What causes Global Warming? What is the Greenhouse Effect?

What causes Global Warming?

What is the Greenhouse Effect?

Thermal Power stations make electricity

A ‘clean’ form of energy

By burning fossil fuels

Like coal oil and gas.

Which releases a lot of carbon dioxide gas

Which is not so ‘clean’!

Because Carbon Dioxide adds to the Greenhouse Effect.

Carbon dioxide is is called a ‘greenhouse gas’

Because a greenhouse works the same way – letting light heat in but not letting it out again.

The Greenhouse Effect is a natural and important ‘good’ thing.

Without it our planet Earth would be totally frozen

The problem is humans are making the Greenhouse Effect too strong

So the world is getting ‘hot and bothered’.

Here are the main greenhouse gases by volume.

Put the Heading ‘Global Warming’ – draw this graph as a divided bar and describe in writing what this graph tells us.

CFCs are another greenhouse gas.

The richer countries (MEDCs) have banned them.

This is because they stayed doing damage in the air for 1000 years.

Methane is another greenhouse gas.

A lot gets produced in cows stomachs.

(We could use this instead instead of burning coal!)

Rice paddy fields give off lots of methane

Another greenhouse gas

The scientists are trying to measure how much is released ….

Because … The concentration of methane in the atmosphere has increased by about 50% in the last 40 years.

So Global Warming is an environmental problem for the whole world

It is caused by the humans releasing more and more greenhouse gases adding to the greenhouse effect.