A Quick History Lesson

The world has been around for many years and humans started out very uncivilised. However over time we began to form tribes and develop technology. By the time the Romans arrived in Britain there had been great advances in the technology that was used. Although the Roman roads were used by soldiers, pedestrians, chariots and horses and not motor cars this was probably were humans first began to alter the greenhouse cycle.

This picture shows a farm in rural Britain much later in our development. Maybe somewhere around the 1690 AD. By now a small effect was being exerted by humans on the greenhouse cycle. The source of the pollution was from intensive farming. The invention of ploughs and new farming techniques allowed larger farms to be developed. This increased the rate of deforestation in Britain in order to provided space for the rapidly increasing demand for agricultural land. This had an effect on global warming (greenhouse effect) because trees act as a carbon sink (they absorb carbon dioxide gas). Around 90% of England’s forests have been lost to deforestation. Matters were made worse by the fact that animals were farmed in larger numbers. Although this may seem an almost funny point, such large numbers of cattle can cause a large release of methane and carbon dioxide gases. Cows and sheep pass wind very frequently as a result of a continuous diet of grass, which very hard to digest.

Then things got worse. The industrial revolution occurred in Britain. Not only were large machine invented but now they could be run on steam. Unfortunately the steam was produced using coal and due to a lack of knowledge of pollution vast amounts of dirty steam were pumped out into the atmosphere. Although this still was not to bad because the emissions were at a low level and so the effect was not too bad. This paid off in an unlikely and disturbing way. The result of the low level pollution was a vast smog which engulfed the big industrial cities such as London and Birmingham. This a had dire consequences as large numbers of people dropped dead. But even from this tragedy some good was brought forth. Scientists realised that very was a link between the smog and people dying. This was the fuse which has led to research into pollutions and which we now hope can help us undo the damage.

However the story is still not over, countries, even today, are undergoing industrial reform and causing global pollution of medieval proportions. But it is the developed countries that cause the greatest threat to the global environment, such as the USA (who will not even try to undo the damage), the UK, Germany etc. They developed the combustion engine which runs on petrol and other products of oil. These produce many harmful gases and the large amount of cars etc that use it has led to large quantities being produced. Aeroplanes are also large contributors to the global warming problem as they fly into the atmosphere and release the gases where they can do the most damage, the atmosphere.

But even so, what is the greenhouse effect? Lets take a look and see . . . Click here to continue!