DEVANANDANAM: 2013

Friday, 27 December 2013

WINDBREAK

A windbreak or shelter belt is a plantation usually made up of one or more rows of trees or shrubs planted in such a manner as to provide shelter from the wind and to protect soil from erosion. They are commonly planted around the edges of fields on farms. If designed properly, windbreaks around a home can reduce the cost of heating and cooling and save energy. Windbreaks are also planted to help keep snow from drifting onto roadways and even yards. Other benefits include providing habitat for wildlife and in some regions the trees are harvested for wood products.

A further use for a shelter belt is to screen a farm from a main road or motorway. This improves the farm landscape by reducing the visual incursion of the motorway, mitigating noise from the traffic and providing a safe barrier between farm animals and the road.

The term "windbreak" is also used to describe an article of clothing worn to prevent wind chill. Americans tend to use the term "windbreaker" whereas Europeans favor the term "windbreak".

Fences called "windbreaks" are also used. Normally made from cotton, nylon, canvas, and recycled sails, windbreaks tend to have three or more panels held in place with poles that slide into pockets sewn into the panel. The poles are then hammered into the ground and a windbreak is formed. Windbreaks or "wind fences" are used to reduce wind speeds over erodible areas such as open fields, industrial stockpiles, and dusty industrial operations. As erosion is proportional to wind speed cubed a reduction of wind speed of 1/2 (for example) will reduce erosion by over 80%.

WHAT IS GLOBAL WARMING?

Global warming is the rise in the average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans since the late 19th century and its projected continuation. Since the early 20th century, Earth's mean surface temperature has increased by about 0.8 °C (1.4 °F), with about two-thirds of the increase occurring since 1980.^[2] Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and scientists are 95-100% certain that it is primarily caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases produced by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.^[3]^[4]^[5] These findings are recognized by the national science academies of all major industrialized nations.^[6]^[A]

Climate model projections were summarized in the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). They indicated that during the 21st century the global surface temperature is likely to rise a further 1.1 to 2.9 °C (2.0 to 5.2 °F) for their lowest emissions scenario and 2.4 to 6.4 °C (4.3 to 11.5 °F) for their highest.^[7] The ranges of these estimates arise from the use of models with differing sensitivity to greenhouse gas concentrations.^[8]^[9]

Future climate change and associated impacts^[10] will vary from region to region around the globe.^[11] The effects of an increase in global temperature include a rise in sea levels and a change in the amount and pattern of precipitation, as well as a probable expansion of subtropical deserts.^[12] Warming is expected to be strongest in the Arctic, with the continuing retreat of glaciers, permafrost and sea ice. Other likely effects of the warming include more frequent extreme weather events including heat waves, droughts and heavy rainfall; ocean acidification; and species extinctions due to shifting temperature regimes. Effects significant to humans include the threat to food security from decreasing crop yields and the loss of habitat from inundation.^[13]^[14]

Proposed policy responses to global warming include mitigation by emissions reduction, adaptation to its effects, and possible future geoengineering. Most countries are parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),^[15] whose ultimate objective is to prevent dangerous anthropogenic (i.e., human-induced) climate change.^[16] Parties to the UNFCCC have adopted a range of policies designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions^[17]^:10^[18]^[19]^[20]^:9 and to assist in adaptation to global warming.^[17]^:13^[20]^:10^[21]^[22] Parties to the UNFCCC have agreed that deep cuts in emissions are required,^[23] and that future global warming should be limited to below 2.0 °C (3.6 °F) relative to the pre-industrial level.^[23]^[B] Reports published in 2011 by the United Nations Environment Programme^[24] and the International Energy Agency^[25] suggest that efforts as of the early 21st century to reduce emissions may be inadequate to meet the UNFCCC's 2 °C target.

Top 10 Ways: How We Pollute Earth

Industries: The on start of industrial revolution was just the starting of atmospheric pollution. With the latest technologies, the life of the people is becoming easy, but is proving to be increasingly fatal to life on earth.
Automobiles: Another invention of the industrial revolution, this is one of the greatest reasons of pollution in the history of earth. The emission of harmful gases like carbon-di-oxide, nitrous oxide and sulphur compounds along with small polluting compounds and the poisonous Carbon monoxide has created a blanket of pollution over the first layer of atmosphere – Troposphere.
Population: The population explosion in countries is continuously pressurizing the resources of earth. Many of these resources are non renewable, which means that they cannot be replenished in a short span of time. Once they are completely exhausted, there is no way that they can be reproduced without waiting for some 1000 years. These resources include land, water (fresh drinking water), food and air.
Paper: The amount of paper produced every minute, every hour, every day, and every year is unexplainable. Newspapers, books, magazines, office paper and god only knows how much more paper for all the people on earth. Then how much time one can take to think that how many plants are being cut brutally for all this paper. Cutting down of the forests and the receding forest cover is misbalancing major forces on earth.
Garbage: The amount of waste produced by us as we consume the resources of earth likewise gorging on the feast is creating a continuous big heap which cannot be dumped anywhere! If we plan to dump it one on anther, it will be enough to make a path till moon! Recycle anyone?
Plastic: This one is the notorious of them all. Another invention of the industrial revolution, this non bio-degradable (cannot be decomposed by natural processes) compound was sought to be the best of all time inventions in the quest of mankind for eternity. But this menace has now taken over the world and is bounding to leave its mark on earth for the next thousands of years.
Smoking is not only injurious to the health of a human being but is also very harmful to the air in atmosphere. Smoke from cigarettes, cigars and other drugs poison the air. This in turn harms the flora and fauna of the surrounding region.
Science and technology: The new developments that are a breakthrough for scientists are creating more and more pollution in many direct and indirect ways. Like rocket propulsion is landing us on moon but it is leaving thousand liters of poisonous gases in the air.
The constant mining of earth’s crust for minerals, metals and other raw materials is slowly flailing its layers and the different topographic plates are becoming more and more mobile. In other words, earth’s crust is losing its strength. This is fatal. It’s a matter of life and death.
The hunting of animals at a rate more than the rate they are recuperate their population is creating an abridged gap between the different food chains and its components. The complete extinction of one animal or organism from the food chain is throwing the earth off its natural routine and causing it to alter its courses. These altered courses in turn are causing problems in other natural processes and hence in the end we are just at receiving end of the coming disaster.

We need to prick our conscience and immediately check our ways. It’s very difficult to alter the ways we live in now – comfy and easy. But these comfortable and easy ways are going to leave us nowhere if we don’t act now. These ways have their positives and negatives and the damages caused have reached a level beyond recovery. But no matter when we start acting, some way or the other it’s going to work and we’ll be able to turn the luck our way.