Environmental Issues

The need for a clean environment has remained a critical one to this day but the fact that global warming has taken its toll on the universe serves to make the need for more coordinated and concerted efforts to conserve the environment a more immediate one and one demanding a lot of attention. Global warming has remained a challenge that is largely brought about by a host of interrelated human activities and it is ideal that these factors are pinpointed and addressed now if the hope of saving the earth from the effects of global warming can ever be realized. Global warming has posed many challenges to this country and the entire world and it ought to be addressed from here at home. The problem is responsible for a decline in the countrys natural habitats and an increase in desertification. It has also, among many other causes, led to the disappearance of certain animal and plant species from the face of the earth. It is therefore imperative that the problem is addressed now.

Clientele
This technical briefing is aimed at the federal government. It seeks to exactly point out to the government which of the many global warming causal agents is most rampant and so in dire and urgent need of addressing. This will ensure there is a focus on the main cause.

The Global Warming Problem
Global warming is a great problem which requires to be addressed quickly because it is causing untold suffering of mankind and other living things. This is because the temperatures of the earth have risen to a level where it is no longer possible for life to be led as it used to be. Global warming has resulted in a decline in the sea levels, a factor that has made aquatic life to be in danger. It has also led to extinction of certain plant and animal life, and the problem of food acquisition is becoming a common one because farming, the main source of food, has become a difficult and almost impossible venture because of the drastic change in climatic conditions. The health of mankind is at a great risk, too, because new kinds of diseases and pests have emerged. The economies of countries which rely on tourism are crumbling because the attractive glaciers are melting away. These and many other problems call for immediate interventions. The main cause of the problem is the pollution of the atmosphere, and so there is a need to ensure that this is stopped.

Scientific Principles Involved in Global Warming
Global warming is a problem that is largely as a result of the actions of mankind. It is a process which is continuous and results in more heat than is necessary reaching on the surface of the earth, thereby causing a lot of warming or heating up which would otherwise not have occurred. The scientific basis of global warming is to be derived from the fact that when the sun shines, its rays travel through the atmosphere and reaches the lithosphere where they are used for various beneficial purposes by mankind.

This is a natural process and goes on as long as the sun is there. The suns radiation is often very dangerous as it contains harmful UV radiation which unless it is kept away from the earth, it can cause a lot of harm to human beings, animals, and plants found on the surface of the earth. A layer of gases, called ozone, serves the purpose of absorbing harmful radiation from the sun so that by the time the radiation reaches the earth, it cannot cause any harm to living things or destroy any habitats. As long as the layer of ozone is present, therefore, the harmful radiation will always be kept out of the earth.

The layer of ozone can be and is usually depleted by certain chemicals which are found in the atmosphere. When the level of such chemicals in the atmosphere is high enough or exceeds a certain threshold value, then the chemicals will react with the Ozone and so reduce its ability to trap harmful radiation from the sun, causing such radiation to find its way into the atmosphere. Such chemicals have come to be classified generally as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) because they are mainly compounds of Carbon and the halogens Chlorine and Fluorine. Other possible agents that deplete the ozone gaseous layer are methane and nitric oxide. To be able to reduce global warming, therefore, it is important that these causal agents are dealt with.

Another direct cause of global warming which is deeply entrenched in science is the greenhouse effect. This a condition almost similar to the greenhouse whereby owing to the presence of certain gaseous substances in the lower atmosphere, the infrared radiation that is released after UV radiation hits the surface of the earth is trapped in the lower atmosphere, causing a heating effect on this region of the atmosphere. The greenhouse gases are able to absorb part of this IR radiation and upon emitting it it raises the temperature of the earth to a level that causes many changes in the lives of living things. It is known that if there was no global warming from a combination of all these factors, then the earth would be less hot by about 33C.

