Climate change: The science

I'm very aware of the challenges of becoming a life-long student but I'm conviced that's perfectly possible. We should just focus on the advantages it brings us. For instance, we can satisfy our curiosity so it is worth it. The first step to do this is to set an achievable goal and stick to a plan. So we should plan ahead each day in order to accomplish our goal. 

 I've always been a student so I'm very conscious of the waste of paper we produce in universities and in companies in general.  Going paperless is useful for our planet because each piece of paper comes from a tree and trees are crucial to absorve carbon dioxide which is one of the main causes of climate change. Companies can become more sustainable using less paper. And instead of printing out all their documents can present them in a digital format. 

  A great deal of methane is produced by cow's burps and feces. In addition to that, there is another contribution coming from wastes in landfills and rice cultivation. Since the major contributor to the production of methane are dairy farming activities many people are choosing to be vegetarian in order to reduce the methane production. Having said that, it's important to mention that methane is far more devastating than carbon dioxide on the climate. It's just because there is less methane than carbon dioxide that we are not usually hear about this. However, 15% of global warming is attributed to methane. So, if we want to combat global warming. We should also be concerned by methane.

  If you hear about climate change, you will come across with some terms like "carbon footprint", which is the total greenhouse gas emissions by someone or something expressed as a carbon dioxide equivalent. But barely you will hear about water vapor, which is the main contributor to climate change. Water vapor comes from the oceans due to the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere. So, why do we not hear much about water vapor? This is basically because if the Earth's atmosphere get hotter is due to carbon emissions, so if we reduce these emissions, the Earth's atmosphere will get colder preventing the oceans from evaporating at such high rates.

1.      Anyone who has visited a greenhouse knows that the temperature inside is higher than outside. And that's the reason why the cause of global warming has been defined as the greenhouse effect. However, this is just a metaphor; in fact, not a good one because while global warming is caused by some gases such as water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane, that absorve the radiation from the Earth that has previously come from the sun; greenhouses are hotter because the warm air cannot escape via convection. Due to this some scientists have introduced another term to explain global warming in simpler words: "the blanket effect". According to them the gases are a kind of blanket that prevents the gases from getting outside like when we are wrapped in a blanket that avoid us getting colder.