envimam

=__What We Can Do To Help__ =

=THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT = =The greenhouse effect is a good thing for us and the earth. Without it, we would freeze at night and burn during the day. The greenhouse effect is made up of greenhouse gases. The greenhouse gases are made of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and water vapor. We don't want the gases to consist of all carbon dioxide because we won't be able to breathe. The greenhouse effect is necessary for our survival because without them, we would freeze. =

GLOBAL WARMING: THE BIG PICTURE
 Global warming is the increase of the temperature of the earth's atmosphere increase caused by greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution. The fossil fuels are creating more carbon dioxide which floats into the greenhouse gases causing the earth to heat up faster. That is global warming. We don’t want to heat up the earth because it will cause glaciers to melt and it will flood the land. The sea level will rise and the animals that live on glaciers will drown because their land is flooded.

**__GLOBAL WARMING: CONTRIBUTING FACTORS __** Many of the things we do contribute to global warming. There are so many things we do wrong that I can’t even name them all. If we drive cars somewhere we are polluting the air around which contributes to global warming. When we use electricity we are burning more and more fossil fuels which brings a lot of carbon dioxide into the air so the earth will heat up faster. When people litter, things decompose and carbon dioxide goes into the air. Just think, the more carbon dioxide there is, the harder it is for us to breathe. If we use plastic water bottles like Poland Springs and we don’t recycle it, we are wasting plastic. Someday we will run out of plastic. All the paper we use comes from millions of trees. Trees help reduce carbon dioxide and produces oxygen so it is easier to breathe. If we cut down all the trees then there will be more and more carbon dioxide contributing to global warming. There are so many things that cause global warming. 21.3% of annual greenhouse gases come from power stations, 16.3% comes from industrial processes, 14% comes from transportation fuels, 12.5% comes from agricultural byproducts, 11.3% comes from fossil fuels, 10.3% comes from residential, commercial and other sources, 10% comes from land use and biomass burning, and 3.4% comes from waste disposal and treatment. Small things we can do will help bring those percentages way down.


 * [[image:greenhouse_gas_chart.png width="431" height="337"]]

GLOBAL WARMING: LOCAL EFFECTS **

 Everyday, global warming is affecting each and every one of us. Every time it is really hot outside and people blast their air conditioning, they are contributing to global warming even more. The next year on the same day, it will probably be even hotter and the year after that will be even hotter and so on. Islands are starting to flood and even New York is being affected because glaciers are melting. If we keep this up, we will have no continents and it will be all oceans. We have to try to decrease the amount of electricity we use and reduce, reuse, and recycle.  
 * __What We Can Do Differently__**

This goes to all the families in our town or even in all of Massachusetts. One easy thing we can do differently is use more environment friendly plates, cups, bottles, etc. Instead of using paper plates and cups, why can’t you just use reusable glass ones? It will save money and the environment at the same time. All the dollars spent for paper plates and cups add up to a lot of money. Also, all of the paper comes from thousands of trees that can be saved using glass plates and cups. The more trees saved also equals more of your money saved. If someone gave you the amount of money you’ve spent in a year on paper plates and cups, you would have about an extra $78.00 depending on how often you buy paper plates. Also there would be about 3-6 billion more trees as there would have been if you didn't use paper products. The same goes for water bottles. If we keep buying packages of Poland Springs and Crystal Geyser water bottles, global warming will come on about 3 times faster than it would have if we just used reusable water bottles. The reusable bottles hold much more water and you only have to pay for them once, instead of buying more packages which cost about $4.00 a piece. If you buy 12 packages a year, then that’s about $48.00. You could have only paid $5.00 for a reusable bottle that could help save the earth but you chose to spend an extra $43.00. That means in ten years, you spent an extra $475.00 I think it would be really easy to switch to reusable bottles because it will save you money, it will give you more water, and it will help the earth all at the same time. If you still don’t want to switch to reusable bottles, then the least we could ask you to do is recycle the non-reusable plastic ones. <span style="color: rgb(251,116,217);"> <span style="font-size: 110%; color: rgb(247,171,223);"> **A SUMMARY OF YOUR RESEARCH** <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0,0,0); font-family: Arial;">There are many things we could do to help save the environment. I just gave you one example. We want to keep our greenhouse gases, but we don’t want to contaminate them with carbon dioxide so it will heat up the earth and be harder to breathe. If everyone did one thing differently a day like change their light bulbs to energy efficient ones, or walk to a friends house instead of driving, or even pick up a piece of trash that you see on the ground, then we could help stop global warming. Global warming isn’t caused by its self, it’s caused by us. It can also be prevented by us; we just have to decide if we want to help stop it.

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 * BIBLIOGRAPHY **
 * “Global Warming Fast Facts” __National Geographic News__ June 14, 2007 June 4, 2009 []
 * “Causes of Change” __Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences__ 2009 June 1, 2009 []


 * “Greenhouse Effect ” __Climate Change Connection__ July 17, 2007 June 1, 2009 [] “Greenhouse Effect Initiative” __Spoor & Fisher__ June 2, 2009 []
 * JJuchems “Water Bottle” __Dendroboard__ December 18, 2008 June 4, 2009 []
 * “Paper Plates” __Global b2b Network__ 1995 June 4, 2009 []
 * “Bottled Water: Help and Environment Damages” __FriendsOfWater__ April 23, 2008 June 4, 2009 []