Seeking The Support Of The Peoples Of The World
To Stop Global Warming And Climate Change
OUR WORLD
FOUNDATION
 whale and moon

For Children

Our World

Our world has existed for millions of years and all that you see - the trees, the flowers, plants, the mountains, oceans and birds have been here for as long as this -



We have a beautiful world.

 Rainbow over Yosemeti

c.2000 Topham Picturepoint

Our Atmosphere

Around our world is our air - if you catch a plane and fly high enough the air becomes thinner and thinner and you would find it hard to breathe. So most of our air is wrapped tight round our Earth which is there for people, animals, birds, plants and trees to breathe. This is called our ATMOSPHERE.

clean atmosphere

Before a hundred years ago the atmosphere around our earth was CLEAN AIR - it had no dirt in it - it was HEALTHY AIR -

Now in the past hundred years we have been filling our air with DIRTY POLLUTION FROM FACTORIES AND CARS and pumping DIRTY GASES into the clean air so that gradually it has become more and more dirty. In cities it is now so dirty that if you look out of your window at night you can no longer see the stars.

dirty atmoshpere

So we had a clean atmosphere - clean air around our world and now we have made it DIRTY.

What Makes Our Clean Air Dirty?

The clean air is made dirty by dirty gases -

Most of the dirty gases comes from OIL COAL AND GAS which are called FOSSIL FUELS -

FOSSIL FUELS - OIL, COAL AND GAS PRODUCE DIRTY GASES

Fossil fuels were the remains of animals and plants that died millions of years ago and whose bodies have turned into oil, coal and gas. They are found under the sea and under the ground.

When the oil coal and gas are dug out they are used to provide our world with all its energy - they are used to make electricity and energy for homes and businesses as well as petrol for our cars -

So :

OIL COAL & GAS which are called FOSSIL FUELS make

  1. ENERGY +

  2. ELECTRICITY +

  3. PETROL but they produce DIRTY GASES -

The worst dirty gas is called CARBON DIOXIDE

industrial polution

c. 1999 Topham Picturepoint

What Do These Dirty Gases Do To Our World?

These dirty gases particularly carbon dioxide -

  1. Make our clean air dirty

  2. They create a kind of WALL OF DIRT around our air so that some of the sun's heat which strikes the earth can not escape back into space so easily - some is trapped inside the atmosphere

Suns rays trapped

  1. So some of the heat of the sun is trapped inside our air which is MAKING OUR WORLD WARMER

  2. As the world gets warmer the weather changes and this affects our world - we have :

Global Warming & Climate Change

So the dirty gases that come from oil coal and gas make our air dirty.

When the air is dirty it creates a kind of wall around our world which makes it harder for the sun's heat to go back out into space.

So our world gets WARMER.

This is called GLOBAL WARMING.

Global means the globe or our world is WARMING.

As the world gets warmer it makes the CLIMATE (the weather) CHANGE producing more rain in some places, less rain in other places, causing the oceans to warm, some of the ice caps to melt and the sea level to get higher.

This is called CLIMATE CHANGE.

How Do We Stop Global Warming And Climate Change?

To stop our world warming (Global Warming) and to stop the weather changing (Climate Change) we need to stop the dirty gases making our air dirty which traps the sun's heat and makes our world warmer.

To stop the dirty gases making our air dirty we need to stop using OIL COAL AND GAS (FOSSIL FUELS) which are making our ENERGY, ELECTRICITY AND PETROL.

What Can We Use Instead Of Oil Coal And Gas?

OIL COAL AND GAS produce ENERGY AND ELECTRICITY which is making our world's air DIRTY and making our world get WARMER.

Instead of using oil coal and gas for our energy and electricity we can use CLEAN ENERGY which is called RENEWABLE ENERGY.

CLEAN ENERGY or RENEWABLE ENERGY is made using the energy in Nature -

1. The energy of the wind - WIND ENERGY

windmills

c.Kartik Shinde/ UNEP

2. The energy from the sun - SOLAR ENERGY

solar energy

c.1999 Topham / UNEP

3. The energy from the sea

Wave crashing

- TIDAL ENERGY (from the sea's tide)
- WAVE ENERGY (from the waves)
- MARINE CURRENT ENERGY (from the sea's currents)

c.1999 Topham Picturepoint

4. The energy from rivers and water - HYDROPOWER

These things make CLEAN ENERGY - CLEAN ENERGY keeps OUR WORLD CLEAN.

Our World Is Your World

This world belongs to all the people of the world while they are here -

It belongs to all children of the world and then it will belong to your children one day and to their children after that -

While we are here we have to look after our world
- to keep it clean
- to stop the air getting dirty
- to stop the world getting warmer
- to stop floods and droughts
- to stop people, animals, birds and plants dying
- so our world remains a beautiful world.

OUR WORLD IS YOUR WORLD AND YOUR WORLD NEEDS YOUR HELP

How You Can Help Your World

  1. Agree to write a letter a month to your Prime Minister/Head of State telling him that you would like to have CLEAN ENERGY/RENEWABLE ENERGY instead of OIL COAL AND GAS which are making our world dirty.

  2. Get your parents to try and change their electricity to a green (renewable) erergy tariff and also try and get your school to do so.

  3. Save Energy at home and at school. By saving energy less greenhouse gases are produced so less damage is caused. Click here to see how you can Save Energy..

  4. See if you can get your teacher to get your class to do a project on Global Warming and Climate Change and perhaps you can all send a photocopy of your projects to the Prime Minister/Head of State.

  5. OUR WORLD IS YOUR WORLD AND YOUR WORLD NEEDS YOUR HELP

    An example of the things you might say in your letters is written below but it is best if you put it in your own words -

    EXAMPLE LETTER

     

    Your Address

     

    Mr Tony Blair
    Prime Minister
    10 Downing St
    LONDON SWIA 2AA

    date

    Dear Mr Blair

    GLOBAL WARMING & CLIMATE CHANGE

    Our world is getting warmer because we are using oil, coal and gas for our energy and electricity and petrol.

    We do not want our world to warm - we want to protect our world - we want to use clean energy - renewable energy - from the wind, sun and seas to produce CLEAN ENERGY.

    Please can you make this happen before it is too late by building more renewable energy schemes and quickly.

    We, our children and future generations will thank you for saving our world.

    With best wishes

     

    Your Name
    Our World Foundation