Rabbi Yitzhak Miller Global Greenhouse Effect

Nitric Acid – Intensifying Climate Change and Furthering Its Impact to the Environment

Rabbi Yitzhak Miller Environmental Climate Change By Jo Alelsto

Nitric acid is one of the top chemicals in production around the world. Its primary application is in the manufacture of nitrogen-based fertilizers. It is also used in explosives, metallurgy, dyes, plastics, and pharmaceuticals. Other minor applications include water treatment, fibers and polymers manufacture, liquid-propellant for rockets, printmaking, and nuclear fuel reprocessing.

Human-influenced sources may account for as much as 40% of the total NOx released into the atmosphere. The laughing gas, nitrous oxide (N2O), is approximately accountable to 7% of the greenhouse gases. The concentration of nitrous oxide in the atmosphere has significantly increased from the pre-industrial period as compared in the last two decades.

As a waste by-product of nitric acid production, oxides of nitrogen (NOx) are very harmful to the environment and they can also aggravate the effects of climate change. Emissions from nitric acid manufacturing plants may not be as significant as those of combustion of fossil fuels but a small difference in the levels of nitrogen oxides released into the atmosphere will mean a big difference since they are very harmful greenhouse gases.

Biofuels are also contributors to nitrous oxide. Contrary to popular belief, a report from the International Council for Science (ICSU) concludes that biofuel production can aggravate global warming rather than alleviating its effects. The theory is that annual plants and crops such as corn, wheat and sugar cane take up carbon dioxide during their growth. Hence, fuels burned from them have no significant carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere.

The same study also supported an earlier finding which determined that nitrous oxide has a more harmful effect on the environment and the climate change phenomenon than previously believed. The ability of nitrous oxide in warming up the planet is 300 times more than carbon dioxide. It also stays longer in the atmosphere.

Nitrous oxide is a natural occurring gas in the atmosphere as a result of the nitrogen cycle but it is the rate at which its concentration increases and the factors which contribute to this increase that worries scientists and environmentalists. One of the greatest factors which most of them have seen is the anthropogenic sources such as nitric acid manufacturing plants.

Greenhouse effects cannot be ignored anymore. Climate change is upon us. The weather has become even more unpredictable than before. Studies have also identified that the main cause of this phenomenon are unchecked and negligent human practices.

As a result of industrialization, comforts have been afforded to us, such as electricity, transport, and other luxuries we now enjoy. But this comes with a price, the warming up of the planet.

Is this really worth it? Can we really afford the unpredictability of the weather today, the increase in intensity of natural disasters? The world has certainly begun to experience the effects of the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by the higher than normal temperatures, the melting of the polar ice caps and the rising sea levels.

We have to make a move now. A move to reduce our impacts on the environment, this especially goes to those who are in the position to make a significant change in reducing nitric acid production by-products. Owners and managers of plants and companies which use nitric acid must have proper processing and disposal strategies which are environment friendly.

But the responsibility doesn’t stop there. We must do our part as well. We are also stakeholders therefore we have to take responsibility. One thing is for sure though, we have to start today. This is because of the fact that the planet will continue to warm up for no less than 150 years due residence time of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It will take a long, long time before the climate becomes stable.

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What is Global Warming?

By Lisa Mills

Global warming is explained as an increase in the average temperature of the earth. Hurricanes, droughts and floods are more frequent and this is said to be the result of global warming.

Scientists claim that over the last 100 years or so the temperature near the earth’s surface has risen. This means the earth is now warmer than it has been for the last thousand years. What is more, the warmest years ever recorded have been in the last eight years.

There has always been climate change, but according to scientists increased temperature rises in recent years has been faster than ever before. They therefore feel that the global warming we are now experiencing is not a natural occurrence but one that is being brought on by man.

Throughout history temperatures have varied substantially depending upon the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Natural gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have always been in the atmosphere as without them Earth would be a very chilly planet!

Farmers around the world use nitrogen fertilizers and it’s use is increasing in order to feed the growing world population. These fertilizers are often washed away into lakes and oceans where algae feeds on them and the consequence is they bloom uncontrollably and eventually starve the water of oxygen creating a dead zone.

Since the industrial revolution carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by nearly 40% which is the result of burning fossil fuels, deforestation and industrial production.

Some carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere, the rest is absorbed into the sea and vegetation. CO2 should be compensated by plant absorption, but as the earth’s atmosphere becomes warmer plants close their pores to prevent the loss of water and switch to consuming oxygen and produce carbon dioxide instead.

