Global Warming?

And NIMBY means what?

OK- “Not In My Back Yard”

So you would like to think that global warming doesn’t exist in your backyard – or especially that it doesn’t start in your backyard.

But, we’re sorry to report that you are wrong on both counts.

Well for one thing, you think that burning the fossil fuels that pollute the atmosphere is done only by the big factories and power plants.

Do you have an oil burner? Or a gas fired water heater? Do you drive a gas-powered car? Oh, and have you used manure for your yard or garden?

Perhaps you live in the city. But if you moved to the suburbs and the lot where your new home was built was cleared of trees and plants – your backyard added to the global warming.

How did it do that? When the trees and plants were killed, they stopped storing carbon – which nature has them do – and they released all the carbon that had been accumulated over tens and maybe even hundreds of years.

All that released carbon from driving or heating or fertilizing or cutting down trees adds carbon dioxide (CO2) to the air. CO2 is one of the now famous “Greenhouse Gasses.”

Another major greenhouse gas is methane. While this gas is caused by nature, humanity adds to it to an unfavorable degree.

Methane is caused by nature when it is released from arctic tundra and wetlands. It is also released as the earth goes through a cycle of climate change. Even without human interference this climate change usually lasts about 40,000 years.

But it seems man can’t wait for nature to mess things up.

And finally for today, can you believe that eating supermarket meat adds methane to the atmosphere. You could Google it. Clearing the land to grow animal feed, using fossil fuel power equipment to process the food – and the meat - adds up quickly.

And the big sum is that animal agriculture is responsible for 18% of all global greenhouse gas emission. (Source: US Food and Agriculture Organization).

So we’re all guilty and we need to make some changes - Suggestions will follow.