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The smoke of factories, cars, planes and ships are destroying the earth

Mansoor

Sempai
4 Mar 2016
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We should be alerted because of industries that are destroying the earth. The smokes of factories, cars, planes, and ships are polluting the atmosphere and the wastewaters of some industries are polluting the seas. In addition to these, millions tons of plastic things that people discard in nature is a similar problem.

Come to hold the hands of each other ( of course I don't mean women) and protest to the industries that pollute the world and expose our life and health in danger.

I am sorry for the condition that instead of technology help us to have a better life, it stains the beautiful green environment of the world. The world becomes warm and warmer year after year and I am worried the condition gets worse in the future. As the global warmth progresses due to the smoke of factories and vehicles the ices of the N and S polar are melted and it is not unexpected which some of the populous cities and areas close to the seas are drowned because of rising seawater.

So I believe, we people either stop industries' pollution or wait for the day that some part of countries sank in the water! We also should wait for the day that the earth becomes gloomy due to the abundance of smoke in the atmosphere or become hotter unbearably.

The industry is giving us a smartphone, new car, cruise ship, and more comfortable airplane but on the other hand, it is damaging the atmosphere and green nature.
 
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Come to hold the hands of each other ( of course I don't mean women) and protest to the industries that pollute the world and expose our life and health in danger.
Why would you exclude women? In many cases, women are leading the fight against pollution and climate change. Being afraid to physically touch a woman shouldn't preclude you from considering them valuable partners in the fight to save our planet.

I think a big factor in the rampant pollution we're seeing is a result of deregulation and corruption; industries lobby our governments to get permission to do whatever they want to maximize profits and minimize overhead, and avoid meaningful punishment when they violate whatever laws are left. A responsible manufacturer of any good would consider its entire carbon footprint and waste throughout the product lifecycle, and seek to minimize impacts on the environment, ensuring that the materials used could be collected and recycled into something new and useful. There are precious few examples of this, but you can look up "cradle to grave" and "cradle to cradle" design methods.

In my opinion, it's the pursuit of limitless wealth and the lack of guardrails that have permitted psychopathic companies to rape and destroy our planet, and we need to rethink the purpose and value of industry and our economic incentives if we want to do anything more than simply clean up the mess they leave behind.
 
Hi nice gaijin

My expression in the bracket was a humor and I think it was an improper humor that could be interpreted to humiliation of women, while the role of women in the revolutions and such the protestations is not less than men.

Here my purpose is not to condemn a government or police system rather I want to show the braveness of women, when they get anger at injustice and stand up against force. this is an exemplary instance:


baebedd8c6ec45e4091f864e9ce0e58b_898y.jpg
 
It's interesting that you choose an example far removed from yourself, culture and country. Why not pick an example closer to home?

1623704715625.png
 
OK, that joke didn't land, nor was it clear that you were joking. At this point, we should probably return to the subject of the thread or it will become about something totally off-topic.
 
Hi mdchachi

What about you?! you did the same that I did LOL

you exampled a picture of an opposition group ( a minority group) from a society that you are far from?
 
OK, that joke didn't land, nor was it clear that you were joking. At this point, we should probably return to the subject of the thread or it will become about something totally off-topic.
You are right, we must go back to the subject of the industries pollution on the earth :)
 
I even believe smoking cigarette can cause the pollution of atmosphere of the earth (sadly I myself smoke)!

Have you estimated how many cigarette are smoked in the world day and night?! If we collect all these smokes in one place it will become as large as the dust and smoke of a volcano that is erupting nonstop day and night.
 
Hi mdchachi

What about you?! you did the same that I did LOL

you exampled a picture of an opposition group ( a minority group) from a society that you are far from?
All I did was Google something like brave women Iran. I'm sure there must be many brave Iranian women who fought against gender discrimination and oppression in Iran.
 
Women are respectful in Iran. I hope you can travel to Iran to be a witness to my declaration. Some Iranian women are educating in universities, some work in the offices, some are a doctor and medical employees, some are engineers, some are writer, some are an artist and so on. I even saw a few Iranian women are captains of the large airplanes and a few are the drivers of large trucks and buses!

The citizenship and human rights of women are equal to men in Iran unless some matters that go back to the sex of women as a little limitation for the safety of women themselves and also society.

Women don't need to wear a veil as compulsory clothing but they should choose clothing that is worthy for a woman. It doesn't matter what type or color clothing they choose but covering the hair and sensitive parts of the body of a woman is recommended
 
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I even believe smoking cigarette can cause the pollution of atmosphere of the earth (sadly I myself smoke)!

