What is the History of the Ozone Layer?
Hundreds of millions of years ago, only single cell organisms existed on Earth and the planet lacked the oxygen that is needed in order for our survival.  Through photosynthesis as these organisms evolved they began to release small amounts of oxygen.  Over millions of years, this led to the creation of the ozone layer.

What is the Ozone Layer?
Our atmosphere is split into layers.  The troposphere is where we live.  Above that is the stratosphere.  While ozone exists to some degree in all of the layers most of it (about 90%) is produced naturally in the stratosphere.

By acting like a filter or a web the ozone layer plays a very important part in protecting us from most of the sun’s harmful radiation.  It traps harmful radiation while still allowing heat from the sun to reach the Earth.

Scientists believe that without it we would most likely die.  We would quickly suffer intense radiation burns.  We would be forced to find a way to safeguard ourselves by wearing clothing made from special protective material or by living underground.  A lot of the plant life that humans and animals depend on would die out, making food sources extremely scarce.

What is Ozone?
Ozone is a type of oxygen.  Unlike the oxygen we need to breathe, it’s a poisonous gas.  Ozone in the stratosphere is good and performs a vital function but ozone at ground level is bad.

Do we Affect the Ozone Layer?
The ozone layer begins about six miles above us and extends to around 30 miles above.  Scientific records show that until the 1970s, its level remained fairly stable.

There have always been factors such as the seasons, weather conditions and solar cycles which affect its density, but these are all part of a natural cycle where ozone is continually formed, destroyed and formed again.

In the 1970s scientists discovered that this natural balance had been upset and that the ozone layer was being depleted.  Ozone was being destroyed at a faster rate than it was being naturally produced.  Research determined that much of the damage was being caused by man-made chemicals, most of which had been introduced since the 1920s.

What is the Montreal Protocol?
In 1985, scientists with the British Antarctic Survey discovered a “hole” in the ozone layer over Antarctica.  Two years later over 20 countries signed an international agreement, known as the Montreal Protocol.

The Montreal Protocol called for the phasing out of ozone depleting chemicals, including CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbons) thought to be responsible for damage to the ozone layer.  Many other countries have since signed up to the agreement and it has proved to be extremely successful.   Former UN General Secretary, Kofi Annan, described it as probably the most successful international agreement ever signed.

What is Being Done to Protect the Ozone Layer?
The phasing out of ozone depleting substances (ODS) is helping to fight climate change since many ODS are also powerful greenhouse gases.

Now that ozone levels are constantly monitored experts predict that by 2070, the ozone layer will have returned to pre-1980 levels.  It’s expected to take this long to “repair” itself because the chemicals which caused the damage remain in the stratosphere for many years.

How Does it Affect Us?
It was suggested that higher concentrations of ozone at ground level could affect people’s health and history has shown that ozone is now known to be a main ingredient of today’s city smog and aggravates conditions like asthma, bronchitis and lung disease.

Scientists in America believe it has already led to an increase in the number of deaths from the most fatal form of skin cancer. and experts are concerned that new factors could continue to damage the ozone layer causing a slow down or even preventing its recovery.  Some scientists believe that global warming is likely to accelerate ozone depletion.

What are the Dangers of Lower Ozone Levels?
Low levels of solar UV are vital in the production of Vitamin D.  Without exposure to the sun, people would suffer from diseases linked to Vitamin D deficiency.  Too much UV exposure damages our DNA and causes skin cancer, causes damage to the eyes and scientists now believe that it affects the immune system, allowing people to become ill more easily.

There are also serious impacts for biodiversity.  Increased UV-B rays reduce levels of plankton in the oceans and subsequently diminish fish stocks.  It can also have adverse effects on plant growth resulting in reduced agricultural productivity.

What is The United Nations’ (UN) International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer?

Celebrated on September 16 every year to focus on the importance of protecting human health and the environment.  On this day primary and secondary school educators throughout the world organize classroom activities that focus on topics related to the ozone layer, climate change and ozone depletion.  Some teachers use educational packages from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) that have been specifically tailored to address topics about the earth’s ozone layer.

