Time/weather

 Last year was very rich in natural disasters, such as the tsunami in Japan, and the hurricane in America. According to experts, natural disasters across the globe have made 2011 the costliest year on record in terms of property damage, and that's just six months in.

 Just in the first two months of the year thee were several reports about billions of fish and birds found dead everywhere, and animals are not everything. There also were a lot of strong earthquakes with more than 5.0 magnitude.

 To talk a bit more about these thing with the viewpoint of a businessman, the insurance companies were not in such bad positions for long years. The more catastrophes there are, the more damage people have on their property, and the more damages the insurance companies have to pay.

For an example, for the United States, 98 events, including storms, flooding, fires and earthquakes left 27 billion dollars in economic losses, more than double the 10-year average of 11.8 billion dollars.

2011 was announced to be the year of the tornado, and according to the reports, it really turned out to be a disastrous year. While the trend for earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions is fairly stable, severe weather events are on the upswing, like the higher potential of thunderstorm development in the last decade, and more dates per yeas during which storms can develop.

 Also, there is a climate connection between Australia’s severe floods and rising ocean temperatures off the coast there. That means more evaporation and higher potential for those extreme downpours. This all can be explained by the global warming, of course, which is another huge problem.

 To start this topic from the beginning, I should explain what is global warming, why it develops and is harmful for the environment. Basically, it was caused by the different gases the humans produce with their factories, cars, burning and even with household appliances, like the refrigerator, or even only with a simple deodorant.

  Gases, like Freon start to devastate the ozone layer part by part, and this is what should not happen. The ozone layer is like an enormous bubble around the Earth, and it is what keeps most of the gases, like the oxygen inside. Also, this layer stops the dangerous ultra violet rays which can burn the skin, or cause skin cancer. Without the ozone layer we would not be able to breathe, to go out of the house or even to find a green spot somewhere around, because it prevents the planet from drought.

 But not everyone cares about it, as the whole in the layer keeps growing bigger and bigger, which causes serious problems, as I mentioned before.

 There is another important problem in connection with the ozone layer case, which we should talk about, too. This one is the global warming.

 Basically it is when we produce several kinds of gases, like carbon-dioxide, during a day, and some of these gases reflect from the ozone layer and stuck inside of it. Also, it keeps the heat inside, too. This way the average temperature raises everywhere. The consequences are the melting polar ice caps and glaciers, the rising sea and ocean levels, extinction of animals and more and more species becoming endangered. Global warming is a very dangerous thing that we should be aware of, or instead we will be able to swim in our back garden.

 Now we can’t always see its marks, but if we notice them, like the snowless, warm winter in Hungary, we start worrying. This is the time when we should really talk about these problems and try to slower the process, because in my opinion it is already too late to stop it. The only thing we can do is to reduce the rising amount of harmful gases in the air, use public transport instead of cars, use the renewable energy resources, try to recycle instead of burning and burying everything in our back garden, and we can even reduce the deforestation. By cutting out all the rainforests, we don’t just take away the natural habitat from various species of animals and plants, but we reduce the natural cleaning of the air. If we just cut the trees out and don’t plant anything instead of in, in a few decades there won’t be enough clean air in the earth’s atmosphere. Also, the forest fires are dangerous and important, too, because they might damage people’s property, too.

 All in all, we really should think our moves over, because seeing the plants blooming in the middle of winter may be a heartwarming feeling, but it’s 100% not natural and can be a warming sign from the nature.