Its gettin hot in here, so take off all your clothes This well known phrase is not far

from the truth Imagine a world in which people could not see trees and a blue sky when they go outside. Imagine stepping out of a house and not being able to walk a few feet without getting winded because of the amount of pollution in the air. This might become a reality if our society as a whole does not start to think about the consequences of our actions. The irrevocable decisions that we make today will ultimately be the arbiter of what the world will be like in the future. Glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, and while you may know wildlife is scrambling to keep pace, your life is too. Is the sky falling down?Is a furry blanket going to cover the earth Well basically, yes! How, you ask? When the sun shines down on the earth its short wave radiation is able to get through a blanket of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Most of this short wave radiation is absorbed by the earth and warms it. Some of the radiation is reflected back into space by the ice cap and the ocean as long wave radiation. But the outgoing long wave radiation is literally trapped inside a blanket of GHGs in the atmosphere. This causes the tempreature on earth to rise. Therefore, individuals need to reduce their carbon footprint and their emmisions of GHGs to remove that blanket. There are many ways to do this.Choosing energy efficient methods of transportation, reducing and reusing your materials and never, ever, taking your resources for granted. We cant wait for some other person or some other time, we must act here and now- for this planet is our only home. Global warming or climate change is a subject that shows no sign of cooling down, unless we take action!

In todays society we must use more efficient methods of transportation. One way to do so is to drive a more efficient car. One reason driving a hybrid vehicle makes sense is because it would prevent global warming. Global warming is caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide (and other gases) in the air, and hybrid cars emit less carbon dioxide than regular vehicles. The annual metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted annually by the Toyota Prius are 3.6, while a normal car may release 6-7 metric tons annually (http://www.fueleconomy.gov/FEG/bestworst.shtml ). Also, driving a hybrid car will reduce the amount of money spent on gas. By spending $21.96 on gas you can drive 793 kilometers in the new 2009 Toyota Prius (previous source). It is very fashionable to own a hybrid vehicle right now. Celebrities like Cameron Diaz and Gwyneth Paltrow drive hybrid cars. Some might argue that hybrid vehicles are not a good option because they are not that fast. However, driving fast will only get you an expensive speeding ticket. Carpooling is another way to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. For example, six adults plan to meet at a picnic, they go to the picnic spot in pairs, but there are not enough parking spaces for the three cars. The people complain to the town to get a larger parking lot. The new parking lot takes up some more of the picnic area. Similar situations are happening every moment, only some are on a much larger scale. As the population increases so does the demand for cars so more roads and parking lots must be made, and that means less natural beauty around us. It also means deforestation which is the cause of 25 % of the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere (http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-

change/deforestation-the-hidden-cause-of-global-warming-448734.html ). Each tree that is felled and burned will not only not be available for filtering out greenhouse gases from the air but the burning process also deposits even more carbon into the air, making the problem worse in two different ways. Deforestation and global warming are connected, and one leads to more of the other. Another way to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses is to trade your automatic vehicle for a completely different method of transportation for example, cycling, walking, rollerblading, skateboarding, etc. By trading a vehicle for these energy efficient methods it gives us the opportunity to build stamina, strengthen our muscular structure, get an aerobic workout, and experience the mental clarity you are able to get while enjoying a great recreational ride. These methods take up little space, burn no gasoline and produce no waste. Also a bike can travel 1,600 kms on the equivalent energy of a gallon of gas, and between 70 -100 cycles can be built with the amount of resources required to build one car (http://bicycling.suite101.com/article.cfm/cycling_and_the_environment )! These are just the most environmentally friendly ways of getting around! Everyone has heard the phrase reduce, reuse and recycle but do we really live up to all three of these expectations? The truth is that we really only live up to the recycling part of it-and even that has room for improvement. We really need to reduce and reuse as well. In North America, we produce enough garbage each day, to fill 70,000 garbage trucks if they were lined up bumper to bumper, over a year, they would stretch halfway to the moon (http://www.recycling101.ca/facts.html )! Reducing is key because you avoid

