|
|
|
| Sunday, 18 December 2005 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
Impact of global warming - responsibility of the common man by Dr. Vidhura Mahendra As a global nation are we doing enough to protect our environment from global warming? This is the 64 million dollar question now being raised in many parts of the world. Yet another meeting in Montreal, Canada on the 'United Nations' world climate summit, came to an end. I felt it is quite useful to point out a few areas that the common folk can contribute significantly with the help of the State.
The United States and 83 other countries now have signed the Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol sets binding greenhouse gas emissions targets for countries that sign and ratify the agreement. The gases covered under the Protocol include carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O also known as laughing gas), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). The US and other industrially developed countries are the biggest culprits of CO2 emitters to the atmosphere (US estimated 28% of the total emission is closely followed by China, Japan, Australia, India, South Korea etc.). According to a BBC environmental report the levels of the greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere are higher now than at any time in the past 650,000 years. This is the conclusion of new European studies looking at ice from 3km below the surface of Antarctica. Hence the scientists express, their research shows present day warming to be exceptional. Other research, also published in the journal Science, suggests that sea levels may be rising twice as fast now as in previous centuries. At the World Climate Summit, politicians and environmentalists have discussed technical solutions for dealing with global warming. In initial pilot projects, engineers are attempting to capture the carbon dioxide emitted by power plants and burying it in rock beneath the surface or depositing it on the ocean floor seems to be quite novel. Emissions In the UK a classified document, climate protection experts were proposing "politically sensitive" measures to the British government. One of the measures the authors of the report proposed was to impose stricter penalties for speeding in order to force those 15 million Britons who exceed the country's 70 mph speed limit each year to drive more slowly. Emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide jump when cars travel at speeds of more than 70 miles per hour and that is exactly what the authors so urgently want to curb. "We must achieve 75% more savings in half the time," say the authors of the report, which was eventually released to the public in mid-November, in justifying their draconian recommendations. In another similar report despite pledgings to reduce its emissions by 6% under the Kyoto Protocol, Canada is currently 24.2% above 1990 levels. And the main reason Germany has managed to reduce its emissions by 18.5% is that industry has declined in the former East Germany. Biologists, chemists, physicists and geologists have come up with a number of ways to bury the greenhouse gases, some seem curious: Metal oxides in waste water could react with carbon dioxide to form harmless carbonates. CO2 dissolved in water could be pumped through pipes into porous rock deep beneath the earth's surface where the carbon dioxide would be combined with hydrogen and genetically modified bacteria would convert the mixture into methane which could then be burned. Tankers could dump entire shiploads of the climate-changing gas into the deep ocean, where it would dissolve into water or sink and form deposits in troughs on the ocean floor. In Dutch greenhouses, carbon dioxide brought in through a pipeline from a Rotterdam refinery is already being used as a growth accelerator for useful plants. The method can spur roses, for example, to bloom two weeks earlier. Repercussions The above factors reiterate how very significant are such measures to be carried out in a stern manner to implement for the eco-friendly society. According to a recent science report on climate change it is predicted that due to slow down of Atlantic current, countries such as UK, Ireland and some parts of Europe could be facing severe winters in a few years' time. This is due to melting of glaciers and sea ice in parts of Greenland and has attributed to global warming. So with grandiose repercussions on the global warming what do we common people have to deliver to avert it in the slightest possible way. It is quite comprehensible being a developing country, Sri Lanka has an eye on both in the development of various industries and to prevent damaging the natural habitat in view of the posterity. The eco-balance is something that needs to be made aware among the people entrusting them the importance of safeguarding the natural environment. Scrupulous things like running your motor car well (ensuring its oil or gas burning is within the limits, let alone reminding the pollution caused by the lorries packed with heavy loads burning fuel at a sinister rate), use to the minimum requirement of the energy sources and create your own little garden with plenty of green plants (plants absorb carbon dioxide during day time). It is also important that the government and private media with the influence of the environmental authorities create an awareness on informative programmes pertaining to the global/domestic environmental issues and how the a public can contribute in manner that can subside such environmental catastrophe and bring about justice for those who disobey them. This can also evaluate people's conscience on environmental segment that can no doubt curtail some of the natural disasters in time to come . The importance of minimal use of natural resources, waste management and recycling are some of the points that can be discussed with ample expertise domestically within the ministerial levels. These methodologies then can be disseminated via the print media as well as the television to rural areas, enabling a broad consensus among the village people as well as the urban population. The local communities, workshops and libraries can be useful places in carrying out such events from time to time. The advent for alternative energy sources to burning coal and gas such as solar power and wind power should be given priority so that a country predominantly possessing such forces can be utilised significantly (despite initial installation cost factor) in an environmental friendly manner. With the global warming effect due to man - made conditions, hence the melting of the glaciers, cold countries are warned of even worse effects. Sri Lanka as a developing country cannot undermine a possible change of temperature in the years to come in line with the melting glaciers. Imagine the effect that could bring about a subtle variation in the temperature in Sri Lanka. Are we really equipped for such plethora of changes and what do we have if that were to befall ? These may sound benign as a prognosis, but to keep away from disaster is better than finding a remedy for it in this 21st century. |
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
The highly rated Kyoto Protocol which is an international agreement
reached in Kyoto at the Third Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change (COP 3) in 1997. The Protocol established
specific targets and timetables for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions
to be achieved by the framework's signatories. 