Global warming can be compared to the inside of a car on a hot sunny day. The sun will heat the inside of the car but the heat will then be unable to escape, thus causing a greenhouse effect.

The greenhouse effect is the absorption and emission of infrared radiation by gases in the atmosphere which in turn warm the lower atmosphere of the surface of the earth. The issue of global warming is how the strength of the greenhouse effect changes when human activity increases the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

There are many natural causes of gas emissions into the atmosphere. Ruminant animals for instance produce methane gas which is 25% more potent than carbon dioxide. Global meat consumption has increased and is still rising, this in turn means more cows, more methane gas.

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Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming

Rabbi Yitzhak Miller Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming By Shampa Dey

The heat caused by infrared radiation from the sun which escapes from the Earth’s outer surface, is absorbed by “greenhouse gases” which trap the heat forming a kind of blanket of warm air that surround the planet. This occurrence is called the “green house effect”. It is suggested that the temperature on average would have been much lower compared to what is now. Survival of the ecosystem would have been difficult in such extreme condition.

UNDERSTANDING THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT

In the natural greenhouse effect, the type of the type of topograph the sunlight falls plays a key role. Different types of surfaces absorb or radiate heat differently. For example, white glaciers reflect maximum sunlight resulting in minimum heating of the surface and the lower atmosphere. On the other hand, sunlight is absorbed the maximum by dark desert soil causing more heating of the surface and the lower atmosphere. Clouds that cover the sky reduce the amount of solar radiation penetrating onto the earth’s surface and also reduce the amount of radiation emitted into space.

BASIC MECHANISM

About 50% of the solar radiation is absorbed by the earth’s surface and the rest is emitted as infrared radiation by the surface of earth. Green house gases absorb most of the infrared radiation and pass on to the other atmospheric gases by molecular interaction. The greenhouse gases too radiate some heat. Heat is radiated both upwards and downwards with some escaping into the space and some getting back to the earth surface. The earth surface and the lower atmosphere is thus aiding to the survival of life on earth.

Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, nitrous oxide etc. are molecules formed by two atoms which are loosely bound and are thereby easily excited by solar radiation. The loose atoms then pass on the heat to other gases by molecular interaction. Major components of the atmosphere such as oxygen and nitrogen are formed my tightly bound atoms which are not easily excited and thus do not absorb heat.

EFFECTS ON GLOBAL WARMING

Though greenhouse effect is an essential environmental phenomenon, the trouble begins when human activities disturb or accelerate the natural process by creating more of the green house gases necessary for the optimum warming of the earth surface and thus raising the surface temperature above ideal one.

Higher the concentration of the green house gases more is the heat radiation towards the earth. The emission of green house gas such as carbon dioxide is mainly due to burning of fossil fuels such as oil, gas, petrol, kerosene etc.
Higher concentration of such man-made greenhouse gas causes considerable warming of the earth and the sea resulting in Global Warming.

HUMAN CONTRIBUTION

• Level of carbon dioxide is increased by burning of natural gas, coal, oil, petrol etc.
• Some agricultural and land-use methods increase the level of methane and nitrous oxide in atmosphere.
• Industrial wastes and gases contribute substantially to the green house effect and thus adding to global warming.
• Deforestation is one of the major causes of global warming today.
• Population explosion is another prime factor contributing towards global warming.

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Go Green and Stop Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect

Rabbi Yitzhak Miller Go Green and Stop Global Warming By Acline Wyle

Global warming and the greenhouse effect are becoming bigger and bigger issues due to the increase in extreme weather over the past few years. The best way to stop these two phenomena is by making more eco friendly and energy efficient decisions in our lives.

What Causes These Problems and How Do We Fix It?

The greenhouse effect occurs when Earth’s atmosphere traps solar radiation, which is caused by atmospheric gases that build up due to air pollution. Global warming is the gradual increase in Earth’s surface temperature, and it is responsible for the melting of the polar ice caps. Global warming is caused by the greenhouse effect, so solving one problem would solve the other.

The devastating climate changes that have been caused by global warming are slowly but surely getting worse and more extreme. If nothing is done to make it stop, things are going to spiral out of control and humanity will be at risk. Although the task at hand may seem daunting, it really isn’t. If everybody decided to go green and make eco friendly lifestyle changes, then we would all be in a much better position.

Since the best way to go green is by increasing energy efficiency, we should all reuse more and waste less. For example, recycling all paper, plastic, and glass products would make a difference. We should also rely more on alternative and renewable energy resources rather than fossil fuels that cannot be replenished. This can be done by converting to solar power in your home, driving a hybrid car, or using biofuels.

