My Profile

Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Shaheen Ismail Al Bishr and I am a 25 year old UAE national who has worked as a Mechanical Technician for almost 5 years at ZADCO, an offshore oil production company. Currently I have a scholarship at the Higher Colleges of Technology to study Mechanical Engineering. I am married with two cute daughters who have fulfilled my life with happiness.

Beside family responsibilities and studying commitments, I enjoy life and practice my interests like playing billiards, snookers and, the most important to me and my family, "Traveling". I have traveled to almost 10 countries worldwide over the last five years.

Scotland was still and is, the most attractive place of interest to me. Its quietness, hospitality and enjoyable summer weather as well as tourist attractions have given it first priority and a recommended place to spend holidays and have peace of mind.

My daughter Shooq and Salama

"An Inconvenient Truth" OVERVIEW

An inconvenient Truth is a documentary film about climate change mixed in with personal events from the life of Gore. Gore reviews the scientific evidence for global warming, discusses the politics and economics of global warming.

The film includes many parts which refute critics who say that global warming is unimportant or unproven. For example, Gore discusses the risk of the collapse of a major ice sheet in Greenland or in West Antarctica.

The film examines annual temperature and carbon dioxide level for the past 600,000 years in Antarctic ice core samples.

The documentary ends with Gore noting that if appropriate action is taken soon, the effects of global warming can be successfully reversed by releasing less carbon dioxide and growing more plants or trees.

Global Warming Project

One of the biggest and most challenging problems facing the world today is Global Warming. I personally was curious to widen my horizon and know about the fundamentals of this threatening climate related phenomenon. I would like to know what action I could take at a personal level to help in protecting the environment. In this blog, I will start with defining “Global Warming” and some other relevant terminologies such as Greenhouse Gases and climate change. As Photos are worth of hundreds words, I will take advantage of informative pictures which will add value and help in understanding the subject.

Causes & effects of global warming are not only covered in my blog, but also the solutions that can be adopted both government as well as personal levels.

I strongly believe if you have the interest in a subject as I do, you will write about it with an open mind and enjoy the time you spend in exploring more and more about it and deliver such vital information to others and help collectively in raising the environmental awareness level of society.

Definition of global Warming

Global warming is defined as an increase in the average temperature of the earth atmosphere, especially an increase sufficient to cause climatic change that lasts for an extended period of time. There are the more obvious signs: the rapid retreat of glaciers in Greenland, Alaska, the Himalaya, and the Antarctic Peninsula and on high tropical mountains; the thinning and disappearance of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean during summer; the melting of permafrost in Canada, Alaska and Siberia; and the rise of sea level and an increase in extreme weather.

(A hurricane-damaged home in Gulf Breeze, Florida)

Thousands of Pensacola area residents were displaced from their damaged homes following Hurricane Ivan in October of 2004.

The main reason for global warming is thought to be air pollution, especially greenhouse gas emissions. Gases created through human, industrial and agricultural practices (primarily methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons-CFC) increase the heat-reflecting potential of the atmosphere, thereby raising the earth’s average temperature. Therefore, humans are responsible for these changes in the climate. Scientists warn that such changes might have disastrous effects.

This graph below shows the record of global average temperatures as compiled by the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research of the UK Meteorological Office.

Global Warming Causes

The cause of global warming is what is called the “Greenhouse Effect.” In other words the increase in the man-made emission of greenhouse gases which are the cause of global warming. Greenhouse gases, for example carbon dioxide and methane act like a mirror in the atmosphere and reflect back to the earth a part of the heat radiation, which would otherwise be lost to space. The higher the concentration of green-house gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the more heat energy in being reflected back to the earth.

The emission of carbon dioxide into the environment mainly from burning of fossil fuel (oil, gas, petrol, kerosene, etc.) has increased dramatically over the past 50 years. Those are thought to be the known causes of global warming. However, researches is still being made in order to identify the main causes beyond this matter. Each of the mentioned causes needs to be studied in more details.

Click the link below for more explanation (Animation)

and quiz concerning "Global Warming"

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/kids/global_warming_version2.html

Specific cause of global warming

There are many causes of global warming and the major one is the CO2 that is produced from power plants. I chose this specific cause because in my opinion, this is the reason why a lot of CO2 is produced and proves a lot of facts. A long time ago, there weren't any power plants which explains why scientists have proven the difference of the amount of CO2 used nowadays than in the past. The burning of fossil fuels which are used for the purpose of electricity generation, means, the amount of CO2 produced these days outnumbers the amount that was used in the past. A lot of countries have power plants, so just imagine how much CO2 is being wasted. Every developing country does not use only one but many power plants and if this keeps going, then it will be a disaster. We cannot tell each country to stop using power plants because it is essential to have them. Instead, countries need to have a limit to the number of power plants to have so we can at least have a limit to the amount of CO2 each country produces.

Global Warming Effects

Many problems could result from global warming. One of the biggest problems is raising sea level due to thermal expansion of the ocean, in addition to melting of land ice. This could result in the flooding of low lying coastal areas and cities, such as Egypt, the Netherlands, and Bangladesh. Some countries might even disappear completely. Another problem caused by global warming is increased hurricanes, floods, and other unusual weather.

Other effect associated with global warming is the effect on animals such as polar bears, penguins and amphibians. As a further effect of global warming, diseases like malaria are returning into areas where they have been extinguished earlier such as Italy and some countries in North America.

The result of that issue is in 2005 was Earth’s warmest year in a century, according to NASA climatologist. The year 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2004 were the next four runners-up.

Polar bears face serious threats from global warming. The bears depend on sea ice as a platform from which they can hunt seals, their main prey. As more sea ice melts and polar bears are left with rocky ground like that shown in the picture.

Specific effect of global warming

There are many effects of global warming (as it has for causes). Some of the effects include an increase of flooding, storms, and rising sea-levels. This will cause many animals to migrate and do a lot of damage to animals' habitats. Coral reefs is also one of what global warming affects, and I chose it because it is one of the major effects.Coral reefs serve as a home, feeding area, and shelter for many fish, plants and animals. The increase in surface temperature can kill them and global warming is the cause of the surface temperature increasing. Coral reefs are sensitive organisms and the CO2 we produce over the years can kill all of them in no time unless we do something about the amount of CO2 we produce.

Things that we can do in the UAE

There are several things we can do to solve the problem of global warming. One solution is to stop producing carbon dioxide. We can do this by switching from oil, coal and gas to renewable energy. Planting trees is another solution because trees absorb CO2 and produce oxygen which isn’t a greenhouse gas. Generating electricity is one of the main sources of carbon dioxide so if we use less electricity, we will produce less CO2.



The UAE government has to take this matter seriously and issue policies to keep the oil reserves for the coming generations and make use of the climate situation in the UAE as we have six to seven peak times when we can easily collect solar energy and generate power instead of depending on fossil fuels which is the main reason of global warming. If we make small changes now in the way we live, we can avoid huge changes in the future , Government, Scientists and individuals must work together to overcome this threat.