"personal responsibility", "...we continue to ignore it until it is too late to do anything about it"
using the terms climate change or global warming is not the debate. The debate is whether man can have an effect on the fluctuations in climate that can be scientifically proven to have occurred for eons.
This is about global climate fluctuations, not smog in the LA basin. The latter is indeed controllable by man through elemination or reduction of pollution.
A major environmental strategy to control the climate is the great ethanol fuel program. It is now recognized as doing more harm than good. But it is a runaway locomotive of political and financial special interests. The fact that it is innefective is a minor detail. Those darn unintended consequences.
Manufacturing of electric vehicles and the batteries that run them produce massive quantities of CO2 and other pollutants, such as concentrations of heavy metals. Electrical power still must be generated to recharge them. Fossil fuels being the main source of this power. And speaking of personal responsibilty, I for one have participated in sorting and recycling household trash for years. The truth is that the financial model for using recycled materials is generally not penciling out and many waste management operations are simply burying it along with the items I separated it from to begin with!
How does man control this reality :
- Volcanoes can spew atmospheric dust and gases tens of kilometers into the earth’s atmosphere where prevailing winds can very quickly transport them thousands of kilometers from the original eruption.
- Volcanic ash can lower visibility in the upper atmosphere and knock out aircraft engines.
- Widespread ash from volcanic eruptions increase the Earth’s “Albedo Effect”, cooling the temperature of the lower troposphere while increasing the temperature of the stratosphere.
- Volcanic activity is estimated to be responsible for the release of 130 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually.
- Sulfur dioxide, a major ingredient of volcanic activity, is the primary cause of environmentally damaging acid rain. It also forms sulfuric acid mists which causes pulmonary damage to both people and animals.
- Hydrogen sulfide, a colorless gas with an offensive odor, causes irritation of the upper respiratory tract and pulmonary edema.
Read on
- Atmospheric dust from volcanoes can act as a magnet for other pollutants and water vapor, giving rise to atmospheric hazes and heavy fogs.
Read more at Suite101: Environmental Impacts of Atmospheric Dust and Volcanic Eruptionshttp://www.suite101.com/content/environmental-impacts-of-atmospheric-dust-and-volcanic-eruptions-a226240#ixzz19FaEFbPO
