Malcolm Moss visits Sir Harry

MP Malcolm Moss came into Sir Harry Smith Community College on the 12th of February 2010 to educate GCSE Year 10 & A Level Year 12’s on Climate change & economic data that has been collected over resent years, comparing the coloration between the temperature changes & CO2 emissions. Previous to his visit the GCSE Year 10’s had written letters to Malcolm Moss about Climate change & he had come to Sir Harry to talk more in depth to these selected pupils. One thing he made clear to the students was that the key to doing well is to ask questions & that you must listen to both sides of the argument. He sees this as vital from a geographers point of view, Malcolm himself is a geographer at a University.

He started by saying he needs to understand what people know & think about global warming to be able to inform on this matter more. The pupils were informed that we must switch from fossil fuels to renewable fuels, but to do this it costs a lot. The tax payer will have to get used to the idea of higher taxes, but on the plus side by doing this it will reduce our carbon footprint, which will be better for global warning. There is a debate about climate change at the moment; some think it maybe the natural heating in the volcanic eruptions, from the eruptions large amounts of harmful gasses are pumped into the earth’s atmosphere. Alternatively, some people think that it is man made; by people using cars instead of walking & by doing other harmful things to the environment. Many false claims have been about Global warming including: Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035 & 40% of Amazon rainforest will be wiped out by global warming; both of these points are completely incorrect. Though, there is one disputed claim, & it is the coloration between global warming & hurricanes / floods.

Most scientists strongly believe that Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is related to Global warming, & the country which is contributing to this the most is China. Though the UK has been high, & has stayed high, & not risen! Using a hockey-stick graph he showed the students that the average earth’s temperature from 1000 till 1900AD has risen slowly, but since 1900AD it has rapidly risen, & scientists have agreed that this is a extremely unusual event. The temperature & the CO2 levels over the past 400 thousand years mirror each other, so this is the main reason why scientists think CO2 has something to do with Global warming! By using Paleclimatology (the study of climate change over a long period of time) scientists can predict what will happen if we keep carrying on as we are with our carbon footprint!

The earth is warming with temperatures rising over time, though; there is no certainty over the fact that humans are causing this. Due to Global warming air fares will rise by 140%. To prevent dangerous states of climate change it will cost £22 billion for wind farms & other renewable energy generators. A big part on cutting down on costs is by getting double glazing or insulation your loft. These may seem big things to do costing a lot of money but over time it will re-pay itself, as it were!

There was then a question & answer session where a variety of questions were asked by the students, here are some that were asked…
“What is the biggest thing you have done to help with Global warming?” Malcolm replied by saying he has had his boiler changed & he has changed his car to diesel.
“What is your job?” he answered this question in five parts: he represents North East Cambridgeshire, he is part of the parliament & helps make laws, people go to him with issues & he tries to address the problem & give them a solution, he writes to different embassy’s & finally, researches into different issues or problems.
“What do you think people think about Global warming?” he said that they think either one thing or the other…either they are not worried at all about it & doesn’t concern them or that they know it’s there & try to do their part towards protecting the earth!

From this talk the pupils learnt a lot about Climate change & know now more about it. All the pupils enjoyed this & benefited from this presentation. “It was good to have him come in & talk to us about this issue, & it has helped me know more about this topic!”

Facts of global warming;

·    The earths temperature has increase but 0.8°c around the world since 1880

·    Coral reef which are very sensitive to temperature change  and in 1998 nearly 70% bleached (died off) because of the rise in sea water temperature

·    Ice is rapidly disappearing by 2040 the region could have it’s first completely ice free summer

·    The last 2 decades in the 20th century was the warmest in 400years.

·    11 of the past 12 years have been among the hottest since 1850.

 

NOT JUST ANY PHOTO OF THE SUN

Even though it was two years ago back in the hot summer of 2008, the thirty eight photos taken by a man who is considered veteran to the sciences of eclipses, Miloslav Druckmiller ; This phenomenon was created by a montage of photos cleverly stitched together digitally, the original photos were taken in Mongolia.
The sun’s power is so great that seeing a picture like his can only give us a very small extent of how hot the sun actually is. The mix of hydrogen and helium gas results in an amazing ball of fire around about 100 times the size of the earth.

The picture of the moon in front, blocking out the sun makes the corona of the sun as visible as ever seen before. The corona is around a million km wide and has temperatures up to two million degrees Celsius, the corona consists of plasma, and plasma radiates huge amounts of x-rays.

The reason this is such a spectacular picture is that with special instruments used by scientists we can see the clear patterns made by the scorching gases. The thing that has puzzled the scientists researching these natural phenomena is that if you were to touch the ionized gas of the corona, your hand would freeze not burn.

The sun’s blobs of fiery gases is what causes solar storms, but once in a while these storms are strong enough to blast corona gas into the solar system at incredibly high speeds. This has happened once before in the year of 1859, it was so bright at night that gold rush miners were awoken. Although these solar storms cant hurt humans directly they can ruin entire eco systems and the way of life; Electricity grids would be entirely obliterated, metals melted and entire economic breakdowns could appear bringing back modern day blues.

The question we are left with is,
When?

There is a prediction for another eclipse to appear in 2012, this is when the next window for another picture of this fabulous aura could be taken.

By Kit