Response to Recent Article about Greenhouse Effect (15pts)

The earth is not too cold, not too hot, but just. Nevertheless, this is a delicate balance. Now we know that gases produced by smokestack industries, the internal combustion engine, and the like could dramatically warm the air, because those gases contain co2 (carbon dioxide) and methane. When the sun emits its UV radiation towards the earth, many encounters occur such as

• co2 and methane trap heat by absorbing the sun's rays
• transparent air let most sunlight through, but 30% is bounced back by atmosphere, earth's surface, clouds, and particles of the air
• bright snow reflects sunlight back into space
• ocean and land mostly absorb

Greenhouse gases grab thermal radiation, echo some of it back down to the warm ground, and ultimately, the heat gets trapped. Thick clouds reflect the sunlight back into space, but thin clouds trap the sunlight just like greenhouse gases.

If we don't do anything about our constantly emitted greenhouse gases, we could and up like Venus, a greenhouse disaster.

I think that if we don't stop this disaster in the making, I don't even want to think about the suicides that would take place, the deaths of plants that wouldn't be able to stand the weather, and ultimately, the end.

http://www.livescience.com/common/media/video/player.php?videoRef=GoldilocksGreen