Ramblings about environmental sustainability

At the moment some of the hottest buzzwords that we often hear are: global warming, carbon footprint and carbon emissions.
In simple terms that means, if we humans don't reduce our emission of Carbon Dioxide or CO2 (a greenhouse gas), the planet will heat up resulting in the meltdown of polar ice caps.
That will in turn introduce the raise of see levels, eating up the coastlines around the world.

Most climate change predictions are expecting a worldwide / global temperature rise in line with this graph:

Estimateted global temperature rise.

However it is already noticeable that the climate change in fact may have different manifestation in various parts of the world. Curiously enough the area of North Atlantic is the only part of the World where considerably colder winters are predicted in the forthcoming decades.

North Atlantic Oscillation got a bit stuck.

The climate scientists now came up with a more precise explanation and coined a term called North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) that effectively behaves like a giant see-saw in weather systems in the North Atlantic. In fact it appears that the ongoing climate change is upsetting the NAO's normaly more balanced swings.

Unfortunately it may become increasingly difficult to live a sustainable lifestyle in future, and indeed some of world's inhabited areas is expected to become unliveable altogether, scientist warns.

By definition:
"Environmental sustainability is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but in the indefinite future"

So we should be really going green or otherwise our world will shrink around us.
We can do that by reducing our carbon emissions that in other words means, emitting less Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere.
Hence the expression carbon footprint means: The amount of Carbon Dioxide produced (per family, per year).

There was a talk about Transition Towns in High Wycombe Society on Friday 6th July 2012. Although the talk's title sounds localised the corresponding article expresses a truly global viewpoint, even though the assumptions are based on the now outdated Global Warming model and not the newer North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) model.

The History of High Wycombe 2000 to 2100.