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Global Greenhouse Effect and C02

Rabbi Yitzhak Miller Global Greenhouse Effect and C02 By Lottie Carrot

According to a paper from the Proceedings of the National Economy of Sciences, we are producing too much C02. The C02 has a literal “bath tub” effect on the globe, as it continues to fill and the “drainage” is not working fast enough. To add to this problem is the fact that the environment is experiencing warmth amplification from other greenhouse gases.

Slew of problems:

On the global scale, climate change and its vicissitudes, including amplified warming would have profound effects on the lives of people everywhere. These are all interrelated, and even the ozone hole is not improving.

C02 emissions from the use of oil products and fossil fuels have increased the C02 saturation in the atmosphere, to the point that the natural “sinks” where the C02 can drain are clogging up. Plants and other natural “sinks” cannot absorb or transform the C02 fast enough.

The effect?

Amplified warming in most of the areas of the world that have been used to the cold. Northern Europe is not excluded from this bleak picture. With the problem of peak oil and other significant man-made problems, it seems that there is little to smile about in the coming fifteen or so years.

Job for the Governments:

Scientists and climatologists have been literally “bugging” national governments to take care of the climate and the environment. Now that climate change cannot possibly be a good thing in relation to food production in sensitive regions of the world, science is waiting for human intervention to happen.

The current treaties, such as the Kyoto Protocol are not really helping that much due to the sheer number of people dependent on technologies that produce carbon dioxide emissions. The problem is widespread but not incurable.

However, there is a misconception that if people lower emissions, the warming will stop. This is not the case, since the warming has evolved through hundreds of years the Earth will need more time to stabilize itself. However, not doing something now can speed up the processes. A long term solution is required to control the millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions thrown to the air on a yearly basis.

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The Lead Pollution Have Reduced the Greenhouse Effect

Rabbi Yitzhak Miller Reduced the Greenhouse Effect By R. P. Fernandez

Higher levels of water pollution in the air during the years 1970 and 1980 is likely to lead to inhibition of global temperature increases to a certain extent today, almost a full effect greenhouse is kicking in, as there was a continued decrease in the rate of anthropogenic emissions of lead in the last 20 years. As shown in a study published in Nature Geosciences, the lead pollution was to reduce the impact of greenhouse gases on global warming. The particles of lead nurtures the formation of clouds which become effective “umbrella”.

Investigators from Switzerland, Germany and the United States “captured” a few clouds on the mountains, and compare it with artificially created in the laboratory.

It showed that emissions of greenhouse gases could have had much greater effects on global warming if the particles of lead, rejected in large part by human activity, had not promoted the formation of clouds.

Indeed, the presence of lead allows the formation of clouds where the air is not normally quite wet and cold. Sunlight would be more thoughtful on the surface of these clouds, which would mitigate the greenhouse effect in the years 1970-1980, before the mass consumption of unleaded petrol.

“To some extent this has probably led to a slowdown of rising global temperatures, whereas today, almost all of the greenhouse gases are starting to act,” says Joachim Curtius, a professor at the University Frankfurt, Germany.

This study did not aim to enhance the lead pollution which is extremely harmful, but it helps to explain the acceleration of climate change in recent years.

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The Air We Breathe

Rabbi Yitzhak Miller About The Air We Breathe By: Gary Tooth

We don’t need scientists to tell us we require ‘air’ to survive. The air we breathe has a gas called oxygen and without it there would be no life period. Humans, plants and animals all need oxygen to survive but although oxygen is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless, there are a lot of pollutants in the air which are not. Worse still, there are a whole bunch of impurities indoors as well as outdoors, which is why ionic air purifiers have become all the rage these days. But just how bad is bad when we talk about the quality of the air we breathe?

Air pollution first got my attention when I was visiting Hong Kong last year. My first impressions of this small country was that it was clean, efficient, and very well organized despite the fact that its buildings and residents were so tightly packed in. As I walked around the city areas, it was pretty noisy and certainly bustling, but I didn’t think for one minute that there were any real issues with pollution. That was until I read an article in a local magazine which reported that there were over 2000 deaths caused last year through air pollution alone.

I found this an incredible read. What does it say for places like Bangkok in Thailand where you can almost chew on the air it’s that thick. My Thai physician here in the USA, explained that Bangkok has lung cancer rates which are about three times higher than the rest of the country, and its air pollution levels are some 14 times higher than international health standards. He went on to say that the city now has the sharpest decline in life expectancy within South East Asia. The price of pollution in the Asia region seems to indicate these Eastern cities are suffocating on their own economic prosperity. Quite a price to pay wouldn’t you say!