Have you estimated how many cigarette are smoked in the world day and night?! If we collect all these smokes in one place it will become as large as the dust and smoke of a volcano that is erupting nonstop day and night.
We can generalize that smoke particles of all kinds are not very good, but I would place second hand cigarette smoke pretty low on my priorities list of air pollutants globally. We'd have to do some math to figure out the actual volume of particulate released by cigarettes to find a reasonable analogy. However, smoking is definitely bad for you and the people immediately around you, so I would recommend quitting if you care at all about your own (and your family's) long-term health. There's a reason they say that bad air quality is "like smoking X cigarettes per day," imagine adding onto that by deciding to smoke as well on top of it.

As far as personal choices go, the biggest environmental impact you can probably have is through your dietary choices, especially in regards to water usage. But "personal choices" of all kinds have been used as a smokescreen by industries who do a majority of the polluting, to distract from their own responsibility for our planet's worsening condition.
 
Why would you exclude women? In many cases, women are leading the fight against pollution and climate change. Being afraid to physically touch a woman shouldn't preclude you from considering them valuable partners in the fight to save our planet.

I think a big factor in the rampant pollution we're seeing is a result of deregulation and corruption; industries lobby our governments to get permission to do whatever they want to maximize profits and minimize overhead, and avoid meaningful punishment when they violate whatever laws are left. A responsible manufacturer of any good would consider its entire carbon footprint and waste throughout the product lifecycle, and seek to minimize impacts on the environment, ensuring that the materials used could be collected and recycled into something new and useful. There are precious few examples of this, but you can look up "cradle to grave" and "cradle to cradle" design methods.

In my opinion, it's the pursuit of limitless wealth and the lack of guardrails that have permitted psychopathic companies to rape and destroy our planet, and we need to rethink the purpose and value of industry and our economic incentives if we want to do anything more than simply clean up the mess they leave behind.
Let's also add our complicity in this, either through our ignorance of the effects of our consumption (media who rely on advertisers and governments promising economic growth are not going to go out of their way to highlight the problems of consumption), our apathy (I know that eating meat and driving are bad for the planet, but **** it, I'm knackered, so I'll grab a burger from the drive-in MacDonalds), and to some extent our lack of choices (my share of the CO2 emitted by the plane I take to visit my family in the UK will be a couple of tons).
It's a messy, messy problem.
 
Let's also add our complicity in this, either through our ignorance of the effects of our consumption (media who rely on advertisers and governments promising economic growth are not going to go out of their way to highlight the problems of consumption), our apathy (I know that eating meat and driving are bad for the planet, but **** it, I'm knackered, so I'll grab a burger from the drive-in MacDonalds), and to some extent our lack of choices (my share of the CO2 emitted by the plane I take to visit my family in the UK will be a couple of tons).
It's a messy, messy problem.
yes, of course we make individual choices that add up to amount to our own carbon footprints, and that adds up to the overall footprint of individual consumers, which also can (to some degree) drive the choices business make. But without a greater movement of awareness and understanding of our role and power, we're mostly at the mercy of the systems around us, the options presented to us, and the whims of those who seek to profit as much as possible (often by cutting corners, improperly disposing of their waste, and bearing no responsibility for environmental impacts of their products from cradle to grave; lying and getting away with it).

Even recycling itself has been a massive red herring foisted upon people to confuse the populace into thinking they were actually responsible for the ruination of the planet; very little actually gets recycled but it's allowed the plastic industry to continue pumping virgin plastics into the environment. The collective choices of organized consumers, short of a nationwide boycott or massive class-action lawsuits pales in comparison to the effect these industries have. The fossil fuel industry, strip mining, fracking, industrialized food production, pesticides and herbicides all directly pollute the environment, not to mention the global logistics systems that bring us everything from out-of-season or heavily processed foods to cheaply-produced goods made halfway around the world. We don't often consider the materials in the products we consume, whence they come from or where they go after we dispose of them. Our product lifecycles are largely hidden behind a curtain, with smoke and mirrors to push an illusion of consumer choice, consumer power. Much like the political choices we're given to make, the differences are largely superficial.

