuels

Fossil fuels are responsible for approximately 85 percent of America's energy. Fossil fuels added approximately 25 percent of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere over the past 150 years. Methane, nitrous oxide and sulfur-containing compounds linked to acid rain also derive from fossils fuels. Although carbon dioxide contributes more to global warming, methane, nitrous oxide and sulfur hexafloride all have higher global warming potentials, meaning they are more effective greenhouse gases and have higher atmospheric lifetimes.

Meat and Dairy

The meat and dairy industry contributes to approximately 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the entire transport sector. Fifty-six billion land animals are reared and slaughtered annually, which is set to double by 2050. Animal manure adds approximately 18 million metric tons of methane to the atmosphere each year. Excess manure not used as fertilizer is disposed of in landfills, contributing to groundwater and soil pollution. Desertification due to animal farming reduces vegetative cover and causes an estimated 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to escape into the atmosphere annually.

Mitigation Strategies

Deforestation occurs mainly because of livestock and animal feed farming, and fossil fuels used in meat and dairy production contribute approximately 130 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. Afforestation helps preserve carbon stores and maintain ecosystems. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon was reduced to 11,000 square kilometers per year due to government intervention and afforestation. Dietary changes could help lower demand for meat and dairy, thus reducing both fossil fuel and animal farm emissions.

Carbon dioxide is an important greenhouse gas produced by human activities, primarily through thecombustion of fossil fuels; however, methane, chlorofluorocarbons and other gases are more potent greenhouse gases. Its concentration in the Earth's atmosphere has risen by more than 35% since theIndustrial Revolution. Charles D. Keeling was a pioneer in the monitoring of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. Atmospheric mixing ratios for carbon dioxide are now higher than at any time in at least the last 800,000 years, standing at 385 parts per million (ppm) compared to a pre-industrial high of 280 ppm. The current rate of increase is around two ppm per year.

Sinks of Carbon Dioxide

Carbon dioxide is stored in a number of media including seawater, soils and addition to plant biomass via photosynthesis. While all of these processes have not been quantified in detail, they represent massive fluxes and sinks for sequestration of carbon.

Carbon dioxide

Respiration

Respiration, both on land and in the sea, is a key component of the globalcarbon cycle. On land, an estimated 60 Pg C (60 billion tonnes) is emitted to the atmosphere each year by autotrophic respiration. A similar amount, about 55 Pg C, is emitted as a result of heterotrophic respiration.

In the sea, autotrophic respiration is thought to account for about 58 Pg of the dissolved inorganiccarbon in surface waters each year, with the contribution of heterotrophic respiration being 34 Pg C.

Although respiration is a large source of carbon dioxide, it is currently smaller than the amount of CO2 that is removed from the atmosphere annually by phtosynthesis, the biochemical process by which plants and other autotrophic organizms convert carbon dioxide into biomass. Consequently, respiration does not currently represent a net source of carbon doxide to the atmosphere.

Land-use Change

It is estimated that man-made changes in land-use have, until now, produced a cumulative global loss of carbon from the land of about 200 Pg. Widespread deforestation has been the main source of this loss, estimated to be responsible for nearly 90 percent of losses since the mid-nineteenth century. Losses primarily occur due to the relatively long-term carbon sinks of forests being replaced by agricultural land.

The conversion of land from forested to agricultural land can have a wide range of negative effects as far asgreenhouse gas emission is concerned. Soil disturbance and increased rates of decomposition in converted soils can both lead to emission of carbon to the atmosphere, with increased soil erosion and leaching of soil nutrients further reducing the potential for the area to act as a sink for carbon.

Current estimates suggest land-use changes lead to the emission of 1.7 Pg C per year in the tropics, mainly as a result of deforestation, and to a small amount of uptake (about 0.1 Pg C) in temperate and boreal areas - so producing a net source of around 1.6 Pg C per year.

Energy - Stationary Sources

Of the carbon dioxide emissions arising from fossil fuel combustion—up to 6.5 Pg C each year—around 40% is a result of electricity generation, with coal-fired generation being the leading sector. Other stationary sources include industrial (particularly iron and steel manufacture), emissions resulting from oil extraction,refinement and transportation, and domestic and commercial fossil fuel use.

Energy - Mobile Sources

Globally, transport-related emissions of carbon dioxide are growing rapidly. They currently consitute around 24% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Road transport dominates these emissions, though off-road, air and marine transport emissions are aslo significant. The use of petroleum as a fossil fuel for transportation dominates carbon dioxide emissions from this source. In 1999, in the U. S., more than 30 percent of fossil fuel-related carbon dioxide emissions were a direct result of transportation. With about two-thirds of this being from gasoline consumption by motor vehicles and the remainder coming from diesel and jet fuel use in lorries and aircraft, respectively.

