The United Nations recently warned of the consequences of complacency in combating global warming.

In a report detailing the effects of the phenomenon, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted an apocalyptic end of the century, with as many as 30 per cent of the earth's species risking annihilation.

With increasingly fierce advocacy on either side of the global climate change spectrum, it has become increasingly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, with the result being that the term 'global warming' itself warrants clarification.
"Globally, the atmosphere and the oceans are getting warmer," said Dr Jeremy Bendik-Keymer, a professor at the American University of Sharjah (AUS).

Dr Bendik-Keymer teaches a course on environmental ethics at AUS, in which students analyse the lines of argument adopted by United States politician Al Gore in the book version of his documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

Dr Bendik-Keymer dubbed the course as an attempt at raising "environmental literacy," a goal he champions also by appearing daily on the radio show The Green Team on the Dubai Eye channel.

Intensifies extremes

Elaborating on his definition of global warming, he noted that a result of global warming is that it "intensifies extremes," meaning that certain areas with harshly cold environments will also get colder, despite an overall increase in global temperature.

Conservative estimates point to a 2-3 degrees Fahrenheit increase by the end of the century, whereas higher estimates constitute double or triple the conservative figure, according to Dr Bendik-Keymer.

Greenhouse effect

The leading theory on global warming attributes the increase in the earth's temperature to the 'greenhouse effect.' Heat or thermal radiation emitted from the Earth's surface is retained due to the presence of 'greenhouse gases' such as carbon dioxide, which prevent some of this radiation from escaping into space, hence keeping the planet warm.

Processes such as the burning of fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas increase the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, thus contributing to a more potent greenhouse effect.

Dr Bendik-Keymer attributed the general lack of urgency to education as well as inertia, denouncing the "high-speed" economic structure for de-emphasising larger issues such as global warming in favour of micromanagement.

The politicising of global warming issue has also largely served as a block to the introduction of legislation to curb its effects.

Sea level rising

A direct effect of this increase in global temperature, and one which could pose more of a problem to the region than the increase in temperature itself, is the rise in sea level.

According to Dr Bendik-Keymer, conservative estimates point to an increase of a quarter to half a metre in sea level as a result of global warming, caused by the melting of the polar ice caps, over the next 80 years. However, these estimates do not take into account landlocked ice, whose melting would drastically alter these ballpark figures.

Civil unrest

Chaos in coastal regions could lead to an even worse scenario – political and social turmoil, said Dr Bendik-Keymer. Recalling that the Rwanda massacre was preceded by famine, he warned of similar unrest in the making.

Communities living in the delta regions in countries such as Bangladesh would be the hardest-hit by the rise in sea levels, in addition to water depletion as a result of soil aridity in Africa, spelling doom for the poorer segments of the world's population.

An ironic turn of events is that the developing nations of the world are set to foot the bill for the follies of the first world.

Increased awareness

Yet all is not lost. Dr. Bendik-Keymer detailed changes which could help reduce the global warming trend on a worldwide scale, not the least of which was increased education and public awareness of environmental issues.

He underlined the necessity of forcing companies to "internalise externalities," by incorporating the cost of polluting the environment into their products, thus forcing them to reduce pollutants in order to drive down costs. Finally, a way of enforcing environmental measures and treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol is necessary.

It seems evident beyond any reasonable doubt that the planet is under duress. How far we can influence trends in the global climate, or even if we should, is up for debate.

However one thing is clear: awareness of the issue globally is on the rise, and this is one trend we ought to latch on to.

Environmental Initiative

Masafi, the regional market leader in the bottled mineral water industry launch a plastic recycling initiative across UAE.

The initiative will involve 10 schools in the pilot phase and will be later rolled out to additional 30 schools across the country. As part of the initiative, recycling stations (dispensers) will be dedicated to the designated schools in order to encourage the concept of recycling among the children and parents.

The recycling stations will be placed next to the Masafi vending dispensers at the educational institutions.


Published: 05/19/2007 12:00 AM (UAE)

http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/05/19/0000.html
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This article give us informations about Global Warming and its situation in the UAE. From this article I can say that the UAE are doing something about Global Warming and I think its a good thing to do recycling stations.

This article also talks about the effects and causes of Global Warming which I already talked about in my blog.

I think that UAE is on the right track to stop Global Warming and building the recycling stations are step number one to stop Global Warming. The UAE tries to spread the facts of Global Warming among the people which is a good thing.