I'm sure I've suggested this book here before, but I highly recommend checking out Corporate Crime and Violence. This book is out of print now but was eye-opening for me in my college years, to the kind of psychopathic behavior corporations exhibit in the pursuit of profit, and their near-complete lack of accountabilty. One example in this is how GM and US Steel "tore up the tracks," dismantling the public transportation system in the United States to sell more cars, which has forced Americans to burn way more oil than we otherwise might. Instead of choosing our method of commuting, Americans were given the choice between car brands, or what color Corvair or Pinto (also chapters in the book) they'd drive around.This book contains 36 different examples of some seriously insidious behavior, much of which has had devastating effects on the environment and people, such as the Bhopal gas leak, Minamata, Buffalo Creek, Love Canal, Agent Orange, PBB, and PCB. Others are about companies suppressing or falsifying records to attain approval for dangerous drugs like MER/29, Oraflex, Selacyn and Thalidomide.

Back to the subject of environmental poisoning, if you haven't seen it, one of the best episodes of the newer Cosmos series is the one about CC Patterson and how the fossil fuel industry was poisoning the entire planet with leaded gasoline, and tried to suppress the truth and continue to pump lead into the environment because it was profitable for them. I don't suppose I need mention the Exxon Valdez or Deep Water Horizon disasters, pipeline spills or ocean acidification that's caused entire ecosystems like coral reefs to collapse.



Found the full episode here:


In short, welcome to the anthropocene... it's not just the stuff we're putting in the air, human activity in general is the driving force behind the changes we're seeing in the environment, and it's only just the beginning. The earth itself will outlast us almost certainly, but we're going to take out a whole lot of other species with us when we go.
 
Let to find the greatest sources of smoke in the world and then classified them.

We know a part of the smoke and gases in the atmosphere are emitted naturally. Forest fires in different countries are among the natural sources of smoke. There is not any documentary research that what percentage of the smokes in the atmosphere is relative to the natural events annually?

Then we go back to the industrial factories. What percentage of the factories produce more smoke in the world? How many of the factories observe the standards that limit emitting smoke in the atmosphere?

In the third stage, we should pay attention to the cars. Which types of cars produce more smoke than other cars? I'm sure trucks are worse than all. They use diesel fuel that is a hydrocarbon fuel with a high density. Gasoline is a light hydrocarbon with high flammability and produces less smoke but sadly probably the number of gasoline cars is more than trucks with diesel fuel in the world (of course I didn't mention millions of motorcycles that you must add them to the cars)


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Then we pay to the jet planes that use kerosene that is a fuel with a high density, as well and they produce a notable amount of smoke in the atmosphere directly.

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Ships are another source of the smoke. Thousands of large ships are moving in the seas and oceans day and night. They mostly use diesel fuel that is the worst fuel with a lot of smoke.


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An important part of the smoke and harmful gases are produced by people in the houses or nature by burning hydrocarbon, gas, and wood for warmth, cooking, and bathing.


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These all are the main sources of harmful smoke and gases that are emitted into the atmosphere that should be classified by some international organization and some documentary information is collected, in the first step. in the second step, some executable and serious decision should be made to reduce the amount of smoke and gases that are produced by the sources. If we ignore the great global problem and wait for the future to resolve it automatically I think we should wait for a black atmosphere of the earth in the future.
 
Let to find the greatest sources of smoke in the world and then classified them.

We know a part of the smoke and gases in the atmosphere are emitted naturally. Forest fires in different countries are among the natural sources of smoke. There is not any documentary research that what percentage of the smokes in the atmosphere is relative to the natural events annually?

Then we go back to the industrial factories. What percentage of the factories produce more smoke in the world? How many of the factories observe the standards that limit emitting smoke in the atmosphere?

In the third stage, we should pay attention to the cars. Which types of cars produce more smoke than other cars? I'm sure trucks are worse than all. They use diesel fuel that is a hydrocarbon fuel with a high density. Gasoline is a light hydrocarbon with high flammability and produces less smoke but sadly probably the number of gasoline cars is more than trucks with diesel fuel in the world (of course I didn't mention millions of motorcycles that you must add them to the cars)

Then we pay to the jet planes that use kerosene that is a fuel with a high density, as well and they produce a notable amount of smoke in the atmosphere directly.

Ships are another source of the smoke. Thousands of large ships are moving in the seas and oceans day and night. They mostly use diesel fuel that is the worst fuel with a lot of smoke.

An important part of the smoke and harmful gases are produced by people in the houses or nature by burning hydrocarbon, gas, and wood for warmth, cooking, and bathing.