Industry (non-energy-related)

Carbon dioxide is produced in lime and cement manufacture as a result of the heating of limestone. The final amount of CO2 produced varies depending the type of cement being made. Globally, this source is estimated to amount to 0.2 Pg C emission to the atmosphere each year. Significant carbon dioxide emissions (around 0.25 PgC per year) also result from its use in chemical feedstocks.

Biomass Burning

Though responsible for large CO2 emissions over short time-scales, the net CO2 emissions due to biomassburning are difficult to quantify due to the subsequent uptake of CO2 through regrowth of vegetation. An unsustainable (i.e., not off-set by regrowth) fraction equivalent to about 10% of total emissions is generally assumed biomass used in energy-generation, with this figure being incorporated into the total emissions resulting from land-use change. - E oerth

Methane CH4 is a greenhouse gas that the International Panel on Climate Change estimates is between 21-23 times the potency of carbon dioxide. Methane is produced by the digestion process of cattle, from wetlands, termites, rice growing, fossil fuel use, landfill methane gas and industrial processes.

According to the CSIRO the gas concentrations in the atmosphere have approximately doubled since the industrial revolution, rising from 700ppb to ~1795 in 2010. Over the last decade however methane levels in the atmosphere have been relatively stable. Between 2007-2009 there was a small spike in methane levels, but following that the growth rate returned to approximately zero.

Sources of methane gas emissions

- Methane is emitted from both natural sources and human activities
- Natural emissions are dominated by anaerobic breakdown of organic matter in wetlands
- Human activities account for more than 60% of global emissions as per below:

Methane

A vast expanse of permafrost in Siberia and Alaska has started to thaw for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago. It is caused by the recent 3+°C rise in local temperature over the past 40 years - more than four times the global average. Peat bogs cover an area of a million square miles (or almost a quarter of the earth's land surface) to a depth of 25 meters. Those in Siberia are the world's largest.

What was until recently a barren expanse of frozen peat is turning into a broken landscape of mud and lakes, some more than a kilometre across. All only in the past 3 or 4 years.

This has the potential to release vast quantities of methane trapped by ice below the surface - billions of tonnes of methane. World-wide, peat bogs store at least two trillion tons of CO2. This is equivalent to a century of emissions from fossil fuels.

This is one of the most feared tipping points. There is a delicate threshold where

Methane from Permafrost

higher is average earth temperature more methane from permafrost can release to atmosphere

Source - % total Anthropogenic emissions Fossil fuels - 25% Livestock - 25% Rice cropping - 20% Landfill methane - 20% Biomass burning - 10%

Causes of increase in methane gas

A report by CSIRO and other organisations that was published in 2010 in ECOS found that the rise in methane emission levels in the atmosphere was caused by the release of this gas previously stored in wetlands in the arctic. The warmer summers of 2006 and 2007 as well as the wetter conditions in the tropics contributed to the release of this gas from the arctic wetlands. The report suggests that with climate change and unpredicted weather conditions that there is a risk of continued spike in atmospheric methane being released from arctic wetlands.

Cows methane gas

The most commonly discussed contributor to atmospheric methane emissions is the one from cows. However as noted above cows the gas contributes 25% of anthropogenic emissions globally, the same as fossil fuels and just slightly more than rice growing and landfill.

Reducing emissions from cattle

The Australian cattle industry is focused on looking at how to reduce this gas emissions from ruminant (cattle and sheep) digestion. Meat and Livestock Australia in partnership with the federal government has a $28 million project underway with 18 different research projects under the banner of Reducing Emissions from Livestock Research Program (RELRP). Under this program research bodies from across the country are looking at how to more effectively measure methane, such as with methane detector. Researchers are also investigating whether there are particular animals that naturally produce less methane gas and if so, if this can be selectively bred for.

Another area of focus under the RELRP is whether different feeds can have an impact on reducing the gas release of cows. One of the projects funded under RELRP is being undertaken by Dr Ed Charmley from the CSIRO. Dr Charmley has recently reported some positive findings with feeding cattle a Mexican fodder tree, with methane gas detector showing that it leads to cows methane gas being 20% lower than cows that don't eat the Mexican fodder tree.

Documented evidence regarding the production of methane gas from Australian farm animals such as cattle, sheep and goats is an important concern to all Australians. - Michael Lister EzineArticles

a slight rise in the Earth's temperature can cause a dramatic change in the environment by triggering a huge and instantaneous increase in global temperature.

