Articles on Environment Matters:

Introduction to Major Environmental Laws

The first attempt for regulating the environment and creating environmental services intended to comply with the regulations and promote awareness came by the hand of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which was established by the United Nations Assembly (UN) back in 1972.

The UN Assembly is headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, and provides environmental resources civil for governments, scientists, journalists, business, civil society, children and youth. The UN has the commitment to "provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of the future generations"

With this example in mind, many other environmental services began to change their approach in relation to industries that provoked the contamination of our planet for a long time and summing efforts to stop the devastation of endangered flora and fauna species.

In the United States, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made a call to introduce a number of laws and regulations through members of Congress proposing a bill that after approved become law. The EPA is a regulatory agency committed to promote awareness in environmental services.

Founded in 1970 with the goal of protecting both the environment and human health, the regulations promoted by the EPA can be traced back since before the actual agency existed, starting in 1938 with the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

Environmental services that began to be regulated included the Federal Insecticide. Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act of 1947. Following this act, laws began to pay more attention to the environment, as it is demonstrate by the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948, best known as Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act passed to bill in 1955. Ten years after the Solid Waste Disposal Act and Shoreline Protection Act defined the new path to dig further for regulating the indiscriminate abuse of natural resources.

Today, the agency has a work force of 18,000 people working in pro of our environment from coast to coast, directing important actions from its headquarters in Washington, DC. The EPA offices have been witness to many other important environmental laws that make our world a better place to live in.

Among the most important laws issued, the 1972 Coastal Zone Management Act Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act, the 1973 Endangered Species Act, and the 1990 National Environmental Education Act and Pollution Prevention Act, have encouraged the development of new environmental services.

Natalie Aranda
01 Dec 2006

Natalie Aranda writes on laws and environment.

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Climate Change Already Affects Lives

In some parts of the world, people have long suspected what the world's top climate scientists conculded in a report - that climate changes are already endangering their ways of life.

Kivalina, one of an estimated 200 villages in Alaska's far north, is fighting for survival. The community, together with at least three others, may be lost within the next decade.

With global warming, there is less ice along the Artic coastline because of warming ocean temperatures, and so less protection from relentless winter storms that undermine the coastal area. Much of Alaska's coastline is receding at a rate of 2.4 metres per year. And millions of acres of Alaske's forests have also been wiped out in recent years because warmer winters have allowed insects to thrive, destroying the areas.

In the Swiss Alps,ski resorts fear the day that there will be no snow at all. Global warming is melting glaciers at an unprecedented rate. With temperatures rising about 1 degree celcius in the past 10 years, the snow line has receded up the side of most mountains by an average of 150 metres.

By 2016, many low-level ski resorts are likely to have no snow at all. In Asia, a stark example comes from Bangladesh, one of the most ill-prepared to face global warming and also likely to be among the countries worst affected. Every year, St Martin's Island in Bangladesh gets a little smaller. The storms that batter its fragile shores are becoming increasingly severe, and more and more coral is lost to the waves.

Bangladesh local councils are concern for the future. The Island has gradually reduced from 12 sq km 20 years ago to 8 sq km. Corals have eroded and land being squeezed. Even various sea species, including turtles and dolphins are dying along its shores and authorities are as perplexed.

On the other side of the globe, Kiribati, a group of 33 Pacific coral atolls straddling the equator, is also witness to the perils of climate change.

President Anote Tong said his country was already suffering, with land and houses washed away and even some public building threatened. But the worst effect was the human toil on Kiribati's 105,000 citizens. The islanders are survivingon taro, and the seawater has gone into that. Although the islanders are trying to move farther inland, the narowness of the low-lying atolls that are their homes means in the end, their only choice may be to leave, perhaps as little as as 50 years time, Mr Tong said.

In India, the signs already back up forecasts that as the mercury rises, the Indian subcontinent, home to one-sixth of humanity, will be one of the worst-affected regions. Glaciers are reported receding and islands have disappeared., and then there is the freak weather phenomena.

Experts says that the melting of Himalayan glaciers could have serious consequences as more than 500 million residents - almost half of India's total population - of the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra river basins rely on them for water supply.

