Introduction to Week 3

<v ->Welcome to week three.</v> Last week, we talked about global populations. We talked about human population growth. We talked about age structures and demographic transitions. And we even took a little practice time to calculate a population growth rate. And then finally, we talked about biocapacity and our own ecological footprint. This week, we’re going to talk about the atmosphere, and I’m really excited. You can see these clouds behind me. They’re part of the atmosphere. Even the clear air and the water vapor you can’t see is part of the atmosphere. And when we talk about the atmosphere, we’ll talk about it in three separate sections. First, we’ll talk about, what is the atmosphere? How is it structured? What’s in it?

And then we’ll talk about solar radiation, and how it interacts with the atmosphere. How does the atmosphere trap heat? And what happens in that whole complicated process of global warming? We’ll talk about global warming. We’ll talk about how our emissions impact global warming. We’ll even calculate your own CO2 emissions. And we’ll calculate your CO2 emissions in African elephant equivalence because I think it’s a lot easier to understand how much an African elephant weighs than it does two tons of CO2. Finally, we’ll talk about global climate change. We’ll talk about what the forecast is for temperature increases, sea level rises, and what that means for us.