Other activities organized by different community groups, individuals, schools and local organizations across the world include: the promotion of ozone friendly products; special programs and events on saving the ozone layer. (http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/un/international-ozone-layer-preservation-day)

How are Trees Beneficial?
Trees are vital, nurturing forces which provide many benefits to our environment.  The air we breathe is improved by the presence of trees.  Trees absorb harmful chemicals such as carbon monoxide and in turn give off oxygen.  They filter and trap pollutants such as smoke, dust and ash making our air cleaner.

Trees absorb water thus preventing flooding and also help disperse rainfall over a more even area.  By retaining water, trees help reduce the amount of topsoil that runs off into our sewers and streams.  Leaves on the ground, keep moisture close to the ground aiding growth and trapping chemicals keeping them out of lakes and rivers.

Trees help maintain our global environment by acting as enormous carbon sinks.  Trees absorb massive amounts of carbon dioxide from our atmosphere.  If there were no trees to perform this essential function, little could be done to alleviate the effects of global warming caused by the Greenhouse Effect.
Trees not only benefit our physical environment, but also attract birds and other wildlife.

Trees are also a source of medicine for the human race.  Many people, tired of chemical treatments, turn to trees and plants for assistance.

For instance the ginkgo tree dates back more than 300 million years and is the oldest know species of tree.  For centuries the Chinese have used tea made from ginkgo seeds as a cure for respiratory illnesses, such as asthma.  In more modern times, ginkgo leaf extract has been used as a treatment for a wide range of ailments such as Alzheimer’s and depression.  The Native Americans use Aspen bark for reducing fever and fighting influenza.  More recently, the medical community has taken more notice of the natural cures found all around us as herbology continues to grow in popularity.

Plan a special Earth Day event.  This issue is important enough to be elevated to a national day of recognition.  That should be a good enough reason for all of us to take a closer look at how our current habits and actions are impacting the environment.

Everyone should be figuring out ways and implementing efforts they can exercise in order to help protect our environment not only for this one day but every day of the year!

Encourage friends and family members to get actively involved in environmental education programs.  Strive to support and bring awareness to issues that have great personal importance to you and your community.

Teach your children the importance of their role in helping to preserve and save our environment as well as the environment that will be their future.  This offers a wonderful opportunity for you to connect with your children.  Get outside and plant some flowers, bushes or trees.  Collaborate with teachers and faculty members to initiate green campaigns that actively involve and educate children on the importance of saving our environment.

Once habits have been established they are difficult to break.  Make reusing and recycling a way of life.  Pay attention to what your children are most interested in doing then work toward getting them directly involved to help support, maintain or improve the causes that are important to them.

There are so many environmental agencies helping to connect people with nature making it easier to research and get educated on all the spectacular environmental efforts going on not only in your area but all around the world!

Fact: Bark thickness varies in different species of trees.  The protective covering of the madrone, also known as the madroño, madroña, bearberry, or strawberry tree, is very thin, but the bark on a few of the giant sequoia trees in the Sierra Nevada Mountains is two feet thick!

According to U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service the total annual United States production of bark may be well above 20 million tons.  Since one of the major costs in processing any natural material is the cost of collection, bark, for which collection costs have already been paid, has become increasingly attractive as a potential raw material.

Bark is composed of non living tissue on the outside and living tissue on the inside.   The history and modern uses of bark, on SavATree.com, reports that for centuries the people of the Amazon basin have harvested the fibers from tree bark and used it to make a variety of functional objects.

Most commonly used to make baskets, bark was also used to craft canoes and corks.

Fact: Canoes have been in use for over 3000 years.

The first Canadian canoes were made with paper birch bark.  It took many labor-intensive hours complete but they turned out to be amazingly durable.  Now canoes are produced using a synthetic equivalent of birch bark.  Birch bark is still widely used in the production of souvenirs in Europe.

All bark contains some cork.  Cork oak trees produce enough of this substance to make it economical to harvest and it is not necessary for the tree to be cut down.  Dead bark can be stripped from the tree without harming it as long as the stripping is done carefully to ensure the living inner bark is not damaged and if it is done at intervals of at least ten years.  The first stripping takes place when the tree is twenty years old and produces poor-quality cork.  The second stripping occurs ten years later and produces better cork.  High-grade cork is not produced until the tree is at least fifty years old.  These trees continue to bear cork for two hundred years and the quality improves after each ten-year stripping until it reaches its peak.