Research about the Gangotri glacier - which feeds the Ganges -  kas found that the average rate of retreat has almost doubled to 34 metres per year, compared to 19 metres in 1971.Glaciologist Jagdish Bahadur said that glaciers are like frozen reservoirs of water, so when glaciers recede...proportionately, there will be a decrease in the water, which affects drinking water supply, irrigation and htdropower.

Rising temperatures will also hurt the annual June to September monsoon rains, which India is heavily dependent on for its crops. It is estimated that a temperature rise of between 2 degree celcius and 3.5 degree celcius would result in a loss of between 9 per cent and 25 per cent of revenue from agriculture - which makes up 22 per cent of India's GDP and employs 70 per cent of the workforce.

Today, experts say such refugees may already number in the millions and could reach 200 million by century's end, stoking tensions and potential for conflict. They point to Inuit communities literally undercut by melting ice in North America and Greenland, the thirsty people around central Africa's fast-shrinking Lake Chad, and the tens of thousands desplaced from New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.

The Straits Times
Singapore
04 Feb 2007

This article is abstracted from The Straits Times, Saturday, February 3, 2007. Source: Reuters, Agence France-Presse, Associated Press

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Warming Planet

The Past:
Evidence for arming of the climate system is unequivocal. From 1906 to 2005, global surface temperatures have risen by 0.74 degree celcius. This is an average increase over figures given in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes's (IPCC) 2001 report, when it said the temperature had risen by 0.6 degree celcius between 1901 and 2000.

Human activity is "very likely" the cause of most of the increase in the Earth's surface temperature during the second half of the 20th century. The definition of "very likely" is probably more than 90 per cent. IPCC estimates a probability of more than 66 per cent.

Global warming "is now evident" from several sources. Ocean warming now extends to a depth of at least 3000 metres as the seas take up heat from the air. mountain glaciers and snow cover have declined in both temperatures. Sea levels rose globally by 1.8mm per year from 1961 to 2003 but its pace has accelerated to  3.1mm per year from 1993 to 2003.

Since the 1970s, droughts have been "more intense and longer" and observed over wider areas, especially in the tropics and subtropics.

From 1900 to 2005, rainfall increased "significantly"  in eastern parts of North and South America, northern Europe and northern and central Asia, while drying occured in the Sahel, Mediterranean, southern Africa and parts of southern Asia.

The Forecast:
By 2100, global average surface temperatures could rise by between 1.1 degree celcius and 6.4 degree celcius compared to 1980 - 1999 levels. These figures come from computer simulations based on how much carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal greenhouse gas, is in the air.

The lower figure is the "B1 scenario", which is based on a fast-track switch to cleaner energy and sustainable development. The higher figure is the "A1F1 scenario", where fossil fuels are still burned intensively.

Within this broad temperature range, the most likely surface temperature rise will be between 1.8 degree celcius and 4 degree celcius. In 2001, the IPCC predicted a range of between 1.4 degree celcius and 5.8 degree celcius.

Sea levels will rise by between 18cm and 58cm, again based on how much CO2 is in the air. In the 2001 report, the estimate was 9cm to 88cm. The IPCC says the revision is because of improved estimates as to how the oceans absorb heat.

Warming will occur most over land at high northern latitudes and least over the southern ocean and the North Atlantic.

Snow cover will contract further and the depth of thaw in most permafrost regions will increase. Sea ice is projected to shrink in the Artic will be virtually free of late summer sea ice by the latter part of the 21st century.

Hot extremes heatwaves and heavy precipitation events are "very likely" to become more frequent.

Typhoons and hurricanes are likely to  become more powerful, packing higher wind speeds and more intense rainstorms, but the evidence about whether they may decrease in number is inconclusive. Extra-tropical storms will track poleward.

The Gulf Stream is "very likely" to slow down. Projections suggest an average slowdown of some 25 per cent during the 21st century. but this should not plunge western Europe into a new Ice Age. Higher air temperatures will help compensate for the loss of warmth from this balmy Atlantic current.

This is no evidence at the moment that the Antartic ice sheet will suffer widespread melting this century as it is such a huge, cold mass.

The Straits Times
Singapore
07 Feb 2007

This article is abstracted form The Straits Times, saturday, February 3, 2007. Source: Agence France-Presse