But air pollution doesn’t stop in developing countries. Here at home in the US, we are often accused by the international community as being the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases worldwide. In addition to industrial pollution, millions of us have these big automobiles which are all spewing out air contaminants and affecting the quality of the air breathed as we walk around outside. President George W bush has not agreed to reduce emissions at the time of writing this article. He said it would be damaging to the US economy. He also went on to say that developing countries were not required to cut their emissions so didn’t see why the US had to do so at this time.

Governments play a huge role in protecting its citizens and the planet as a whole, but we the little people, also have a duty to do what we can in order to help improve the quality of the air we breathe, and that goes for inside as well as out. In actual fact, our home and work environments may be damaging our health without us even realizing it. So many of us spend a high percentage of our time indoors, so the quality of the air we breathe inside is very important.

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How Much Green House?

Rabbi Yitzhak Miller All About GreenHouse Effect By: Ken Charnly

Lately, we have all been talking about the greenhouse effect. This effect relates to the expected warming of our planet resulting from changes to the composition of our atmosphere. There is mounting evidence that our own activities, most significantly the burning of fossil fuels, are a major contributor to this effect.

The predicted consequences are quite sever, including major changes in climate which will have impact on food production, and rising sea levels which will submerge coastal and other low lying communities. Lurking in the background hauntingly are the facts we have discovered about our near neighbor, the planet Venus. Because of its dense atmospheric gases, Venus has what has been described as having a runaway greenhouse effect, giving surface temperatures of about 8000F. Now I love the warm summer weather, but that is a little too hot for me.

The usual villains in the greenhouse scenario are gases such as carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide, which, incidentally, we all exhale, has the unusual habit of absorbing infra-red radiation. Infra-red radiation for those of you less scientifically minded is actually heat radiating away from a warm object. During the day, sunlight warms the earth and during the night the Earth cools by radiating heat into space in the form of infra-red radiation. Carbon dioxide, and to a lesser extent other gases, absorb this radiation, limiting its exit out into space, and thus limiting the natural cooling effect.

Would it be safer if we had no greenhouse effect at all? Well, no, we do not want that either. There is another member of the heat absorbing clan. This is water vapor. There is a large amount of water vapor in the atmosphere at any time, which is why we have rain. The presence of water vapor as a heart absorbing gas keeps the Earth comfortably warm. Without this warmth, the planet would freeze, and life as we know it would not be possible. We therefore do need some greenhouse effect, just not too much. Mother Nature is again telling us what we should already know; in any situation, both of the extremes are harmful.

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Climate Change – The Coming Crisis

Rabbi Yitzhak Miller About Climate Change – The Coming Crisis By: Jonathon Hardcastle

While many contend that there are different reasons behind the changing of our climate, few can deny that our planet is going through a period of immense changes. While some may discredit the science, global warming is one of the main hypothesis for why our planet is heating up. In this article, we’ll try to explain some of the science behind global warming so that you can understand the problem more clearly.

According to numerous scientific studies, our planet’s surface temperature has increased by about 1 degree Fahrenheit within the last century. Most of this change has occurred in the past two decades, prompting the question: are our lifestyles accelerating this global change? The evidence definitely seems to point in that direction.

Many scientists point to the emission of greenhouse gases as one of the leading reasons that we are undergoing this global change. Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are some of the main compounds that we are releasing more and more, causing something known as the ‘Greenhouse Effect’. This occurs due to the fact that these gases tend to trap heat, and when they are released into our upper atmosphere, they trap some of the heat energy that would normally be reflected by our earth’s natural processes.

It’s an undisputed fact that there is more greenhouse gas in our atmosphere due to humanity. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, it is estimated that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by as much as thirty percent. While a little greenhouse gas helps to keep our planet warm, the more and more that we release, the hotter the planet is going to get. That is an important fact to consider, being that our biosphere is finely tuned to live at the temperatures at which our planet currently operates. Many forms of both plant and animal life run the risk of extinction should the temperature change be accelerated. Fossil fuels are primarily responsible for the amount of greenhouse gases that we are releasing, and to help fix the problem, we are going to need to find an alternate source of energy, and quick. Research into alternative fuels has yielded several possible options, including the use of corn in the production of ethanol, which has already had proven usage in places such as Venezuela. The most accelerated period of temperature change has occurred in the past twenty years, and it’s clearly evident that we need to address this problem while we still can.

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