LARRYR. Loc: Saint Martinville, La.

Boy it's sure is hot out side today and my mind goes
back to my younger child hood days when my friends
and I use to be able to go out into the woods and play
underneatthe trees. Now I look around and all the trees
are all gone and all I see now is black tops and paved
roads going to either a high rise building or apartment
building, not to mention parking lots and super markets.
In this time and age all this talk about pollution control
I wounder if any one have really took around their living
area and seen the amount of man may high ways and
high rise building that are around us, instead of the trees
that were there before. To me ,I may be wrong,but if I
were a betting man, I'd be willing to bet that a black top
or a paved high way will put out a heck of a lot more
heat then a tree would have, shuck all you have to do
is place your hand on the side walk in front your house
and then touch your lown.Doesn't make sense what the
big deal about green house affect is about, to me all
we have to do is quit building all these high rise building and
all these bridges going to now where and then we'd solved
our problem.

Frank T Loc: New York, NY

If it were only that simple.

LARRYR. Loc: Saint Martinville, La.

All I'm saying Frank T is lets go green. Where I work at
we have aprox. 60 acreas of land, when I started we had
almost half of it was wooded area and it was cool, now
we have less then an acrea with dried up grass and the
rest with limestone covering up the ground. Believe me
once the sun comes out and your working a 10 hr. day
7 days a week, you start wishing for a shady spot to sit
under.Kill the trees, kill the grass and all you have left
is globel warming.Unless you work all day in a A.C. building
which could be turned off in order to help the envoriment

Frank T Loc: New York, NY

Believe me Larry, I know what you mean. I've worked in New York City for more than forty years and if you want to feel hot try Manhattan in August. The concrete and masonry heat up all day and then radiate all night. You can actually feel the temperature drop as you go over the Brooklyn Bridge and Brooklyn ain't the woods either.
I'm just saying how do you stop this development and man's hunger to expand? We need to look at alternatives like planting lawns on our roofs and requiring that construction projects include green space. In the end I agree we need to go green if we're going to have future generations survive.

singleviking Loc: Lake Sebu Eco Park, Philippines

Larry,
Where is all that electricity coming from? Did you see the air pollution problems they had in China during the recent olympics events? As the world becomes more moderneized, mankind relies more and more on electric power, but most of this power is generated through coal fired power plants that spue tons of CO2 and sulfers into the atmosphere. I agree with you that GREEN SPACE is at a premium of late and many cities and communities are attempting to solve this pollution problem by use of innovative mass transit systems and green space development in conjunction with modernization and urban development planning. Have you installed solar panels for 100% of your electrical use yet? Where is all this electricity coming from to power these all electric vehicles? Just something for you to think about.
I have advocated keeping rain forests virgin and free from contaminants and exploitation at all cost. There are only a few really true virgin ECO areas left in the world and we should make every effort to maintain them.

LARRYR. Loc: Saint Martinville, La.

It's nice to be concerned about the rain forests, but the last time I check, I couldn't find any here in the U.S.
every thing is being used for pavements and high rise
building, parking lots, ect. No I don't have solar panels, just like the electric cars, their for to expensive to afford.

PNagy Loc: Missouri City, Texas

Don Rent: The effect of rocks is a bit more complex than you have observed. When bombarded by the Sun they heat up faster, but at night, and when air temperatures are very cold, they cool far more rapidly and thoroughly. Their net effect, therefore, on average temperatures is probably close to zero.

On the other hand, greenhouse gases cause proven over-all temperature increases. The results are very dramatic and easily ascertainable through even cursory internet research. At high noon at the equator of Mercury the temperature is at least 50 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than Venus, which is some 23 million miles farther away from the Sun.

The cause of this is a very heavy atmosphere loaded with greenhouse gases, of which carbon dioxide is one. The general estimate is that the atmosphere of Venus adds over 400 degrees fahrenheit to its temperature.

The Earth itself was once so hot that any human who set foot on it would have been cooked like hamburger. Reason? Most of the oxygen was trapped in the compound, carbon dioxide. The evolution of plants began to release free oxygen, which is not a greenhouse gas, allowing global temperatures to plummet enough to sustain the current flora and fauna.

The process can and is reversed by the re-combination of oxygen with carbon to form carbon dioxide. This is what happens in most fires. The carbon dioxide released by animals as waste material was balanced by the oxygen freed by plants from the compound. Burning fossil fuels, on the other hand, throws the balance off. It leaves the planet with a net gain of carbon dioxide, which raise temperatures not temporarily like the sidewalks you observed, but semi-permanently, that is, until a reverse process inaugurates a period of relative oxygen gain.

The planet itself does not care about its surface temperatures, but the plants and animals that live on it are adversely affected by global warming. Nearly all of it is caused by human activity that releases billions of tons of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels.

EdJ0307 Loc: out west someplace

When I was a kid in the '50s growing up in Sacramento, CA, I could go a quarter-mile from my house and stand on a bluff, look south towards the American River and see acres and acres of hop fields. When you stand at that same spot today all you see is the roofs of acres and acres of houses.

PNagy Loc: Missouri City, Texas

Your comment raises an important point about global warming: the greater the population, the greater its creation of waste. Carbon dioxide is the waste product not only of all animals, such as us, but the burning of fossil fuels.

LARRYR. Loc: Saint Martinville, La.

Some what puzzed by " animals, such as us " oh I get it.

PNagy Loc: Missouri City, Texas

Living things are either animals or plants. Which are we?

madcapmagishion

Wrong Wrong Wrong!!!
Living things are classified into 5 kingdoms - animalia, plantae, fungi, protista, and monera.
Bacteria which are definitley alive, belong to the kingdom monera.

LARRYR. Loc: Saint Martinville, La.

The last time I check,I'm am human being, no relation to
any animal on either side of my family. SORRY

PNagy Loc: Missouri City, Texas

That is nonsense. You have the same internal organs, skeletal structure, basic body chemistry. Moreover, you are not only an animal, you a mammal and a primate. We are not a special creation, but a part of the rest.

singleviking Loc: Lake Sebu Eco Park, Philippines

I have my doubts at times which classification some of the respondents are in though. Maybe in the mineral category there are closer fits.