These all are the main sources of harmful smoke and gases that are emitted into the atmosphere that should be classified by some international organization and some documentary information is collected, in the first step. in the second step, some executable and serious decision should be made to reduce the amount of smoke and gases that are produced by the sources. If we ignore the great global problem and wait for the future to resolve it automatically I think we should wait for a black atmosphere of the earth in the future.
Although visible smoke is harmful and contains other contaminants inhospitable to life, it's really just the visible tip of the iceberg, so to speak. On the individual level, we tend to think of driving as our main means of contributing to global emissions, but it's trumped by air transportation; an entire year of choosing not to drive a car can be offset with a single flight; people don't fly nearly as much as they drive, but each flight has a much larger footprint. However, it's not really fair to lump in consumer transportation with commercial logistics. Trucks used to transport goods are worse than consumer vehicles, but focusing on these is a bit like sitting on a pile of wigs and splitting hairs.

The main culprits of the greenhouse effect are Carbon Dioxide and Methane. CO2 is commonly released through the use of fossil fuels or other chemical processes (and can stay in the atmosphere for a much longer time), and methane is off-gassed from landfills, animal waste, or belched by cows (animal agriculture is the main source). It's also part of natural gases that are increasingly used for energy production. Methane leaves the atmosphere within a decade, but can trap up to 100x the heat of CO2, meaning it can have a much greater short-term effect on the environment. Another source of methane is from natural sources underground that are being released as the permafrost melts: man-made climate change will cause the release of natural greenhouse gases, creating a tipping point where climate change will accelerate and we can no longer reach the brakes. A prime example of a runaway greenhouse effect is the planet Venus, which is devoid of life as we know it.

One of the sources we might not expect is concrete, which alone accounts for something like 8% of total CO2 emissions between its production and transportation. There are efforts to offset this by using concrete as a carbon sink

global_emissions_gas_2015.png
global_emissions_sector_2015.png

source: EPA Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data Page

We affect things in other ways as well, like deforestation. The forests are one of earth's natural tools to capture and sequester atmospheric CO2, not to mention hosting its own ecosystem that gets destroyed when it's clearcut for wood harvesting or to make room for more agriculture (like what's happening in Brazil or the south pacific), replacing beneficial environments with unhealthy/deleterious ones. I have heard that calling the Amazon the "world's lungs" is a bit of an overreach, but it's still a precious resource that should be left alone; the lack of biodiversity can only make us poorer in the long-run.

The "natural" wildfires you mentioned can also be examples of human activity worsening the situation.
climatechange-and-bushfire-tile_V2.jpg

(source: climatecouncil.org.au)

I've even heard that human activity can be leading to increases in seismic activity, meaning even earthquakes and volcanic eruptions may be affected (although human emissions dwarf volcanic activity).

volcano-v-fossilfuels-1750-2013-lrg_0.png

(source: climate.gov)

Like I said, it's called the anthropocene because humans are now the driving force in shaping the environment. The trends do not bode well for us:
View attachment heatmap-noaa-new.jpg
(source: 140-year heat map shows clear trend in global temperature change | Infographic | Climate Council )

It's worth pointing out the various global actors responsible for their contribution to our growing crisis, but it's important not to turn this into a blame game, and frame it more as "we're all in this boat together, and if you burn, we all burn." One thing for sure, is that the people who contribute the least to this problem and who cannot afford to deal with it will be/are already feeling the effects of climate change first.

emissions-3-desktop.png

(source: 140-year heat map shows clear trend in global temperature change | Infographic | Climate Council )
 
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Sadly the global warming affects rain. Just now, Australia is engaging with hard drought and I saw a documentary movie that selling and buying water has become a new business in this land! Many Australian farmers have to buy an amount of water weekly for their farms and some opportunists are increasing their wealth through this unfair business! A person who was a small member of this business said: "I was a farmer previously but due to lack of water for my farm I had to leave farming and join the Mafia of water trade and now I have a good condition financially!

Some states of America are faced with drought as well (I think Colorado and Arizona are among the states). Some countries of Sought America are confronting drought too. Africa often has had such a condition but now the situation has gotten worse. This summer some provinces of Iran will have a crisis of water because of little rain in the past autumn and winter seasons. The officials warned the people of these provinces to use water thriftily. Some other countries are also experiencing drought more or less.

Another problem of pollution of the atmosphere is acid rain. The rain is combined with co2 and Co2H2 acid is produced. This type of harmful rain can affect the grounds, farms, historical buildings, color of cars, and metallic structures and damage them.

Even the large cattle of cows can pollute the atmosphere. The considerable gases that cows produce are mostly pure Co2 and especially Methane. I read somewhere a cowshed building was exploded and destroyed completely because of accumulation methane in the building.