Fact: Imported cork oaks grow in California but the oldest and most productive trees are native to the western Mediterranean Sea area.

In certain areas of the world, bark has been used for years to create extravagant clothing.  South America, Africa, Japan and South East Asia were all pioneers in the creation of bark clothing such as belts, headdresses and caps.  Similar to the Amazonians, cloth was produced and manufactured into capes, blankets and other articles of clothing.  Wearing clothing made from bark was a sign of wealth and was strictly worn by the elite upper class.

The uses of bark are unlimited and viable. There is an enormous amount of research being conducted in the medical field to determine the benefits of bark.  Researchers recently declared that anti inflammatory compounds called phenolics found in the bark of Scotch pine may prove effective in fighting arthritis.

Fact: Scotch pine is the number one selling Christmas tree.

Researchers believe that pine bark extract might potentially treat various health problems such as high blood pressure, asthma and heart disease.

Willow bark extract is currently being used and prescribed in Europe to treat lower back pain.  A popular anesthetic, tubocurarine, is extracted from bark.  There are also a few cancer drugs that are extracted from bark such as the South African cape bush willow which supplies treatments for lung and ovarian cancer.

Fact: The main ingredient in aspirin, salicylic acid, is obtained from poplar and willow bark.

An oil in the young bark of an evergreen tree native to Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) produces a spicy cinnamon flavor.  The bark is peeled from young twigs, tightly rolled then and dried to produce cinnamon sticks often used to season hot tea or holiday drinks.  Powdered cinnamon is merely ground bark from this tree

Learn everything you can about global warming and take the initiative to educate others such as family members, friends, co-workers and everyone you meet.  The more people are aware of these issues the more likely they are to make constructive decisions.

Stay informed and actively involved.  E-mail relevant articles to friends, family and community leaders to get them up to speed or to keep them apprised about any and all ongoing global warming endeavors.

What is it?
Global warming is the increase in the average surface air and ocean temperatures on our planet.

What’s causing it?
It’s believed there is a link between human activities and global warming due to industrial carbon dioxide emissions.  Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas thought to be responsible for this increase in these temperatures around the globe.

Global warming is predicted to generate significant changes in weather conditions such as more extreme ranges in temperature, melting of glaciers and ice sheets which will lead to a global rise in average sea levels.

Why is it occurring?
Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) report that over the past 50 years more than 13 000 sq km of sea ice in the Antarctic Peninsula has been lost.  Melting in the Antarctic Peninsula removes sea ice that held back the movement of glaciers resulting in glaciers flowing into the ocean up to 6 times faster than before.

Global warming is the result of interconnected physical, ecological and social changes that have been caused by decades of unsustainable use of earth’s resources.

How does global warming work?
The greenhouse effect makes our earth’s atmosphere habitable by trapping heat and light from the sun inside water vapors, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane and other combined chemical vapors, both natural and manufactured.

This greenhouse effect forms a shield that allows the sun’s radiant heat energy into our atmosphere and moves excess heat concentrations out of our atmosphere.  When gas concentrations in this shield are increased, excess gases become trapped inside our atmosphere thus causing increased global temperatures.

What actions can be taken to stop it?
Explore new, innovative strategies and technologies that can be used to make environmental initiatives cost effective and efficient.

