A CHANGE OF CLIMATE

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Milankovitch cycles – As Earth travels around the sun, its path and the tilt of its axis can change slightly. These changes, called Milankovitch cycles, affect the amount of sunlight that falls on Earth. This can cause the temperature of Earth to change. However, these cycles take place over tens or hundreds of thousands of years and are unlikely to be causing the changes to the climate that we are seeing today. After returning to England, "He made a discovery, common to those who expatriate themselves and then return: that when he and Anna went abroad they had ceased to be regarded as real people. Out of sight, out of mind. Nobody wanted to hear anything about Africa." 252 Good and Evil are juxtaposed all the time and Mantel is not afraid of being politically incorrect. She covers some interesting ground - how much damage is done in the name of doing good - what happens when well meaning people go where they are not wanted - the resentful behaviour and savagery of the oppressed in South Africa during the apartheid regime - the long term damage of repressed emotions. Natural climate cycles can change the temperature of Earth, but the changes we are seeing are happening at a scale and speed that natural cycles cannot explain. These cycles affect the global temperature for years, or sometimes just months, not the 100 years that we have observed. Meanwhile, longer-term changes like Milankovitch cycles and solar irradiance take thousands and thousands of years.

Climate scientists have showed that humans are responsible for virtually all global heating over the last 200 years. Human activities like the ones mentioned above are causing greenhouse gases that are warming the world faster than at any time in at least the last two thousand years. Generating electricity and heat by burning fossil fuels causes a large chunk of global emissions. Most electricity is still generated by burning coal, oil, or gas, which produces carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide – powerful greenhouse gases that blanket the Earth and trap the sun’s heat. Globally, a bit more than a quarter of electricity comes from wind, solar and other renewable sources which, as opposed to fossil fuels, emit little to no greenhouse gases or pollutants into the air. Rebecca Radner in San Francisco Chronicle writing "While the suspense builds as we wait to find out what happened in Africa, the book offers an extremely complex inquiry into the nature of good and evil", [6] When short-waveradiation from the sun reaches Earth, most of it passes straight through and hits the surface. The Earth absorbs most of this radiation and gives off longer-wavelength infrared radiation.This graph shows the average global temperature for each month, from 1850 to 2017. The temperature increases as you move away from the centre of the circle.

When looking at all the evidence, there is a large scientific consensus that humans are the leading cause of climate change. In their latest report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated unequivocallythat human activity is the cause of global warming. Cutting down forests to create farms or pastures, or for other reasons, causes emissions, since trees, when they are cut, release the carbon they have been storing. Each year approximately 12 million hectares of forest are destroyed. Since forests absorb carbon dioxide, destroying them also limits nature’s ability to keep emissions out of the atmosphere. Deforestation, together with agriculture and other land use changes, is responsible for roughly a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions. Let's look at heatwaves, for example. We expect most regions will experience more intense heatwaves. In countries that are already hot, the human heat stress limits will be exceeded more often, which is dangerous.Cement – Producing cement is another contributor to climate change, causing 2% of our entire carbon dioxide emissions. They live in England but later move to Africa as missionaries, not as religious one but for doing some good work only. I read this book partly due my love of Hilary Mantel (based around her simply outstanding Wolf Hall/Bring Up the Bodies/The Mirror and The Light trilogy of novels and equally outstanding plays but also due to its setting in Norfolk. So many issues raised in this story in which a strong belief in work or religion or any dogma can obscure personal relationship or, over time, bury it. Work/career does that for so many moderns. The greenhouse effect is critical to our survival. In fact, without greenhouse gases, Earth would be about 30 degrees colder than it is today. Without greenhouse gases and their warming effect, we wouldn't be able to survive.