Methane is one of the few harmful gases in the atmosphere and as it is told, a part of that is emitted in the atmosphere by cattle, though that is not comparable with the great amount of methane that industries produce
 
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Hi nice gaijin

My expression in the bracket was a humor and I think it was an improper humor that could be interpreted to humiliation of women, while the role of women in the revolutions and such the protestations is not less than men.

Here my purpose is not to condemn a government or police system rather I want to show the braveness of women, when they get anger at injustice and stand up against force. this is an exemplary instance:


View attachment 46672
Thank you for explaining. I was going to ask if it was part of the culture in Japan.LOL
 
Thank you for explaining. I was going to ask if it was part of the culture in Japan.LOL

Of course, aside from any nationality, this rule exists in Islam that a man is not allowed by God to touch or hold the bare hand of an unfamiliar woman, and vice versa.

A man just is allowed to touch the hand of an unfamiliar woman, or a woman is allowed to touch the hand of an unfamiliar man provided that one of them has covered her/his hand with something like a glove.

I think some rules similar to this had existed in Christianity and Judaism before Islam. As we see it is thousands of years that nuns in the church cover themselves with a complete Hijab, avoid unfamiliar men and some of them wear gloves. I even see the old queen of England always wear a glove and cover her hair with a hat out of her palace!

If we say, she didn't wear a glove based on a religious concept, it can be told, she did that for respect and love to her husband at least, in addition to the royal customs. She also always wore clothing with almost complete coverage.


queen_bzp5.jpg
 
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So we don't lose sight of the thread, i'll reiterate that the biggest environmental impact you can have as a consumer is through your dietary choices: some foods require far more water than others, and the agriculture industries that are responsible for a large chunk of those graphs above are also sucking up a lot of other precious resources.

General intro to the hidden resources in our dietary decisions:

Comparing the water usage of different foods:

Relative consumption of vegetables, meat and dairy in the US:

Veg:
09-90645885-heres-what-americans-ate-most-for-the-last-e1623358687105.jpg


Meat:
08-90645885-heres-what-americans-ate-most-for-the-last-e1623358709885.jpg


Dairy:
02-90645885-heres-what-americans-ate-most-for-the-last.jpg


source: Americans still eat way too much meat. This infographic proves it
 
Nice set of graphs, and it's heartening to see the recent drop in meat and dairy production.

Just once thing. You said "i'll reiterate that the biggest environmental impact you can have as a consumer is through your dietary choices". True, but the greatest environmental impact you can have as a human is through the number of kids you can have. I'm not saying that not having children is a good thing (I have two) or that there should be caps on the number of children that people can have, just that this decision will dwarf all other decisions you will make in your lifetime in terms of environmental impact.
 
Nice set of graphs, and it's heartening to see the recent drop in meat and dairy production.

Just once thing. You said "i'll reiterate that the biggest environmental impact you can have as a consumer is through your dietary choices". True, but the greatest environmental impact you can have as a human is through the number of kids you can have. I'm not saying that not having children is a good thing (I have two) or that there should be caps on the number of children that people can have, just that this decision will dwarf all other decisions you will make in your lifetime in terms of environmental impact.
Ah yes, this is true! Talk about a decision that compounds! haha

There's a lot to be said about procreating and population growth and the very concept of overpopulation itself; I have a tendency to look at the underside of things, so I've found that population control is a lot more complicated than just "there's too many people." A great talk I still remember was the late Hans Rosling's discussion of population growth, and how economic prosperity and the education of women actually slow population growth despite higher child survival rates, and that the human population will eventually max out.

Here are three Rosling videos on this subject, all are quite interesting and he has a great presentation style:









Now, I'm hearing that underpopulation and the slowing of population growth is potentially a greater threat to our societies. China is lifting its restrictions on family sizes. Japan and other developed countries are facing difficulties through the greying of their populations, and without the young workforce to replace the pensioners (and help pay for and physically take care of them), it'll be a hard pill for xenophobic countries that their only solution lies in increased immigration.

Granted, these problems are more issues for humanity than for the environment. Indeed, in the anthropocene, lessened human activity can be generally good for the environment.


The pandemic showed us some of these correlations, but it's been a mixed bag for environmental impact with the spike of single use plastics and all the discarded masks, and this has been more like a forced timeout rather than a conscious effort to do better for the planet; I worry about what happens when "normal" comes roaring back.

