Our Environment

Here at Our-Environment.com we are passionate about the Earth and helping to create a better, sustainable environment for ourselves and our descendants.

Environment Vinyl Banner

We are not “tree huggers” we do not want to move back to the stone age, we believe that there are solutions available and available now. Sure there are costs to consider, though the price of ignoring the impact we as a species we have on the environment is even more costly.

Helping us achieve our goals are our sponsors. Our-Environment.com’s major sponsor since the beginning has been Steve Scott (the vinyl banner guy) from B2bJv.com, Steve has helped us in many ways, financially by helping keep our website alive and also by designing and supplying some great vinyl banners for us that we have used to promote the cause.

Here in this article is an example of one of our banners Steve’s created for us. Thanks Mate we all appreciate all your support.

Jamie & The Team at Our-Environment.com

I think it’s important to keep a positive mental attitude in our lives as much as we can. It’s good for us, good for people around us, it makes the world a better place.

That said there are some things that leave me…. peeved. Not angry, not upset, not hostile just peeved.

Greenhouse Effect - To Be or Not to Be - No Question

The thing that triggers this response in me most readily is comments and belief that Climate Change is a natural phenomenon. That Global Warming is just part of the cycle the Earth goes through, and that no human activity could possibly cause any impact on the larger environment.

Are the people who believe this BS from another planet? Are they consultants for the oil companies and the coal mining lobby? Or does this fall into the basket of someone else’s problem, and let’s just pretend that Climate Change through human activity does not exist. The Ostrich Syndrome…

Last time I checked, the levels of Carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere every day was a staggering 70 million tonnes – each day. Now I don’t care what cultural background you have, or what level of schooling you have enjoyed. But in my humble opinion 70 million tonnes is a lot of anything, let alone a known greenhouse causing gas that we are pumping into the air we breathe every 24 hours.

One favourite pastime of mine is astronomy, I am an amateur astronomer (very amateur) and enjoyed looking into the heavens and dreaming of what’s out there since I was a small boy. So as such I have a fundamental understanding of the nature and composition on the planets in our solar system. Of course where this fits in to this particular comment is the planet Venus, a classic case on runaway greenhouse effect.

The surface temperature of Venus is about 400 °C (or around 800 °F), so what is my point? I am no scientist so let’s have a quote from Bill Arnett (University of Arizona), and I quote.

“The dense atmosphere of Venus (primarily CO2) produces a run-away greenhouse effect that raises Venus’ surface temperature by about 400 degrees to over 740 K (hot enough to melt lead). Venus’ surface is actually hotter than Mercury’s despite being nearly twice as far from the Sun.”

Venus’ surface is actually hotter than Mercury’s despite being nearly twice as far from the Sun, interesting don’t you think. Why… the CO2.

Thousands of millennia ago the Earth had a carbon loaded atmosphere akin to that of Venus, the temperature unbearable by today’s standards and the atmospheric pressure over 100 times what we enjoy today (equivalent of being about a mile under water).

Over an age through natural processes (including photosynthesis), this carbon was pulled from the atmosphere sequestered into the Earth largely in the form of fossil fuels, oil and coal.

This occurred about almost 3 billion years ago when a microbe called Cyanobacteria (one of the first form of life on Earth) came into being. Cyanobacteria were the first oxygen-producing phototropic organisms, and they slowly sucked in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release the oxygen you and I need to breathe.

This process took a long time, about 500 million years. It happened during the early Paleoproterozoic age. These microbes converted the Earth’s atmosphere from an anoxic (or oxygen-poor) atmosphere into an oxic (oxygen rich) condition.

The problem now is that we are undoing all the good work that the microbe Cyanobacteria did for us. By burning coal and oil and releasing the CO2 back into our atmosphere we are turning back the clock in a way that will eventually lead to an obvious result – the Greenhouse effect.

You and I may not be here to see the Greenhouse effect here on Earth at its worst, though if thing keep going the way they are – out of control – No One Will Be Here To See It….

Food for thought, what are you doing about it today?

Recommended Resource

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-history-of-the-earths-atmosphere.htm

Peeved

Jamie

Over the next few weeks Our-Environment.com will be releasing our very own school project material. Of course it will be all about climate change and the environment.

All this information will be FREE and downloadable and is the culmination of over 12 months of solid work by one of our top project specialists.

The information is aimed at High School and College level students and will be available in 10 – 12 different modules. We are still finalising the topic categories and project titles though we are sure you will find all the information extremely valuable.

If there is any topic in particular that you would like us to cover please feel free to let us know. If we haven’t already covered your topic of interest in the first series of project packs we will sure to be including the more innovative subject in our next issue.

The scheduled release date in for mid March though if we can we will release the first few Environment School Project packs as soon as we can.

Thanks for reading.

Greenie – TeamMember  – Our-Environment.com

Recent studies in Australia has shown that climate change will have an adverse impact on the already vulnerable Australian Koala.

Studies have shown that increasing temperatures due to climate change pushes up the level of toxins and lowers the nutritional value of the Koala?s only food source, the Eucalyptus gum leaf.

Global warming also has an indirect effect on these cute Australians. Dr Lunney, a leading koala expert with the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change says. “The further they have to travel, the more frequently they [the Koalas] are on the ground, the more likely they are to be attacked by dogs. And if there is a road in between the patches of trees, they’ll die on the roads,”.

To study how far the Koalas are now travelling in search of food scientists have fitted a population of Koalas with GPS tracking and radio equipment to monitor their nocturnal habits.

The twelve koalas involved in the study, four males and eight females, is being conducted in Gunnedah (about 350 km northwest of Sydney in New South Wales). All the animals have been fitted with collars containing radio transmitters linked to a GPS tracking unit.

An initiative in New South Wales to plant more Gum trees along the banks of creeks and rivers by local farmers looks like it may be having a beneficial effect on the Koalas. Originally developed to help combat soil salinity in Australia, a welcome by product of the program is providing more food for the Koalas and minimising the distance they need to travel to find food.

Climate change or global warming is being recognised more and more as the cause to many of these problems we are seeing around the globe. The good news is that by acting locally we can all help minimise climate changes impact and move to a more sustainable existence, enjoying our lifestyles without penalising our environment.

James – TheTeam@our-environment.com