ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS

Environmental law is a collective term describing international treaties (conventions), statutes, regulations, and common law or national legislation (where applicable) that operates to regulate the interaction of humanity and the natural environment, toward the purpose of reducing the impacts of human activity.

Pollution, scarce resources, wild animals and plants do not respect political boundaries, making international law an important aspect of environmental law. Numerous legally binding international agreements now encompass a wide variety of issue-areas, from terrestrial, marine and atmospheric pollution through to wildlife and biodiversity protection.

Environmental interests will often criticize environmental regulation as inadequately protective of the environment. Furthermore, strong environmental laws do not guarantee strong enforcement. Nonetheless, the cost benefit analysis for society at large between having laws that protect citizens from toxic or dangerous living and work conditions such as those that existed in the early industrial 1900's or not clearly comes down on the side of regulation.

reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_law

ATMOSPHERE

An atmosphere is a layer of gases that may surround a material body of sufficient mass, and that is held in place by the gravity of the body. An atmosphere may be retained for a longer duration, if the gravity is high and the atmosphere's temperature is low. Some planets consist mainly of various gases, but only their outer layer is their atmosphere.

The Troposphere

The troposphere is where all weather takes place; it is the region of rising and falling packets of air. The air pressure at the top of the troposphere is only 10% of that at sea level (0.1 atmospheres). There is a thin buffer zone between the troposphere and the next layer called the tropopause.

The Stratosphere and Ozone Layer

Above the troposphere is the stratosphere, where air flow is mostly horizontal. The thin ozone layer in the upper stratosphere has a high concentration of ozone, a particularly reactive form of oxygen. This layer is primarily responsible for absorbing the ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. The formation of this layer is a delicate matter, since only when oxygen is produced in the atmosphere can an ozone layer form and prevent an intense flux of ultraviolet radiation from reaching the surface, where it is quite hazardous to the evolution of life. There is considerable recent concern that manmade flourocarbon compounds may be depleting the ozone layer, with dire future consequences for life on the Earth.

The Mesosphere and Ionosphere

Above the stratosphere is the mesosphere and above that is the ionosphere (or thermosphere), where many atoms are ionized (have gained or lost electrons so they have a net electrical charge). The ionosphere is very thin, but it is where aurora take place, and is also responsible for absorbing the most energetic photons from the Sun, and for reflecting radio waves, thereby making long-distance radio communication possible.

reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere

LITHOSPHERE

In the Earth, the lithosphere includes the crust and the uppermost mantle, which constitute the hard and rigid outer layer of the Earth. The lithosphere is underlain by the asthenosphere, the weaker, hotter, and deeper part of the upper mantle. The boundary between the lithosphere and the underlying asthenosphere is defined by a difference in response to stress: the lithosphere remains rigid for very long periods of geologic time in which it deforms elastically and through brittle failure, while the asthenosphere deforms viscously and accommodates strain through plastic deformation. The lithosphere is broken into tectonic plates. The uppermost part of the lithosphere that chemically reacts to the atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere through thesoil forming process is called the pedosphere.

The concept of the lithosphere as Earth’s strong outer layer was developed by Joseph Barrell, who wrote a series of papers introducing the concept. The concept was based on the presence of significant gravity anomalies over continental crust, from which he inferred that there must exist a strong upper layer (which he called the lithosphere) above a weaker layer which could flow (which he called the asthenosphere). These ideas were expanded by Harvard geologist Reginald Aldworth Daly in 1940 with his seminal work "Strength and Structure of the Earth" and have been broadly accepted by geologists and geophysicists. Although these ideas about lithosphere and asthenosphere were developed long before plate tectonic theory was articulated in the 1960s, the concepts that a strong lithosphere exists and that this rests on a weak asthenosphere are essential to that theory.

reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithosphere , 

hydrologic cycle

The hydrologic cycle is a conceptual model that describes the storage and movement of water between the biosphere, atmosphere, lithosphere, and the hydrosphere (see Figure 1). Water on our planet can be stored in any one of the following major reservoirs: atmosphere, oceans, lakes, rivers, soils, glaciers, snowfields, and groundwater. Water moves from one reservoir to another by way of processes likeevaporation, condensation, precipitation, deposition, runoff, infiltration, sublimation, transpiration, melting, and groundwater flow. The oceanssupply most of the evaporated water found in the atmosphere. Of this evaporated water, only 91% of it is returned to the ocean basins by way of precipitation. The remaining 9% is transported to areas over landmasses where climatological factors induce the formation of precipitation. The resulting imbalance between rates of evaporation and precipitation over land and ocean is corrected by runoff and groundwater flow to the oceans.

Evidence of your Life Changing Decision for a More sustainable society

In the past, by design or by accident, the planet Earth was a sustainable system in a grand view. First, the planet and its energy source, the Sun, were stable. Second, the law of nature had successfully ruled every living thing on Earth. Individual species which threatened the integrity of an ecosystem because of overpopulation or having destructive living habits were quickly suppressed by means of resource starvation. As a result, a colorful and vibrant world existed before human beings started to dominate the world. Nature was not perfect, but it was sustainable.

Armed with the capability to think, human beings discovered ways to utilize the resources the Earth had accumulated in the past. For example, a forest may have taken several hundred years or more to establish. Every year, it produced a certain amount of resources, such as fruits, lumber, etc. If our yearly consumptions were limited to the amount the forest produced each year, we would be on sustainable footing. However, we wanted more, much more. To support our ever increasing demands, we cut down the entire forest. Even that was not enough; we dug underneath for the resources that nature had built for millions of years. Through time, we have built a society which requires far more resources than nature can offer on a continuous basis. This is not sustainable.