i have to answer these questions whoever answeres the most gets best answer
Part 1. Gaia’s Tools
1.
What is the Gaia hypothesis?
2.
What are greenhouse gases? List the four layers of Earth’s atmosphere. On what basis is the atmosphere divided into these layers? What is the composition of the atmosphere?
3.
What is the Keeling Curve? What does it show? What are the implications of the data shown in the curve?
4.
How is carbon dioxide measured? What is a carbon sink? What are the implications of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide for the oceans?
5.
What are Milankovitch cycles?
6.
What does the author mean by “time’s gateways”? What are the three agents of change he considers to be powerful enough to drive evolution on a global scale?
7.
What can tree growth rings tell us about past climates? How do ocean currents affect climate?
8.
What is the Anthropocene?
9.
What are fossil fuels? How do they form? What does the author predict about our future use of these fuels?
Part 2. One in Ten Thousand
10.
Describe the El Nino—La Nina cycle.
11.
How is global warming affecting life in the Polar Regions? Specifically, consider krill, seals, caribou and polar bears.
12.
How is global warming affecting coral reefs?
13.
What happened to the golden toads in the rain forests of Costa Rica?
14.
How are rainfall patterns expected to change in the next century? Which countries are expected to experience negative impacts as a result of these changes?
15.
How will global warming influence the development of storms such as hurricanes?
16.
As the polar ice sheets melt, sea level will rise. By how much is global sea level expected to rise?
Part 3. The Science of Prediction
17.
Describe the “hockey stick” graph. What does it show?
18.
Can global warming be stopped (avoided) in the 21st century? Explain.
19.
Describe some of the impacts of global warming on mountainous regions and on the plants and animals that live at high altitudes.
20.
How have species in the past survived changes in climate (warming or cooling)? What is different about climate change in the 21st century?
21.
How will global warming impact the ability of marine organisms to make their shells?
22.
There is strong geological evidence that three “tipping points” for Earth’s climate have occurred in the past. What are these, and how would each impact Earth’s future climate?
23.
“Could climate change threaten the resources required by cities to survive?” (p. 205) In what ways are large cities vulnerable to changes induced by global warming?
Part 4. People in Greenhouses
24.
What was the purpose of the Montreal Protocol? Has it been successful?
25.
What is the Kyoto Protocol? Has it been successful?
26.
Why have the governments of the United States and Australia refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol?
27.
What is the IPCC?
28.
Discuss three engineering solutions which have been proposed to counteract global warming.
29.
What are the prospects for a hydrogen-based economy?
Part 5. The Solution
30.
What are the pros and cons of wind power? –of solar power?
31.
What are the pros and cons of nuclear energy? –of geothermal energy?
32.
What are some of the possibilities for decarbonizing our transport systems?
33.
In the opening sentence of this chapter (see just under the title), an Act of God is defined by A. P. Herbert as “something which no reasonable man could have expected.” In the future, how will the consequences of global warming change this definition?
34.
What three possible outcomes does the author see for our future?
35.
What is Aubrey Meyer’s proposal for Contraction and Convergence (C &C) as a way to regulate carbon emissions? What, in the author’s opinion, is the worst thing that citizens of the developed world can do?
36.
What are three steps you can take to help reduce global warming–now?
