Sandy+Hanna

 Sandy Hanna CCT205 Michael Jones and Gail Benick February 5th, 2009 __** The increase in the average temperature of the earth’s surface known as Global Warming, has led to some serious dangers facing the environment. The “heating up” of the earth caused the sea level to rise affecting the crop and climate fluctuations. The increased emission of carbon dioxide gas by humans has also added to the disturbance of nature. This was followed by the accumulation of the excess carbon dioxide in the air creating further heating and warming of the earth ( Yahoo! GeoCities, 2009 ). Debates about the global warming effects on the earth have been expressed and emphasized in the past few years. Studies have also been carried out to measure the earth’s temperature and the rise of damages created by it. The history of environmental fluctuation and damages goes back to the industrial revolution when pollution was initiated. The 1960s was the year in which environmental movements first emerged (Cooper, Timothy). In the 1970s Roderick Nash a graduate of the University of Wisconsin introduced the term “environmental history”. Followed by many other scientists their aim was to address consciousness towards global warming. The Kyoto Protocol introduced in February 16, 2005, “is the first, and only, binding international agreement that sets targets to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.” (David Suzuki Foundation website). Today, awareness to such environmental hazards and damages has been intensified. Conscious driven environmental movements have been raised to save the earth and preserve natural resources. The Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy office is an example in the United States. It works on energy quality, productivity, sustainability, and security ( Office of EERE: Mission ). Governmental, political and scientific leaders have also done a lot in awareness campaigns. Vice President, Albert Gore for example recently said that "Global warming will be the greatest environmental challenge in the 21st century." ( Yahoo! GeoCities, 2009 ). The 1990 David Suzuki Foundation similarly stressed on environmental awareness and offered solutions to live in balance with our surrounding nature. Alongside the efforts done to promote awareness and taking action offices, there are challenges that face environment improvement and step taking. Some of these challenges are anti-environmentalism. Anti-environmentalism is the effect of the environmentalist movements. They attack environmentalists and work on redirecting the public against them. Another is the environmental skepticism which denied the seriousness of environmental issues. It worked by pivoting the public against environmentalists and significant environment problems. Lastly the refusal to pay a carbon tax by residents delayed the environmental activist and its effects. The history of global warming and the environmental issues raised the attention of many scholars and scientists. The issue was addressed more openly over the years and awareness organizations were eventually established. There are five major international organizations that exist today to help in the awareness and establishment of a better neutral life. The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) is an organization that addressed environmental issues and supports environmental law enforcement. This organization was established by Canada, Mexico, and the United States (http://www.cec.org/home/index.cfm?varlan=english). European Environment Agency  (EEA) is the second international organization that protected and monitored the European environment. This organization was functional in 1994 (http://www.eea.europa.eu/). Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) organization was established in 1988 and was responsible for measuring the climate changes caused by human action (http://www.ipcc.ch/).United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is an organization that supports developing countries to implement environmental policies. It worked as an informative medium for developing countries to learn and understand environmental problems and how to face them. The last major international organization is the Earth System Governance Project which was established in October 2008 (http://www.unep.org/). It helped people understand and adapt to environmental changes. It also aided in implementing and practicing the right laws and rules to save the environment. Such major organizations create the history of the environmentalism. They sustained the existence and evolution of the idea and supported solutions to it.  Along such defining organizations, there are a handful of famous leaders who supported and encouraged the environmental movement. Charles, Prince of Wales is one of them. He was interested in environmental issues and worked on promoting it. He first introduced organic farming in 1986 (Mayer, TIME). He also directed attention to global warming as early as 1990 and addressed his concern about the environment. Al Gore the former vice president of the United States was another key leader in the world of environmentalism. In 1992, Al Gore wrote the famous book ** Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit. This book encourages efforts to protect the environment and at the same time strengthen the economy (http://www.algore.com/). Al Gore launched a few projects in favor of climate and earth protection as means to support his ideas. David Suzuki is another environmental activist. He established a foundation which taught people about the harmful effects of global warming. It also offered easy solutions and simple tips to living a greener life. It encouraged the establishment of a healthier greener environment for other generations. The