This melting is an irreversible ecological landslide - a vicious circular feedback that is becoming stronger and stronger, and is doing so more quickly with every passing summer.

Once started extreme global warming would be irreversible.

A significant part of the heat gained during the summer is held within the peat by the autumn snow that acts like a blanket to keep it warm, and thus the heat gained is incremental. This is why the present passion for carbon trading will make no difference to the outcome.

When we start heating these natural systems, the process quickly becomes unstoppable. We do not have any technological brakes we can apply. This is enormously important because we can't put the permafrost back once it's gone. The gasses stored there have the potential to raise temperatures even more than all of our past emissions.

Since the bogs were formed they have been generating methane, most of which has been trapped within the permafrost itself, in ice-like clathrates.

It is estimated that the west Siberian bog alone contains some 70 billion tonnes of methane, a quarter of all the methane stored on the land surface of the world. This is equivalent to emitting 1.7 trillion tons of CO2, which is more greenhouse gas than has been emitted by humans in the past 200 years.

There are already impacts on roads and buildings which are collapsing as the ice-held foundations melt. In addition, once the bog dries out deep sub-surface fires ignited by lightning will themselves create more CO2 to add into the air.

Alarmingly, it has just been reported by Wetlands International that huge areas of wet peatland forests are being drained and logged in Indonesia and Malaysia. Along with the ensuing peat fires this contributes 2 billion tons of CO2, making South-East Asia the third largest polluter in the world behind the US and China.

We CAN reduce our CO2 emissions from fossil fuels but we COULD NOT reduce methane emissions once they get started. These huge natural forces would take over and change our world in double-quick time. - Planetextinction

Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and others

Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and aerosols are very important greenhouse gases. CFCs, HFCs, and PFCs are all human made and are not produced by any other process but our activities. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are nontoxic, nonflammable chemicals containing atoms of carbon, chlorine, and fluorine. They are used in the manufacture of aerosol sprays, blowing agents for foams and packing materials, as solvents, and as refrigerants. CFCs owe their existence to accidents that occurred in the early 1900s. Refrigerators in the late 1800s and early 1900s used the toxic gases, ammonia (NH3), methyl chloride, and sulfur dioxide, as refrigerants. After a series of fatal accidents in the 1920s when methyl chloride leaked out of refrigerators, a search for a less toxic replacement begun as a collaborative effort of three American corporations - Frigidaire, General Motors, and Du Pont. CFCs were first synthesized in 1928 by Thomas Midgley, Jr. of General Motors, as safer chemicals for refrigerators used in large commercial applications.

Hydrofluorocarbons - HFCs, Perfluorocarbons - PFCs, Sulfur Hexafluoride - SF6

Hydrofluorocarbons (composed of hydrogen, fluorine, and carbon) and perfluorocarbons (composed of fluorine and carbon) have been created for industrial applications and been adopted as ozone safe replacements for chlorofluorocarbons and thus are growing in atmospheric concentration (Figure 13). Even though hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons are emitted in relatively small quantities, they have a disproportionate effect on the greenhouse effect. As a greenhouse gas, the most potent hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons are 11,700 times and 7000 to 9000 times per molecule as effective as a molecule of carbon dioxide, respectively. Also, perfluorocarbons have relatively long atmospheric lifetimes (up to 50,000 years). Rated as the most powerful greenhouse gas ever released to the atmosphere, sulfur hexafluoride is used as an electric insulator, heat conductor, and a freezing agent. In comparison to one molecule of carbon dioxide, the global warming potential of one sulfur hexafluoride molecule is approximately 24,000 times greater. Sulfur hexafluoride has now been banned from use due to its global warming potential. - SOEST

Sulfur hexafluoride

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, SF
6 is the most potent greenhouse gas that it has evaluated, with a global warming potential of 23,900 times that of CO
2 when compared over a 100-year period. Measurements of SF6 show that its global average mixing ratio has increased by about 0.2 ppt (parts per trillion) per year to over 7 ppt. Sulfur hexafluoride is also extremely long-lived, is inert in the troposphere and stratosphere and has an estimated atmospheric lifetime of 800–3200 years. SF
6 is very stable (for countries reporting their emissions to the UNFCCC, a GWP of 23,900 for SF
6 was suggested at the third Conference of the Parties: GWP used in Kyoto protocol). Average global SF6 concentrations increased by about seven percent per year during the 1980s and 1990s, mostly as the result of its use in the magnesium production industry, and by electrical utilities and electronics manufacturers. Given the low amounts of SF6 released compared to carbon dioxide, its overall contribution to global warming is estimated to be less than 0.2 percent.