Green house gases are the main causes of global warming, and they include carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, and nitrous oxide. Their relative contribution to the greenhouse effect and so to global warming varies and it is important that the main contributors are known so as to be addressed. Generally, though, carbon dioxide is the major greenhouse gas owing to its abundance in many living things and is therefore released into the atmosphere every time such living things die or are transformed from one state to another. In fact, there is no other remedy to the problem of global warming that will work if it does not include the need to cut carbon emissions. As indicated below, carbon dioxide is the major pollutant of the atmosphere, followed by methane. Ozone is the least contributor to the greenhouse effect and is in fact the gas that ought to be increased in the atmosphere so as to cushion the earth from harmful UV radiation. Water vapor, although a contributor to the greenhouse effect, is naturally present in the atmosphere and on its own cannot cause so much effect. Water vapor works best in conjunction with the other gases, notably carbon dioxide and methane. Methane is not freely present in the atmosphere.
Water vapor 3672
Carbon dioxide  926
Methane 49
Ozone 37

Political Background
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the international body that is involved in the quest to have all issues with climate change addressed. Owing to widespread concerns, the body held a convention in Japans Kyoto city to seek for ways to address issues of climate change, notably global warming. As a result, nations that contributed to the highest carbon emissions in the world, the so-called Annex I, were required to commit to take measures to reduce their carbon emissions in a stepwise approach so that by a certain time, the overall carbon emissions into the atmosphere from industrial sources in those countries would be reduced.

The conference culminated into the formulation of the Kyoto protocol, and it has been the desire of UNFCCC to have as many countries as possible ratifying it. This has not been forthcoming as the worlds major industrialized countries fear that cutting carbon emissions to levels recommended will impact negatively on their economic performance. To date, industrial emissions and those emissions caused by industrial products like motor vehicles account for a large proportion of the total carbon emissions.

The Way Forward
Having the understanding that global warming is largely due to greenhouse gases and partly due to ozone depletion, it is important that the substances which cause both of these effects are dealt with. As mentioned earlier, depletion of ozone is caused mainly by CFCs. The fight against global warming must therefore start with ensuring there are no CFCs in the atmosphere, or only a very limited amount is left there. In addition, it is worth ensuring that the major greenhouse gases are kept out of the atmosphere. Luckily, CFCs, nitrous oxide, and methane are also known to have very close links to carbon dioxide and their activity in the atmosphere is largely determined by the availability of carbon dioxide. In essence, this brings down the problem to one main gas  carbon dioxide. This is because all the others will get dissipated from the atmosphere in one way or another through reactions which will not even require much activation energy. The figure below shows the carbon-based pollutants and the contribution that each makes to global warming.

Model Description for Global Warming
Assuming that the main variables are that are involved in bringing about global warming are CFCs, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane, then the presence of these substances in the atmosphere varies with time, then a simple model to deal with global warming will be as follows
Carbon dioxide (CO2)  CFCs  Nitrous Oxide (N2O)  Methane (CH4)  Global Warming (GW) or simply CO2  CFCs  N2O  CH4  GW..M0
Collecting like terms, the equation reduces to
(C) O2  CF  N2O H4  GW M1
Or C  O3  Cl2  F2  N2  H4  GW M2
This can further be simplified to
C  O3  NH4Cl  NH4 F GW .M3  

From the above model three (M3), it is clear that the main causes of global warming are carbon (C), ozone (O3), ammonium chloride (NH4Cl), and ammonium fluoride (NH4 F). However, ammonium chloride and ammonium fluoride cannot in any way interfere with the movement of radiation through the atmosphere. In fact, it is highly unlikely that both substances can exist as stable compounds. As such, it is not very easy to find them in the atmosphere. It remains, then, that the only causal agents for global warming are carbon and ozone. As noted earlier, though, ozone is part of the atmosphere and it is a gaseous substance which ought to be increased in the atmosphere because it absorbs radiation that is harmful from the sun. In fact ozone is so valuable to the atmosphere that its volume in the atmosphere ought to as much as possible be maintained or even increased because it is being depleted at a very high rate. This leaves carbon dioxide as the main cause of global warming.

Conclusion and Recommendations
Based on this model, the government ought to come up with ways of deliberately lowering carbon emissions. Figure one shows that fossil fuels are a leading emitter of carbon. It is important for there to be sought alternative sources of energy which are either renewable or which do not produce carbon dioxide. Biofuel is a possible alternative, others being electricity, nuclear power, solar, power, and wind energy. That aside, there has to be legislation that seeks to compel industries in the country to cut down their carbon emissions. This can be a precursor to the Kyoto Protocol and in fact it is high time this nation finally ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Finally, the government ought to increase its conservation efforts of the environment so that human activities that are known to result in the emission of astronomical amounts of carbon into the atmosphere can be stopped or minimized. They include lumbering, mining, and the widespread use of motorized vehicles and machines.