foundation offered links to “Solving Global Warming”, “Protecting Human Health”, “Conserving Our Oceans”, “Promoting Global Conservation”, “Building A Sustainable Economy”, and a lot of other ways of better living. There are lot more significant leaders to mention but there are other means of encouragement that we experience in our daily lives that affect us. For example, the University of Toronto in Mississauga introduced an “Alternative Transportation” system that supports and encourages going green (http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/index.php?id=1538). It created a Bike Share program for students. By this a student can borrow a bike or share one with another student as means of non pollutant transportation. Also the university created the U-Pass. This pass would enable all University of Toronto in Mississauga students to ride the Mississauga transit bus for free. This is along the shuttle buses that the university provides for easy shared transportation between its campuses. The carpool lanes and the carpool parking spots are another every-day encounter with environment saving and reducing fuel and carbon dioxide emissions. These projects encourage people to carpool and reduce pollution. The introduction of hybrid cars is a similar means of encouragement to students and energy savers. Similar everyday organization is the “Do What You Can” (http://www.dowhatyoucan.ca/). This organization introduced the **Municipal Hazardous or Special Waste” (MHSW) Program which reuses and recycles household hazardous wastes and special waste in order to save the environment. It saves the environment by removing them from landfills, waterways, and incinerators and reusing them. All such environmentally driven leaders and projects encourage recycling, carpooling, saving energy, reducing carbon emissions, and a lot of other environmental friendly actions. These actions eventually help and restore our environment and reduce the potential risk from global warming.  The challenges that face environmental organizations, leaders and projects are not to be neglected. The environmental skepticism is one of them. That is the questioning of serious environmental problems and the importance of environment protection policies. It also related environmental protection as threatening to western progress (Jacques and Riley, 2008). Such acts challenge the awareness process and lessen the trust that people built for environmental organizations. It created questioning of the facts and confusion which eventually leads people to neglect the environmental issues. The anti environmentalism movements are oppositional movements to environmentalism that follow the same technique. They question the reliability and importance of environmental problems. This caused for the drawback of unsure individuals and confused ones. It also eliminated the effectiveness of some powerful leaders and organizations that are aiming for a better life. A third challenge to the environmentalist act is the creation and settlement of a carbon tax and other environmental supporting techniques. These techniques have mostly been refused by individuals because they require a payment by everyone and not everyone has the intention to support and understand the environmental problems and risks. Those were just to mention a few noticeable challenges facing the environment. Therefore, in response to the challenges, communities should work on inventing new and improved awareness techniques. They would aim at explaining the harmful effects of global warming and other disasters and rather reflecting the attention towards the conservation of natural resources. Such campaigns would ease solutions to the lazy public and target uninterested parties. In the end awareness would be communicated and actions would be more realistically taken by individuals.  To conclude, the history and evolution of the environmental movement and activism was significantly rapid in the past few years. The rise and encouragement of famous leaders and everyday organizations has also added to the evolution of awareness campaigns and energy saving techniques. This has redirected the attention of most of the target individuals to energy saving, recycling, reducing carbon emissions, carpooling, etc. On the other hand, uninterested individuals created the oppositional anti-environmental organizations and environmental skepticism. They refused to understand and relate to environmental risks and therefore refused participate in saving the environment. Accordingly, in order to save the environment and induce the quality of life, individuals should focus on increasing awareness campaigns and drawing people’s attention to the ongoing human destructing of the environment.  <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> **__<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Bibliography: __** <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol;"> ·  __<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN;">-- United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) - Home page -- __<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN;">. 04 Feb. 2009 <http://www.unep.org/>. <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol;"> ·  <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"About." __AlGore.com__. 05 Feb. 2009 <http://www.algore.com/about.html>. <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol;"> ·  <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN;">"About EEA — EEA." __European Environment Agency's home page — EEA__. 04 Feb. 2009 <http://www.eea.europa.eu/about-us/>. <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol;"> ·  <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Cooper, Timothy. 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