My neighbor who is reluctantly pregnant with her third--and she declares "final!"--child said something interesting: that there is no greater expression of hope than having a kid. I guess that explains why I don't have much interest in procreating, as I am not terribly hopeful for the future of humanity. Ultimately, the question is what kind of people will our children grow into; what kind of environmental footprint will they have through their lifestyles, and what quality will their education be, such that they can ensure that things will be better for their offspring and the future of the planet?
 
Thank you for the information, gaigin

Let me tell you a wonderful thing that scientists of the environment have not noticed yet!

Years ago I read a quote of one of the Imams (the real heavenly leaders of Islam, more than a thousand years ago). I don't remember the quote word by word but a part of the content that I remember is this:

"It rains the same amount of rain every year on the earth, not a drop less nor more, but sometimes it rains on the far deserts and oceans instead of a land that a people live in".

This quote can be proved scientifically:

The volume of the atmosphere that is saturated by water steam is fixed, so the amount of steam in the atmosphere is always at a fixed level. Nature works based on some accurate systems and the saturation of the atmosphere by water steam is one of the factors related to the accurate systems. But joining molecules of water in the atmosphere to form a piece of a cloud and then rains is dependent on the conditions of an area that it can be an ocean or land. Therefore the atmosphere is saturated by steam in a fixed amount always (not a drop less not more) but the rains happen in the different places of the earth.

when human is damaging the earth himself, the lands get more heat than the seas and this can be one of the causes of rejecting the rains.

Of course there is a supernatural cause in this case but I prefer not to express that in this topic.
 
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Thank you for the information, gaigin

Let me tell you a wonderful thing that scientists of the environment have not noticed yet!

Years ago I read a quote of one of the Imams (the real heavenly leaders of Islam, more than a thousand years ago). I don't remember the quote word by word but a part of the content that I remember is this:

"It rains the same amount of rain every year on the earth, not a drop less nor more, but sometimes it rains on the far deserts and oceans instead of a land that a people live in".

This quote can be proved scientifically:

The volume of the atmosphere that is saturated by water steam is fixed, so the amount of steam in the atmosphere is always at a fixed level. Nature works based on some accurate systems and the saturation of the atmosphere by water steam is one of the factors related to the accurate systems. But joining molecules of water in the atmosphere to form a piece of a cloud and then rains is dependent on the conditions of an area that it can be an ocean or land. Therefore the atmosphere is saturated by steam in a fixed amount always (not a drop less not more) but the rains happen in the different places of the earth.

when human is damaging the earth himself, the lands get more heat than the seas and this can be one of the causes of rejecting the rains.

Of course there is a supernatural cause in this case but I prefer not to express that in this topic.
Well, they are not far off the mark; the conservation of energy and matter dictates that energy and matter cannot be created or destroyed, so you could see weather as a redistribution of energy and matter. Assuming the amounts gained and lost to space are negligible, Earth's water systems are essentially a closed loop, and the planet is basically a large scale version of an ecosphere, like this one which is over 50 years old and has been sealed shut. The only external input it receives is sunlight, which the plants use for photosynthesis.

Smallest-oldest-surviving-ecosystem-in-the-world.jpg


It's said that every breath we inhale likely contains some particles that were breathed by Julius Caesar (there's even a book about this). This Quora thread actually works out some of the calculations to show the plausibility of this, given the huge number of molecules in each breath we take, and the fact that it takes a couple thousand years for the atmosphere to mix evenly. In a simplified sense, the CO2 in our breaths is absorbed by plants, and they use that carbon to build their physical structures; they "exhale" the O2, stripped of the carbon. While they get nutrients from the soil, the material they use to grow is literally pulled from the air.

It's my hope that this kind of knowledge inspires a sense of connectedness in all of us. If you go back even further, the heavier elements in our bodies and on the planet are all the result of exploding stars eons ago. These elements scattered into space, and condensed to form our planet, and eventually, us. I find all this rather inspiring.

Earth has gone through many warming and cooling events, but since the last ice age we've enjoyed a relatively stable equilibrium which has allowed life and civilization to flourish. That may now be coming to an end sooner than it would have naturally, as human activity has upset the balance of our biosphere. One of the key aspects of climate change is an uneven experience of its effects throughout the world. It means less predictable and more extreme weather and redistribution of water and energy in our environment. We've had extreme heat and cold at the same time in different parts of my country, and these events will likely become more frequent. Some areas experience droughts, while others experience flooding and worsening storms. In this respect, your Imams were spot on.
 
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