Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Greenhouse gases are commonly thought of in terms of carbon dioxide, but they can include methane and nitrous oxide. These gases affect how the Earth's atmosphere traps and retains solar heat, hence their name, but they can also have other effects on humans and the environment. These include chronic disease, air pollution and the danger of explosion.

Methane

• Methane is of concern because even though less of it is released into the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, it has more significant potential to affect the environment. Atmospheric methane accounts for an estimated one-third of the impact that greenhouse gases have on climate change because it's released in smaller amounts than other greenhouse gases. In addition to industrial sources, methane is a component of natural gas and is emitted from landfills as a byproduct of decaying matter. Methane from landfills not only contributes to greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, but it may also travel through the soil and penetrate nearby homes. In homes where methane gas is present but undetected, the dangers are asphyxiation and explosion.

Carbon Dioxide

• Carbon dioxide is a transboundary air pollutant, meaning the release of carbon dioxide in any concentrated region can contribute to global levels. Like other greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide traps solar heat in the Earth's atmosphere and contributes to gradual changes in the climate, notably global warming. In addition its the global effects, large amounts of carbon dioxide in urban areas can create urban CO2 domes, which are contained concentrations of carbon dioxide from industry and auto emissions. These domes, such as those measured in Phoenix, Arizona and Salt Lake City, Utah, affect local levels of ozone and fine particulate matter, which can lead to increased lung disease such as asthma, emphysema and cancer.

Nitrous Oxide

• Nitrous oxide rivals carbon dioxide in its potential to contribute to the greenhouse effect, and it poses other health problems for those exposed to it through air pollution over long periods of time. Long-term exposure can lead to insomnia, depression and nausea. Instances of high blood pressure, septicemia, stridor, lung collapse, hematuria and hyperglycemia have also been diagnosed as side effects of over exposure to nitrous oxide, although these diseases cannot occur at the nitrous oxide concentrations currently present in the atmosphere.

Climate Change

• Global climate change and global warming can have direct and indirect impacts on humans. One direct effect is the spread of the Anopheles mosquito, which carries malaria. In 2010, The Quarterly Review of Biology cited temperature as a contributing factor to the expansion of the mosquito's territory into areas of Afghanistan, Indonesia and east Africa that were previously unaffected. Aspen forests in California, Arizona, Nevada and Colorado have declined by over 500,000 acres as of 2010 because of increased aspen bark beetle populations brought on by rising temperatures. The loss of these trees has a direct effect on the grasses that grow beneath them, which hold water used by nearby urban areas.