In Europe, SF
6 falls under the F-Gas directive which ban or control its use for several applications. Since 1 January 2006, SF
6 is banned as a tracer gas and in all applications except high-voltage switchgear. It was reported in 2013 that a three-year effort by the United States Department of Energy to identify and fix leaks at its laboratories in the United States such as the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, where the gas is used as a high voltage insulator, had been productive, cutting annual leaks by 35,000 pounds. This was done by comparing purchases with inventory, assuming the difference was leaked, then locating and fixing the leaks.

Nitrous oxide

Is a powerful greenhouse gas produced both naturally and via human activities. Its concentration in the Earth's atmosphere has risen by around 15% since the Industrial Revolution. Atmospheric mixing ratios for nitrous oxide now stand at around 315 parts per billion (ppb) compared to a pre-industrial high of 275 ppb. Though its concentration the atmosphere is much smaller than that of carbon dioxide, N2O is a much more effective greenhouse gas having a Global Warming Potential of 298 over a 100-year time span. This means that one kilogram (kg) of N2O released into the atmosphere has aglobal warming effect equivalent to 296 kg of carbon dioxide over a 100 year period. Thus nitrous oxide is a very important contributor to radiative forcing, a measure used by atomospheric scientists to compare relative importance of different gas species to climate change phenomena. - Eoearth

HOW YOU CAN HELP

• Walk or ride a bike when possible.

•Take public transportation.

•Organize and condense errands into one trip.

•When driving, accelerate gradually and obey the speed limit.

•Drive less, particularly on days with unhealthy air.

•Maintain your vehicle and keep your tires properly inflated.

•Travel lightly and remove any unnecessary items that may weigh down your vehicle.

•Limit idling your vehicle to no more than 30 seconds.

•When in the market for a new car, look for the most efficient,

lowest-polluting vehicle or even a zero-emission electric car* (more obout zero-emission electric car on our future page).

•Turn the lights off when you leave a room.

•Replace energy-hungry incandescent lights with compact florescent light bulbs.

•Ask your energy supplier for a home audit and inquire about

alternative energy solutions like solar or wind.

•Opt for a fan instead of air conditioning.

•Use a programmable thermostat and set it to 78°F in the summer and 68°F in the winter.

•Install low-flow shower heads.

•Recycle paper, plastic, metals and organic materials.

•Use an EPA-approved wood burning stove or fireplace insert.

•Don’t use your wood stove or fireplace on days with unhealthy air.

•Don’t heat your home with a gas stove.

•Use a surge protector for multiple appliances and turn it off when products are not in use.

•Add insulation to your home.

•Wash laundry in cold water and line dry.

•When ready to replace, look for energy star appliances.

•Use a propane or natural gas barbecue rather than a charcoal one.

•Microwave or use a toaster oven for small meals.

•Have your gas appliances and heater regularly inspected and maintained.

•Use washable dishes, utensils and fabric napkins rather than disposable dinnerware.

•Choose products that use recycled materials.

•Eat locally, shop at farmers markets and buy organic products.

•Buy products from sustainable sources such as bamboo and hemp.

•Use durable reusable grocery bags and keep them in

your car so you’re never caught off guard.

•Paint with a brush instead of a sprayer.

•Store all solvents in airtight containers.

•Use an electric or push lawn mower.

•Use a rake or broom instead of a leaf blower.

•Use water-based cleaning products that are labeled ‘zero VOC’.

•Insulate your water heater and any accessible hot water pipes.

•Eliminate use of toxic chemicals at home; opt for natural substitutes.

•Plant a tree! They filter the air and provide shade.

•Let your elected representatives know you support action for cleaner air.

•Start a recycling program.

•Print and photocopy on both sides of paper.

•Turn off office equipment, computers, printers, and fax machines, after hours.

•Harness the power of the sun: open the blinds and turn off the lights.

!

Earth Observatory NASA

GLOBAL WARMING

Royal Society and the

US National Academy of Sciences

CLIMATE CHANGE

EVIDENCE & CAUSES

World Watch Institute

LIVESTOCK AND CLIMATE CHANGE

ppm of co2 right now in atmosphere.

GLOBAL WARMING

The term "global warming" describes the rise in Earth's temperature. This occurs via the greenhouse effect, by which gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide absorb infrared radiation in the form of heat and light energy from the sun. This energy is kept within Earth's atmosphere, causing a rise in temperature. The three main contributors to global warming are deforestation, meat and dairy consumption, and the burning of fossil fuels. By: Keiron Audain

Anchor 6

CO2

Say stop to holocaust against animals, environment and Earth