• Plant a tree or plant native or drought-tolerant plants.  Avoid using pesticides or herbicides on your lawn.  The runoff can contribute to water pollution.
• Implement effective methods that encourage environmental sustainability such as supporting and advocating alternative energy sources such as wind or solar which do not emit CO2 gases.
• The consumable products we all purchase represent over half of the average family’s carbon footprint!
• Seek out products that have a low CarbonCounted footprint number.  There is a logo called CarbonCounted that companies can put on their products to publicize their carbon footprint.  (http://www.carboncounted.com
• Buy a carbon offset.  Find entities that allow you to “buy off” your CO2 usage.  Carbon offsets are attempts to neutralize one’s carbon debt through planting trees or giving money to organizations that help businesses go green or encourage green-friendly research and development.  Most people are said to be accruing a carbon debt, or an increasingly high level of carbon consumption, due to activities such as driving a gas-powered car or using electricity.
• Buy only post-consumer recycled paper products, including toilet paper and tissues. The paper industry is the third greatest contributor to global warming emissions.
• Don’t purchase from companies that refuse to make post-consumer paper.  Producing new paper, glass, and metal products from recycled materials saves 70% to 90% of the energy and pollution that results from products made from virgin materials.
• Work and volunteer locally.  Get involved with environmental organizations that help lower pollution, reduce urban sprawl and preserve natural places.
• Shop at area stores and purchase locally grown foods, fruits and vegetables.
• Join a national or local environmental group that is serious and dedicated to fighting the climate crisis.
• Buy certified wood to support sustainably managed forests.  According to the Natural Resources Defense Council certified forest products ensure that the wood was harvested in a sustainable manner from a healthy forest, and not clearcut from a tropical rainforest or the ancestral homelands of forest-dependent indigenous people.
• Encourage architects and builders to use more natural resources when building houses such as solar energy to heat water.
• Promote sustainability.  Believe in doing business in a way that ensures a great tomorrow.  Go the extra mile to help preserve the environment by staying on top of your conservation practices and be diligent by evaluating and reevaluating them on an on-going basis.
• Work together.  Create equitable relationships with customers and in your community.  Support local causes as well as charitable and volunteer organizations.  Listen to suggestions and act on feedback from customers to ensure on-going, prosperous relationship.

Turn off your computer to save energy and wear and tear on your computer hardware.  Set up the sleep mode by changing your PC’s energy settings or install an energy-saving application so that it automatically sleeps when you’re not using it.  The Department of Energy suggests turning off the monitor if you aren’t going to use it for more than 20 minutes.  Shut down the entire system if you don’t plan to use it for more than 2 hours.  Use a surge protector power strip with an on/off switch and just press and go on your way out the door.

Household

Laundry:  90% of the energy used by washing machines goes into heating the water.  Wash laundry in cold water.  Turing your washing machine dial to cold will help conserve energy and save on your electric bill.

Water Heater:  The water heater is the second largest energy consumer in the home and using it efficiently can add up to big savings.  With an automatic dishwasher, the hot water heater setting can safely be lowered to 130-140 degrees.  If the automatic dishwasher has a water temperature booster, the water heater temperature can be set to 110-120 degrees.  If your house will be vacant for two or more days, lower the temperature of your water heater until you return.  If you have a new water heater, drain a few gallons from your tank every six months to remove sediment that accumulates and reduces the heater’s efficiency.  If you only use your hot water once or twice a day, consider installing a timer on the hot water heater and set it to run two hours in the morning and in the evening.

Most new water heaters are already insulated.  But if you have a heater that is more than five years old try wrapping a fiberglass blanket around it or install a ready-made insulation kit and you can save up to 10% on water heating costs.  Insulate hot water pipes to reduce heat loss as the hot water is flowing to your faucets.

Lighting:  Use smart, efficient ways to conserve energy that you don’t even have to think about.  Use electric timers on hot water heaters and motion sensors or timers on indoor and outdoor lights.  Set them to be on only at certain times of the day when they’ll be needed.  Using this method you won’t be drawing and using electricity when it’s not needed throughout most of the day.

Automotive

Car:  Make sure your car is properly maintained.  Keep your car tuned up and the tires properly inflated.  This will not only help ensure your car keeps running efficiently it can also help with gas mileage.  If you don’t need a car to get to where you are going don’t use one out of habit.  Walk, ride a bike or take public transportation whenever possible. Ride it to work, to run errands, or to have fun.  When you ride a bike everyone benefits.  You help conserve limited oil resources, you’re not polluting and you are getting some exercise.

Fuel:  Try to save on C02 emissions and fuel by maintaining a consistent speed and don’t go over the speed limit.  Rapid acceleration and unnecessary breaking can decrease fuel economy.  Remember, there’s always cruise control.