making garbage in the first place. Then you don't have to worry about disposing of the waste later. And you can avoid the whole long story about toxic chemicals being released into the atmosphere as a by-product of incineration of waste. Regrettably, because we live in a disposable society we are encouraged to buy a new improved item even if the one we have can be reused. Every week in Canada, 55 million shopping bags are taken home from grocery stores (previous source). Billions of plastic bags also find their way into oceans via rivers, drains and sewage pipes where the effects on aquatic animals such as turtles, sea birds, whales, dolphins and seals are catastrophic. The unsuspecting creatures often mistake the floating plastic for food! These animals ingest plastic or become entangled resulting in agonizing deaths. So Canadians need to reduce their usage of plastic and especially plastic bags; you can easily reuse plastic bags and protect the environment. We can even improve our recycling habits. Recycling all of your home's waste newsprint, cardboard, glass and metal can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 400 kilograms a year (http://www2.canada.com/northshorenews/features/livegreen/story.html?id=2283 d1bd-8aec-48a1-9842-47b95abb83ff ). It may be hard to believe but about 40, 000 trees are cut down each day just to produce the newsprint for Canada's daily papers-thats an alarming rate of deforestation (http://www.recycling101.ca/facts.html ). If we were to recycle all of this we would be saving another 40,000 trees from being cut down. That would have tremendous benefits for the environment since more trees would be available for filtering out GHGs. Did you know about one-third of our waste is paper and

paperboard? Another third is yard and kitchen waste. The rest is divided among glass, metals, plastics, textiles, wood and other materials, and all of these things can be reduced, reused or recycled (http://www2.canada.com/northshorenews/features/livegreen/story.html?id=2283 d1bd-8aec-48a1-9842-47b95abb83ff ). So just imagine our lives for the better if we really did completely utilize the phrase reduce, reuse and recycle.

Did you know that if everyone on the earth lived like the average Canadian, we would need at least four planets to sustain our lifestyles and provide all the materials and energy we currently use? This means Canadians really need to conserve and preserve their resources. More than half of our oxygen comes from the ocean. Not from the ocean itself but from microorganisms, known as phytoplankton. Phytoplankton use carbon dioxide and sunlight during photosynthesis and release oxygen as a by-product. When we deposit toxic waste and trash into the ocean we harm the production of phytoplankton. Due to that, all marine life in the ocean will suffer and subsequently humans will suffer because the phytoplankton will not be available for filtering out the massive quantities of carbon dioxide that humans produce. Another non-renewable resource is coal. For every energy unit of electricity produced, three units of coal are burned - thats not very efficient. A lot of greenhouse gasses are being produced in this way. The effect of burning coal and combining it with oxygen produces carbon dioxide (http://www.green-energyefficient-homes.com/electricity-and-global-warming.html ). The carbon cycle is a

very important thing on earth, and it keeps the world livable, but it can have devastating effects as well. Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Barack Hussein Obama meant a lot when he said that. It also meant we have to take action here and now if we want change for ourselves and for generations to come. By reducing our carbon footprint we can prevent the catastrophic effects global warming has and will have on us and our children. Transport yourself in more energy efficient manners. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. And last but not least always put your resources to best and most efficient use. Hey, maybe you can even start a compost heap? In conclusion, just take off your clothes instead of turning on the air conditioning!

Just the amount of smoke around this subject shows that there is fire somewhere underneath

Bibliography: The sources for the statistics were given following the statistics, however the following sources were used just for knowledge of my topic. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/eye/deforestation/effect.html https://www.carpool.ca/carpool_benefits.asp http://www.ewswa.org/pages/recycle/3rsintro.html http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/recycle.htm http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000385/index.html Note: I used these 2 videos for knowledge of phytoplankton http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/20424-plankton-ocean-drifters-video.htm http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/25814-plankton-polluted-planktonvideo.htm