Global Warming, Biofuel, Kyoto Agreement and Carbon Footprint

What is Global warming?

In the past few years, the world has experienced devastating natural disasters on a level that hasn’t been seen for decades. There is much speculation that these especially strong phenomena are due to global climate change, brought on by Global Warming. The term ‘Global Warming’ refers to the rising temperature of the earth due to an increased amount of greenhouse gases. The scientific community as a whole has determined through all research that global warming is a problem caused by human influence. The burning of fossil fuels emits greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. These gases trap the heat from the sun and cause the temperature of our planet to rise. This warming of the globe could potentially alter sea level, crop yield and rain fall, and could increase the intensity and frequency of natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and droughts. For more information on global warming, please visit our research page, our student submission page, or any of the links on the left side of this page. Please also feel free to download our free informational pamphlet and our Global Warming political cartoon.

What is the Kyoto Protocol?
The Kyoto Protocol is not something that our government should have taken lightly. Under its provisions, 37 industrialized nations including Japan and several European countries have all committed themselves to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 33%. We, however - as the leading emitter of greenhouse gases - refused to sign and abide by it, and instead President Bush offered up an alternative plan to deal with Global Warming. He proposed a plan that gives businesses incentives to reduce power plant emissions and greenhouse gas emissions voluntarily. However, this reduction is estimated to be less than 5% over ten years.

Why Didn’t the United States Sign the Kyoto Agreement?
The Bush Administration decided not to sign the Kyoto Protocol for one reason – the economy. President Bush has said on many occasions that the Kyoto Protocol sets unrealistic goals and would hurt the American economy. And so, we’ve become a country that intentionally lowers our expectations to increase our chances of meeting our goals. We’ve become a country that has made it a practice to do what’s profitable, what benefits our economy the most, rather than what’s right for the world. Most of all, we’ve become a country that seems to have more loyalty to ourselves than to the larger whole of which we should be a part – we care more about how we as a country are doing financially than we do about how our world is doing environmentally. We have alienated ourselves in the international environmental community and have become our own separate world. We as Americans are citizens of America (most of us), but we’re more than that – we’re citizens of the world – and we have a responsibility to ourselves, our children, and our planet to clean up our act and do our part to counteract Global Warming.

What is biofuel?
Biofuel is essentially slightly modified used cooking oil. It can be used in any standard diesel engine and can be obtained from many restaurants and establishments for little or no cost. It has virutally no emissions and is safe to use. For more information on biofuel, please click on our “Check Out Biodiesel!” link on the left side of our page.

What is a Carbon Footprint?
The term ‘Carbon Footprint’ refers to the extent of which an individual influences the environment by emitting carbon dioxide and other carbon emissions. It is used as a measure of individual pollution contribution.

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