We don't own this earth it owns us! What are we doing? How can we be so lazy?

Global warming is a serious problem affecting our modern society, some choose to ignore it and others make a difference, which are you? Some natural factors have affected global warming it is not just humans! (Although we are at least major catalysts):

• The change in land masses and the constant moving of these land masses affects ocean currents and wind which in turn affects climate in different areas around the world.
• The tilt of the Earth is another factor, although widely thought the Earth's tilt is unchanging it is said that the angle of the tilt changes by little more than half a degree each century, this change is called precession. In the time of the Egyptians when the pyramids were built (around 2500BC) the pole was near the star Alpha Draconis rather than Polaris (the Pole Star). Precession affects seasons and climate, more tilt means colder winters and warmer summers, less tilt means milder winters and cooler summers.
• The vast stretches of open water that cover 71% of the earths surface also have an effect on the climate. Ocean phenomenon such as the Pacific Ocean's El Niño, which is a change in the temperature of surface water in the tropical Eastern Pacific, can affect climate and weather worldwide for a period of time afterwards.

We as humans are separating ourselves from nature by disrupting the harmony and destroying the beauty. We have developed several technological ways of polluting and harming the enviroment some of the most effective are as follows:

• Through our growing numbers, demand and greed we are taking more and more from the enviroment and putting less back. Humans have been affecting the build up of green house gases such as carbon dioxide since we began, cutting down trees reducing the amount of plant-life breathing in the carbon dioxide. Since the end of the 19th century (the industrial revolution) we have been increasing the amount of CO2 in the air through the invention of the motor engine and increase in burning of fossil fuels, on top of that cutting down frightening numbers of trees, this is now having an effect are we too greedy to care?
• Methane levels have over doubled since the industrial revolution, this is caused by livestock and Paddy feilds.
• We are also affecting something underground we cannot see happening, this is called permafrost. Permafrost is a solid structure extending as far down as 2,000 feet in some areas, it is made from frozen soil filled with roots, sticks, plants many of these said to date back as much as 30,000 years. Permafrost holds about 14% of the worlds carbon and if this starts to melt the carbon will be released but also the ground will become soft causing havoc to anything built above these areas found in Alaska, Canada, Siberia and Scandanavia.

TO BE CONTINUED

International Peace Conference

December 10th 2005, 10am-8pm

Royal Horticultural Hall , London , SW1P 2PE

Delegates from Iraq, USA and Uk will join at this conference to renew their bonds of solidarity and express their joint opposition to the war

To be part of this peave conference you must book your position, visit www.stopwar.org.uk!!!

Postmodernism

For the past 20 years sociologists have been identifying the developments and trends which, they claim, show that modernity is fragmenting or dissolving. They argue that it is being replaced by a postmodern society in which sociological concepts are becoming irrelevant. The two main characteristics of postmodernity:

Work We no longer find ourselves in a society working side by side with others on strict and long hours. This post modernism is a society in which we have flexible working hours to suit our lifestyles. Some of us even chose not to work or even work from home.

Culture The media has a huge influence on our society today. Advertising, film, fashion and music have become central to how we organise our lives. Most of us are media saturated. We are able to change out lifestyles down to our appearance in postmodernism. Ethnicity has become a blur and it is hard to identify individuals due to fashion and traditions which have been shared among us.